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Some free advice about freebies

Written by: Donna Williams

Article Overview: When it comes to marketing your product or service, the word “free” can take on magical proportions – causing people to open their mind and wallets in droves. This article gives you some free advice on how to develop freebies.

Some free advice about freebies

Out of all 616,500 words in the English language, one of the most powerful – if not THE most powerful – is the word “free.”

In fact, when it comes to marketing your product or service, “free” can take on near magical proportions. It’s amazing how four little letters can open doors and pocketbooks the world over.

Whether you’re giving away a free newsletter, free samples, buy-one-get-one-free, or a free widget, use the word “free” in your advertising materials, and you can watch your response rates soar.

By now you may be thinking that offering something for free sounds like a smart idea. Well, before you do, here are some guidelines:

1. Make your free offer something of value.
Never give away junk…it just ticks people off. Not only that, but then they’ll tell other people how cheesy your freebie was. You could end up doing yourself a lot more harm than good. Free shipping, free booklets, free pens, free service…make sure your offer is quality, desirable, and usable.

2. Get something in return.
Most freebies are made to either generate a sale, a referral, or something else of value to the company making the offer - even if it’s a simple email address or customer goodwill. Decide what you want to get in return before you decide what you’re going to give away for free.

3. Don’t attach strings.
The freebie itself needs to be truly free – otherwise, you risk losing repeat customers. When you attach strings to a free offer, you become suspect in the customer’s mind. Do you really think they’re going to continue doing business with you if they don’t trust you?

4. Make the offer relative to your brand.
Your free offer becomes even more powerful if it builds your brand in some way. For instance, when people go to my website and sign up for my weekly ezine, they receive a free, downloadable e-booklet called “11 Quick Ways to Build Business.” Hopefully, they find it valuable - but it’s also valuable to me from a branding standpoint because it reiterates the fact that my website is about helping small businesses grow. If you can, tie your freebie into your brand.

5. Keep it simple.
Don’t complicate your offer. If you make it difficult, you will chase people away, and leave them with a bad taste in their mouths regarding your company. Keep it real, and make it easy.

6. Deliver.
If you are offering a freebie that has to be sent to the customer, send it in a timely and efficient manner. Take this opportunity to dazzle your customer with efficiency. Nothing impresses a customer more than a company that keeps its promises.

7. Follow up.
Again, we offer freebies not only to make sales, but also to build repeat business. Don’t be shy about following up your free offer with another offer, or checking to see how they liked your free offer.

8. Cater to the skeptic.
As much as free can be a powerful consumer trigger, it can also turn some people off. So if you’re in a business where there are a lot of skeptics, experiment with offering an some alternative to free that still gives an incentive, but doesn’t scare them away…like a money-back guarantee, or a discount.


Can you think of ways that you can start putting the power of “free” to work for your small business? Because in this day when money is tight, I believe “free” might become even more powerful than ever.


(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

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Article Tags: advertising materials, customer goodwill, doing business, email address, english language, ezine, free booklets, free newsletter, free pens, free samples, free sounds, free widget, freebie, freebies, magical proportions, marketing your product, pocketbooks, response rates, smart idea, standpoint



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Re: Facebook Fan Pages - [quote="brokemet":19vhhru2]What will always draw me to something valuable in Facebook Fan Pages is how they are giving information on a regular basis so that's what I could recommend. Generate more interesting contents on a regular basis and yes, giving freebies to those active followers could even motivate the others more. Good luck![/quote:19vhhru2] [quote="Anelly":19vhhru2]If you provide giveaways people will join your faceboock fan page becasue they love free stuff.[/quote:19vhhru2] Freebies sound like a key feature...thanks for that advice!
Re: Water balls - funny business idea - [quote="ideasuniversity":7t0dim7x]$1000 is not too costly for the waterfall if they market it well. They should market it to corporate bodies who have enough money to burn on advertisment[/quote:7t0dim7x] Well, you have a point here. Although, not all people could afford that amount especially when there are good and also cool marketing tactics around which are FREE! People are so hungry with freebies nowadays. So as this Water Ball could really be of high quality to sell upfront, you can start promoting it on web posting your website on "free ads", free press releases, etc to increase your traffic. Then once you've gathered your audience, it's good way to start selling.
Re: How Much Of Ourselves Should We Give Away...? - Hi, Mary: My guess is that Mr. Green is a green colored smiley intended to represent a feeling of un-well being or uncertainty - that sort of thing. Regarding the topic, in the beginning of our online businesses, it is most often good to focus on giving freebies to establish our identity and attract traffic, build our lists, etc. We worry about giving too much away, and when we should stop giving it away and start charging for it - and it is good to be concerned about that. That is important - but I think that we will instinctively know when the balance is shifting and when to be more selective in what we give away. When we become more focused on filling orders, providing service and building our selection of products or programs, I think we will automatically become less involved in spending time on creating free things to offer. We should still offer the free stuff to some extent, but it will become less of a focus. GT :-]
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - Hi Mal, Thanks for pointing out that Linkdirectorysubmitter is included in the Affiliate Power Group membership package. It's very easy to overlook freebies, even the useful ones. I'll go and check it out.
Re: How To Drive Traffic To Your Site Through Our Forums - Some great advice here Evan, forum posting is a great (and free) way of driving traffic to your blog, website, or anything else you may be promoting for that matter. As long as you follow the advice in 2: Join up…. and Do Nothing (for a while), you'll soon find out how beneficial forum posting can be. Take care, Carol


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