The Power of FREE

How many times have you seen a commercial of TV and you heard these
words: “But wait, if you order right now, you get a second one free”? Many
times that is the hook that gets people to buy, because most people can’t
resist getting something for nothing.

How many pizza outlets give away a free liter of Coke or Pepsi with their
large pizza? Pizza parlors give lots of free stuff away:

• buy one pizza and get another one free
• get free wings when your order is over $20.
• free delivery with any order over $20.
Pizza parlors are not the only food outlets that give away free stuff.
MacDonald’s hooked kids with their free toys with a kiddie meal deal. The
competition is so fierce in the fast-food industry that there are always
promotions and giveaways at any given time to lure customers into buying.

The current economy has caused many people to cut back on expenses and
search for bargains, so smart businesses are offering free items or deep
discounts to entice people to buy.

Giving freebies away online can have a viral effect resulting in many return
visitors to a website, and a great way to build trust and a loyal following.
Not to mention lots of inbound links if the freebie has an embedded link to
the originating website. The value of this type of inbound link is
unquestionable as search engines base the importance of a site on the
number of inbound links it has. And if higher ranking sites link to the
website, that’s even better.

Some marketers argue that giving stuff away for free devalues the brand
but a free giveaway might be less risky than reducing a price. What works
really well is if the free item is a complement to the paid product, eg.: a
free domain with a web hosting package.

Technology has advanced to the point that it is giving businesses the
flexibility to give one set of customers free items while marketing to
another group of customers. So just because a company uses free stuff to
entice a specific market doesn’t mean it isn’t making a huge amount of
money elsewhere.

Let’s look at Google as an example of a highly successful business that
offers free stuff to consumers such as Gmail, Picasa, Webmaster Tools and
everything in between but makes millions from Google Adwords.

Another thriving business model is the free-to-try massively multiplayer
online games. The player tries out the game for free and if he likes the
game he’ll pay for expansions, or he’ll pay the subscription fee to access
the paid areas of the game. Turbine’s online Dungeons and Dragons game
was so successful using that model that this year The Lord of the Rings
Online will adopt the same free-to-play strategy.

Consider how many bands built huge audiences around a free community:
MySpace. That community changed the music industry, and many bands
offer free music downloads on MySpace and build a huge following and
make their money from live concerts and merchandise sales.

The open source community online consists of brilliant programmers
creating free software and scripts, and who make a ton of money offering
advanced support or script customization.

Let’s face it, we live in a new economy. It’s a free economy and people
have come to expect to receive a certain amount of stuff for free, but
they’ll gladly pay for other things. Free is not bad, it’s good. It builds trust,
it’s builds a following, and in the end money is always made one way or
another from secondary markets, one-time offers, etc.
There may come a time when money will no longer be exchanged and the
world economy will go back to the barter system, where an honest worker
can exchange his labor or his services for food on the table, and maybe
also receive a free case of beer for his troubles.

Freebies will always attract the numbers and eyeballs to what you have to
offer so rather than thinking that your brand may be devalued if you give
away free stuff, think about how many more people will likely learn about
your offers and even if they don’t buy themselves, they’ll tell their friends.
And that is the viral effect of freebies and why they are powerful.

Here are some of the free things you can offer your site visitors:

• informational e-books
• info reports
• printable coupons
• web templates
• graphics
• software
• product samples
• support
• advertising
• gadgets
• shipping
You are only limited by your imagination. Think outside of the box and
figure out a winning combination of free versus paid products to establish
your brand. Your freebie should be something useful and of good quality
and that strategy will virtually guarantee your success.