To be free or not to be free

Jerry
September 23, 2009

When you got the chance to check your e-mail today, what did you see first? If you are like most every other person with internet access, you saw a huge number of “free” offers. A lot of them get caught in the spam world and that is just where they belong. After all, how can you win the Nigerian lotto without ever entering it? Personally, I do not have any relatives in Africa to bequeath me anything.

Mixed in with all that spam are a few offers for free samples that you should look at. The free samples do just that. They give you a sample of the company’s product for the cost of shipping. That is one way to interview a new print company or check out a new software program. It is also a marketing strategy that you can learn from. Look the offers over, not to buy them but to get the feel of what other companies are doing. Looking over the internet, you will see that nearly every company offers you something for free to get you to try their products. A free sample of 10 pieces of letterhead hopes to get you to buy the 100-piece package for $50. The company hopes for a snowball effect that keeps you restocking from them and buying new products as they are offered. That strategy has been proven to work in a lot of different industries. Discount retailers do it with buy-one-get-one-free deals. Grocers do it with free samples on the sales floor. Why can’t you do it with a “mini-webinar” that leads to selling a full-scale online seminar? It is easy to adapt this strategy to your business. Do you have any suggestions?

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About Jerry Brisinger

I am the Marketing Director of a small media development company. We deal with hardware,software, and hard goods. As part owner of that company, I am able to see many of the true inner workings of the decision making process. Over my years in the marketing field I have striven to show simplify people's way of thinking on the subject. Many executives and small business owners try to over complicate the entire idea. They are wrong. In my posts I hope to show you what it is that I mean.

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