Give Me The Freebie Geebies!
Free stuff – we all like it!
But did you know that giving away stuff for free could be the making of your business?
It almost seems detrimental, doesn’t it? How can you make money out of people and your products if you’re giving so much away for free?
Well, you need to be smart about it. Look at two of the BIGGEST companies around – Google and Facebook. They offer their main product to consumers for free. They make money through selling their consumers on to advertisers who will pay them good money for a new avenue to advertise through. Their customers are happy and their main consumers are using a different product, all for the cost of absolutely nothing.
Of course, you need to come up with an incredible idea for this to be your business plan – but at base level it showcases the success that ‘free’ has brought to business. It has created two monoliths of modern business and if your product is up to scratch and can be offered for free, it could make a brand of you.
It’s not just your entire product you need to give away. It may not suit your business model very well. Think about offering free samples, or different giveaways. The humble lanyard is a branded item that represents something you can offer at the point of purchase which is simple for you to obtain – browse Lanyards USA, buy, and offer it to your customer. TIME took a look at the power of the giveaway. What they found was that giveaways truly get your customers pumped up and offer a feeling of exclusivity and specialness to your store. Giving away the right type of ‘free thing’ is such a powerful marketing tool and it can’t be understated. The most amazing thing that TIME found, however, was that customer sometimes actually felt obliged to buy – simply because they were given something for free by a store. The customer actually wanted to pay the store back! How amazing is that? Making your customers think about you is something everyone is trying to buy into, but it could be as simple as giving things away. Even people like Coca-Cola don’t mind offering samples and the like. Find what suits your business.
Free products reach consumers and are an extremely powerful form of marketing. They allow your customers to try before they buy. People also talk about free stuff (as stated above) so this works in more ways than one.Of course, you need to consider what is appropriate to give away, but you can’t go wrong with small items like t-shirts. Food samples are amazing if you’re a grocery! Freebies are a great way to hook your customers into your business and get them to spend more. They will feel like they are being rewarded for buying stuff, so why not?
There are plenty of ways to promote your business and giving stuff away is just one of them!
