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What should your free giveaway be?

Guest post by: Helen Dowling

Article Overview: It’s very interesting how opinions have changed over the last few years in marketing about what your free giveaway should be. I don’t mean the format it should take (i.e report, e-book, newsletter etc), but what the topic should be and the type of people it should attract.

What should your free giveaway be?

It's very interesting how opinions have changed over the last few years in marketing about what your free giveaway should be. I don't mean the format it should take (i.e report, e-book, newsletter etc), but what the topic should be and the type of people it should attract. I know I've certainly changed my opinion.

For the last few years in my business, I've been giving away 50 free ways to promote your business and you know what, it's got results. I've attracted lots and lots of new contacts to my business and they've all been very happy to give me their contact details.

The theory then goes that once they've given you their contact details and therefore expressed interest in what you do, they should go onto buy from you, right?

Well no actually. Not necessarily.

The chances are actually much higher that they'll grab your free giveaway with both hands and you'll never hear from them again.

Now I'm not saying that offering a free giveaway is the wrong thing to do, but you must be very careful with what information you give away in order to attract the right people to your business.

If I offer 50 free ways to promote your business, who am I attracting with this information?

I'm attracting people who DON'T WANT to spend any money on marketing.

Is that who I want to attract? Well, no not really.

Who I want to attract are small business owners who want some help with their marketing AND who are willing to pay for someone to help them with it.

Could I change my free offering to attract these sorts of people? Absolutely. While I may not as many people signing up, they would be much more qualified and therefore much more likely to turn into clients.

While this doesn't mean that I'm not going to give these people free information, what they do get will a) much more tailored and personalised to them and b) much more likely to result in sales.

So if you currently offer something free to your contacts in order to get them to sign up for something, make sure that what you're offering appeals the right set of customers that you're trying to attract. Something that attracts people looking for free help such as my 50 free ways to get more customers, is not going to do much for your business and you may be disappointed by the results.

Think carefully about your offer and make sure you're attracting the right people to your business.

The 50 free ways to get more customers is still available (at the moment) so make sure you grab your copy by visiting my bio.

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Article Tags: ethical bribe, exceptional thinking, free giveaway, helen dowling, marketing, small business



Related Forum Posts
Re: When to give away your product or service for free - Usually you would have freebies as part of a marketing campaign. Sop a giveaway to create buzz, or a giveaway in return for a certain action from the user (e.g mailing list signup)
Re: New Year Giveaway Event For Internet Marketers... - Hi David, When is the contributor option closing? I have a free ebook I want to contribute to the giveaway.
Re: When to give away your product or service for free - Our company giveaway a product when it was launched for the first time. In this way we could spread the word and we made our product known.
Re: Kevin's Case Study #7 - How do you promote your new book? - [quote="litekepr":1x32rraa]You can't really guarantee a positive review although many people do make the effort to find something positive to mention in the book. Even paid reviews don't guarantee a positive review. Well, you could pay someone that is willing to "sell" a good review, but those don't carry any real weight. I always hate waiting for the first few reviews. I don't send any of my books to the publisher until they are the best I can make them, but you never know what reviewers will say. Sometimes I do limited free book giveaways and in the tours I coordinate, we do a free book for a random commenter during the month. But, I created a promotional e-book for each of my book series and I use those to giveaway. They give plenty of information about the books in each series, the first chapter, introduction, background information and much more. Its a great way to give readers more information, without giving books away. There are some Yahoo groups where 20-30 books are given away every week or more. That doesn't really help any of the authors. Bad reviews are definitely done -- one big problem with reviews is that you're at the mercy of a reviewer who just doesn't like a particular style or is being rushed by a deadline or that is just having a bad day. Shri[/quote:1x32rraa] Hi Shri, So how much does it typically cost to pay someone to take the time to read and write a review on your book? (i.e. for a review without the guarantee of being positive)
Re: Kevin's Case Study #7 - How do you promote your new book? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":36e553mt]Hi Everyone, Thanks for the great responses! Does anyone find that giving away free copies of your book to reviewers or as "prizes" produces a high return on investment? Or is that route just a waste of time? More importantly, if you send a reviewer a copy of your book, does that guarantee a "positive review"? Has anyone every heard of reviewers who have given poor reviews after authors sent their books to them?[/quote:36e553mt] You can't really guarantee a positive review although many people do make the effort to find something positive to mention in the book. Even paid reviews don't guarantee a positive review. Well, you could pay someone that is willing to "sell" a good review, but those don't carry any real weight. I always hate waiting for the first few reviews. I don't send any of my books to the publisher until they are the best I can make them, but you never know what reviewers will say. Sometimes I do limited free book giveaways and in the tours I coordinate, we do a free book for a random commenter during the month. But, I created a promotional e-book for each of my book series and I use those to giveaway. They give plenty of information about the books in each series, the first chapter, introduction, background information and much more. Its a great way to give readers more information, without giving books away. There are some Yahoo groups where 20-30 books are given away every week or more. That doesn't really help any of the authors. Bad reviews are definitely done -- one big problem with reviews is that you're at the mercy of a reviewer who just doesn't like a particular style or is being rushed by a deadline or that is just having a bad day. Shri


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