If you are a small business owner who has been in business for more than 5 years, you know that things have changed drastically. The days of easy cash are over; people are not spending money they way they used to. Many small businesses have found it necessary to lay off workers, putting extra pressure and stress on the owners and their families. I'm not sure it will change anytime soon. Since "things" have changed, we have to change, too, in order to survive. But how shall we change? What do we need to do differently in order to thrive, not just survive?
In this article, I want to zero in on one huge shift in marketing - the power of FREE. You may think that when money is tight and things are tough it's a crazy time to be talking about giving things away, but the opposite is true. I'll give you some examples of how FREE is working rather nicely for a couple businesses.
If you move to Brooklawn, NJ, you'll get a postcard in the mail from a local pizza parlor, welcoming you to the neighborhood, and offering you a free pizza. The owner of this particular eatery reports that more than 30 of these certificates for free pizza are brought in every month, with an average guest check of over $35. Free paid off, right? Plus, the pizza restaurant gained a loyal customer. They're thriving. The company offering this service to local businesses is called Moving Targets. You can Google them and see how it works, if you're interested.
Another example of this is a nationally franchised tire company that offers to fix flats--you guessed it - for FREE! In fact, they give away over $10 million dollars of free flat repairs in a year. But, this chain of more than 300 tire stores across the nation, brought in an estimated one billion dollars in 2008. Again, FREE is working rather well.
So, if you're an online marketer, you need to put your thinking cap on and decide what you can give away for free. Make it valuable, make it memorable. Don't give junk. People are smarter than that. Just think of the businesses online that are offering things for free. Google, is the biggest example I can think of at the moment. They give free keyword search tools, free Gmail, free Google docs, free analytics...and a host of other apps, all at no cost. Consider all the other ways companies are using this free business model - free printers so you'll have to buy expensive ink cartridges forever; free cell phones so you'll sign up for a two or three year contract for service.
Online marketers who sell info products need to have a big stock of freebies that are of great value to your potential customers. If you tried to launch a business without this key ingredient, you'd better go back to the drawing board and work on your supply of giveaways.
And so you may be wondering how in the world you're going to come out ahead giving all this stuff away. The answer is that you'll be attracting many new prospects; in fact, many more potential buyers than traditional marketing budgets will bring you - AND, much faster, too! So, it boils down to lower costs, faster results. Get started now thinking of how you can leverage the power of FREE.