What Are You Giving Away for Free?

There is a new business model that has quietly creeping into the marketing mainstream. FREE! Think about it. Some of the biggest companies are now adopting a FREE Strategy. Just think about Google and the amount of money this company makes. The interesting part is that 80% of all of the products Google creates are completely free.

Great Harvest Bakeries offers a big hunk of bread with your choice of topping from sweet cream butter to honey. Plenty of places offer small samples but Great Harvest differentiates itself with the size of the sample.

I was just in a TJ Maxx store and they were giving away free, environmentally considerate shopping bags. Yes, there is advertising on it that will pay dividends for months and maybe even years to come but everyone wanted one of the FREE BAGS.

More and more products now automatically come with Free Trials. Sure you can give away stuff if you are a vendor or if you are selling educational products but when you are a clothing store, a gift shop, or jewelry store what can you give? PLENTY.

Remember the hottest trend in retailing today is in the area of education and expertise. Offer free reports about the “The 5 things to know about buying an engagement gift”. Special Reports and White Papers position a store as the expert plus you are giving something free.

On my website I offer a free download of one of my books, The 5000 Best Sale and Promotional Names Ever Compiled. This book sells for $19.95 as a paperback and $14.95 as a downloadable version. From the time I offered this book for FREE, the sale of the paperback increased by over 700%.

There is a bestselling book by Chris Andersen that is receiving both rave reviews and stirring up lots of controversy from many traditional marketers. The book is appropriately titled FREE.

I am a believer in the concept. Creating a buying frenzy has always been the mantra for sale promoters. Nothing does it better than free. Don’t get nervous — I am not suggesting to start giving the store away. What I am suggesting is this:

Start considering Free as a strategy and watch how other businesses are using it.
Start asking every vendor you do business with for FREE promotional merchandise that you can give away for free. Every company buys some type of promotional product, from T shirts to mugs, to tote bags and on and on.
Don’t be afraid to ask your vendors. Cosmetic companies have been giving a gift with purchase for years. (Do you really think Estee Lauder needs to give away all of that free stuff? But they do.)
Remember — make them an offer they can’t refuse.
Evaluate the success or failure of the offer. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
I have spoken for Staples over 150 times. Many of these presentations occurred at their stores when they were having some type of Business Expo in cooperation with other businesses in the community. There were many events that were held away from the store as well.

The goal for Staples was simple. Get customers to sign-up for a Staples Credit Card or the Staples Rewards program. Why? Because the customers involved in either of these two programs bought significantly more than other customers. Therefore they gave away some of the coolest stuff for free just to get the customer to sign up.

There is one conference that I have been speaking at every year for the last 10 years. I have always given away lots of books. But last year the meeting planner told me that they would set up a table in the back of the room and give me plenty of time to sell my books. They scheduled me before lunch, which is ideal. I will never do that again. I made more contacts when things were free than I ever did when I charged. Weird but true.

There is a concept that Chris Andersen, the author of FREE, discusses and that is the study of “Behavioral Economics.” What it attempts to do is rationalize why buyers make decisions that aren’t always the most rational or logical. FREE is a powerful motivator. As it is described in the book as “Predictably Irrational,” I think I have been described that way a few times!

So I suggest you pick-up the book FREE (it’s not free.) But before you do that, let’s put our collective brain power to use.  If you have an idea about the subject or you are already using the concept of FREE, or you have been using a product or service that you are giving away for FREE, then share it with us. As an incentive, for the best three ideas, I will send you a copy of Chris Andersen’s book, FREE for free. Just email me at rick@ricksegel.com and put the words “radical pricing” in the subject line. YOU can’t say FREE. Why? Because every spam filter in the world will block it. Let’s start building a collection of free ideas that will be free for everyone who reads this column.

Footnote: Please let me know if you want your name and business mentioned or not. In your email, just say OK–you can use my name, or NO–if you would prefer to remain anonymous.