Free Stuff
If you can afford it, offer something on your website for free! Everyone loves getting free stuff, and as a business owner, it’s actually quite profitable. Remember the adage ‘speculate to accumulate’? This is especially true, and even if you have little or no marketing budget, a little ‘free stuff’ can go a long, long way.
In the world of corporate customer service, the rule of thumb is that if a customer has a bad experience with your company- they will inevitably tell ten of their friends, and more often than not, even more. However, if they have a fabulous time, they will only tell five of their friends at the most, but they will be a loyal customer for years. Offering free stuff certainly improves their experience with you and if your offer is something that can be recommended to friends and family, then you’re on the path to making a good name for yourself.
You could offer a 10% discount voucher or code to use at the checkout, and either display the code on a certain area of the website to encourage your visitor to have a look around (make sure everything is perfect in terms of navigation before you do this) or include a voucher with the discount code printed on it when you ship out your products.
It’s highly dependent on the type of business you’re running, but free downloads are also very popular and surprisingly easy to do. These can be anything from ring tones to discount vouchers which can be downloaded and used within your shop premises if you have any.
You could also make a banner and offer the 10% discount on all purchases made during a certain time period. This is a popular choice with several High Street retailers in the UK, and even us here at Vizcom have hung around on a site waiting for a certain time to get our 10% discount.
Also on the subject of free downloads, if you’ve been working your way through our 101 Marketing Tips, we mentioned a while back about sharing information in a Knol. If you have done this, then you will already have written articles on your computer that can be compiled into an e-book. If this term is unfamiliar to you, and e-book is exactly what it says on the tin- an electronic ‘book’- which is basically a standard word document that has been converted into a pdf. file. This helps to prevent it from being plagiarised in part or total but still allows the reader to access the information.
If you have some articles available, compile them into an e-book, convert it into a pdf. file and offer it as a free
download.
If you retail stock and have anything that’s surplus to requirements, offer that free with every purchase. It gives you more space in your stock room and encourages new customers to recommend you to their friends. Regular users of EBay will have noticed that this is something that EBay power sellers are doing at the moment, and it is a brilliant tactic for encouraging repeat sales and website traffic.
Remember that if you’re giving away free stuff you need to promote it, so amend your email signature, get some advertising on your website and update your existing online profiles to reflect the offer and drive more traffic, and new customers to your website. Free stuff is also very effective when links to it on your site are posted on blogs and forums, so consider this when you are advertising your promotion online.
You could offer a 10% discount voucher or code to use at the checkout, and either display the code on a certain area of the website to encourage your visitor to have a look around (make sure everything is perfect in terms of navigation before you do this) or include a voucher with the discount code printed on it when you ship out your products.
It’s highly dependent on the type of business you’re running, but free downloads are also very popular and surprisingly easy to do. These can be anything from ring tones to discount vouchers which can be downloaded and used within your shop premises if you have any.
You could also make a banner and offer the 10% discount on all purchases made during a certain time period. This is a popular choice with several High Street retailers in the UK, and even us here at Vizcom have hung around on a site waiting for a certain time to get our 10% discount.
Also on the subject of free downloads, if you’ve been working your way through our 101 Marketing Tips, we mentioned a while back about sharing information in a Knol. If you have done this, then you will already have written articles on your computer that can be compiled into an e-book. If this term is unfamiliar to you, and e-book is exactly what it says on the tin- an electronic ‘book’- which is basically a standard word document that has been converted into a pdf. file. This helps to prevent it from being plagiarised in part or total but still allows the reader to access the information.
If you have some articles available, compile them into an e-book, convert it into a pdf. file and offer it as a free
download.
If you retail stock and have anything that’s surplus to requirements, offer that free with every purchase. It gives you more space in your stock room and encourages new customers to recommend you to their friends. Regular users of EBay will have noticed that this is something that EBay power sellers are doing at the moment, and it is a brilliant tactic for encouraging repeat sales and website traffic.
Remember that if you’re giving away free stuff you need to promote it, so amend your email signature, get some advertising on your website and update your existing online profiles to reflect the offer and drive more traffic, and new customers to your website. Free stuff is also very effective when links to it on your site are posted on blogs and forums, so consider this when you are advertising your promotion online.