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FREE – A powerful sales technique

Guest post by: Bob Janet

Article Overview: FREE – A powerful sales technique or a drain on your profits: Your choice There is no free lunch. Your customers are much smarter than they use to be and are wise to the fact you cannot stay in business giving things away. So one of the most powerful marketing words in commerce - FREE has lost its punch. Lost its punch if you do not use it properly. Free is still one of the most powerful words in marketing if used properly.

FREE – A powerful sales technique

5 Rules of using free:
1. Never give away your profit makers.
One of the mistakes I made during my 30 years as a retailer (retail store owner & operator) was to hastily put together a free drawing marketing promotion. It also turned out to be one of the best lessons I stumbled upon. I ran a promotion for one of the two worst reasons - my competition was running a promotion*.

I hurriedly decided to have a drawing for an item I sold. A 19” color TV. Every customer purchasing an item from my electronics store was given the opportunity to put in one entry for every one hundred dollars in purchases. I will never forget it. On Friday evening Mrs. Yost purchased a 25” table model color TV and entered 3 entrees to the contest. Saturday afternoon we pulled Mrs. Yost’s entry. She had won our 19” color TV. When she arrived at 5:00 PM to receive her prize we were ready with still video cameras ready to record her reaction for use in our future marketing and advertising campaigns. As she accepted her prize she was all smiles and said the words that taught me the lesson of the century. And I quote, because I will never forget her words, “Thank you Bob. I was going to come in and buy my mother a new TV for her birthday next week. Now I don’t have to.”

* The other bad reason sellers run promotions is:
• The advertising media tells you to because your competition is doing so.
The only reason to conduct a marketing promotion is to sell the products and services you make a profit from the
sale of.

2. The free item must be related to your business in some direct way.
To use something you are giving away "Free” to induce your customer’s to act to purchase your products or services, the item you are giving “Free" must be related to the product or service you are selling. It must enhance the items you sell for profit and make those items more valuable to the customer.

Example: Free doughnuts do not make an air conditioner more valuable to the customers. But a free winter
cover does.

3. The customer must do something of value for your business to get the free item.
For example:
• Come in or contact your business at a special time - preferable to use free items to get them in your store on slow days or make contact with you in slow sales periods.
• Purchase a profitable item to receive the free item.
• Introduce you to a friend, relative or colleague whom you can sell products and services too.
• Visit your store or purchase your products and services a specific number of times within a certain time period.

4. Be creative. Use your imagination.
Look around, you may be surprised what you can use as a free gift for your customers. When I was in the retail business, tire sales and appliances, I had a debtor, the owner of an ice cream dairy store, who owed me $1500. When I realized, after a year, that I was not going to get paid, at least not in money, I offered to take ice cream as payment. At that time a quart of ice cream sold for a bit over a dollar. Now what was I going to do with 1400 plus quarts of ice cream? Use it as a promotion to increase sales.

Here is what I did. I set a freezer right next to the front door of the store. Whenever a customer, who did not make a purchase, was leaving the store we gave them a quart of ice cream. It was summertime and I knew they were planning to go to other stores to compare our prices and products. But when they were given a quart of ice cream, where do you think they went? Right, they went home. We always asked them where they lived and their telephone number. We gave them time to get home and called them. Sure enough, they were home putting the free ice cream in their freezer. Now we went to work on continuing the sale. We would discuss more benefits they would receive from us over our competition. We did not make every sale, but we closed quiet a few on a regular basis.

What do you have to give away that will increase your sales?

5. Use the 4 Step Formula to Make the word Free work to increase your sales.

1. The word Free +
2. Limited time +
3. At least one customer benefit to be derived from what is free =
4. MEANINGFUL OFFER THAT INDUCES THE CUSTOMER TO RESPOND.

Examples: “Free heavy duty vinyl cover, today only, to protect your air
conditioner throughout the winter months with the purchase of
any air conditioner.”

“Free deluxe paintbrush, to make your painting job easier and
nicer, with the purchase of 2 gallons of ABC outdoor paint
today only!”

Related Articles
  Sales Prospecting Techniques
  Successful Sales Techniques
  Free Sample Marketing Basics
  How To Successfully Handle Objections
  Advanced Closing Technique

Article Tags: advertising campaigns, advertising media, air conditioner, color tv, electronics store, entrees, free doughnuts, friday evening, future marketing, model color, new tv, one hundred dollars, owner operator, profit makers, retail store, saturday afternoon, store owner, table model, video cameras, yost



Related Forum Posts
Re: Email marketing strategy - Nice thread!!! Email marketing is a great way to go and very powerful if done correctly. So many times I see peopl just sending sales message after sales message to people and offering no value to them at all, lets face it who wants a inbox of sales pitches!!! You can automate your messages but as stated above you should update those messages regularly, also look to broadcast regularly with recent up to date material that is conguent with your list and what they are looking for, this shows them that their is actually a real person behind the emails and helps with building rapport
Good Potential for Packaging Industry - Packaging industry is here to stay. These days packaging industry has also updated its own technique. That is why we can now even have fresh coconut water sold in packs too. Its all because of the wonder technique of "packaging".
Survey the Landlord - Terry, my suggestion is simple but powerful - Survey. Survey Landlords and find out what is important to them. By doing this it does two things: 1. You will find out trends/under-operated services that Landlords are currently unsatisfied with = your client will be able to fulfill 2. You are infact Marketing your clients services by doign this because when you are approaching your landlords it not a sales pitch and they have someone to clear their frustrations with. Then when you approach them after a month (when you've put your numbers together and identified services that are most important) you can remind them of the survey and share with them the results. At this point you can end with an offer to use your clients services to manage their property. I use this method with my clients who are looking for new services to develop in thier markets. It's simple but powerful.
Re: Is it worth buying a Dell computer with financing? - Depends on how powerful a computer you are getting. Most people can buy a powerful computer these days for just $500! (Of course, you no longer get software bundled in... that's what costs the money these days...)
Re: Top Banner Help - Hi I think I freebie is a good idea say after 10 posts or 30 days. I know when I joined there was some FREE seo report which I think is a great incentive to new entrepreneurs. If its still available I think that would be work great as a banner? Also you could promote it on digg, use an attention grabbing headline ' FREE SEO Report' or 'Are you performing?' something like that? Instead of the same banner on each page you could have a selection of banners rotating Another suggestion is start a 'entrepreneur directory' and after 10 quality posts - (moderators decision) you can submit yourself with a link to your website? Just a few thoughts.


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