Christina Barker, Manager at Dolphin Outsourcing Ltd, is here with another educational blog discussing freebies and how they can benefit your business.
This blog is a freebie, with the advice, hints and tips given free of charge by Christina to help other businesses like you.
Who does freebies already? What do you offer? What types of things do you do already? Is it something you want to think about?
Watch the video or read the transcript below to find out more.
If you have any questions or are looking for some business support, please get in touch with us, and we will be happy to help - https://www.dolphin-outsourcing.co.uk/. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel!
So why do people offer freebies in business already?
Most of the time, it's because they're just low expectations.
For example, if you've got a product-based business, you might be a beauty person selling makeup or something like that. So you would say,
"Would you like one of our lip balms?"
"Sure, while it's free". This is a neutral perception of, "Yeah, I'm going to go and give this a try".
The positive impression would be like, "Wow, this is so useful, it feels lovely, feels great".
So when they saw the lip balm, they saw it as a useful product, the customer felt good about the product. However, it didn't work for them in the other scenario, so it left a bad impression towards a freebie.
A client is more likely to purchase your products or refer you to others after they've had their positive experience. So keep in mind, we have better results with happier clients and high expectations with useful giveaways. It's always exciting to receive something for nothing. Everyone loves a giveaway and no matter what it is. It can be a smart business idea to consider giving away something free or promotional, so it's something for you to consider for your business.
They work in the same principle as we give back what we receive. So, for example, if you went to lunch with a friend and then they paid for your lunch, you would say to them, I'll pay next time. The same concept works for freebies in the business as well. So when you give something to a potential customer, you hope they will buy something from your business in return. So that increases your sales and brand awareness.
So what happens when a potential customer receives a freebie?
Some statistics for you here, 83% of people are more likely to do business with you in the future. Nine out of 10 people recall the name and the logo of the business that they received it from. 79% of people then research your brand, 82% of people have a more positive impression of the brand.
I have a few tips for you that I'm just going to reel off. So we'll see which one helps you.
Customise your freebie, depending on what it is. Obviously, if you've got a service-based product, it's harder, but I have got a list of things that I can give to you if your a service-based business. A lot of these freebies are for product-based businesses that can just give away a product, but try where you can to match it with your brand. You can customise it to match your industry and branding, if possible. Maybe that could be in the form of a sticker of your branding or something to add to the freebie so that they know it's from you. So you can use useful everyday products, or if you do own a service-based business, you can give them something like a lead magnet that they're likely to use or need right now, to become your client in the future. So you can think about different things that could draw that customer into you, and there are so many things.
Everyone has a pen, one that's a freebie. If you think long shelf life, the longer your freebie lasts, the more the customer will see the brand and logo. So if it's a pen, for example, they're going to use that quite a bit probably, they will see it all the time and will remember your brand, and then they'll come back to you. That's another example there if you are that type of business, or even if you're not, pens are great.
The next one is to make a connection. So strong customer relationships are essential for any business, and free giveaways are a great way to start building those.
So why do people sometimes question free stuff?
A lot of people think, why is it free? What's wrong with it? So they question this because they perceive the gift as having no value or being of low quality. Like, why would you give it for free? Although everyone likes to receive free things. They feel like they maybe haven't earned anything to receive that freebie. So we find sometimes that it's hard to believe that it doesn't cost anything. There's always that, well, that's free, but what else are you trying to get from me? A lot of people have that in the back of their minds. For example, if you see a sofa on the side of the road, and it says free, your first thought was, "why would somebody give a perfect sofa away for absolutely nothing in return?". Sometimes people think that. Their second thought might be, "there must be something wrong with it", whenever there's a high value, like a sofa, for example. It's priced at nothing. Then people might think that its overall quality is tarnished. So the next time you come across something free, check it out first. You've got nothing to lose. So to conclude, wherever it's a bag or umbrella or pen, people love getting stuff for free. So next time you're looking for a marketing boost, try giving away something complimentary, and you'll be surprised to see how this sort of small gesture can bring in happy clients to you.
So I hope that's helped, people. I'm going to reel off a list of ideas. I thought of a ton of ideas that could start you off. If you're thinking of doing a freebie, haven't done one before, maybe you might have done one or two things from the list. You might want to add more. So I have got on here,
the obvious one is a small product, which I've just been talking about, or a low-value item or service as well. I know there are loads of service-based businesses that follow us.
You might want to do a competition or a giveaway. They work well on Facebook. They also work fairly well on Instagram
You could do an ebook or do a guide; they are very similar things, but again, work around what your customer might want. What can you get them for free out of that? Was there enough information for it to be worthy for the potential client, but not enough that you're losing out on money. So you have to have a really good think about it. You could brand those things as well.
The next thing is a podcast that's completely free for the person. That is a good way of them knowing, liking and trusting you before they buy from you. You're giving out free information. So there's a lot of podcasts out there in a minute.
Whilst I'm on the subject of podcasting, we have a podcast coming out ourselves. So I'll pop the link for that in the comments. Exciting stuff, I'll move on to that another time.
Free Facebook groups are a huge one, and loads of people have free Facebook groups. If you haven't already got one, maybe it's something you can think about. If you have a free Facebook group, then you want to think of a strategy to go with it. Don't just add a Facebook group, and then don't think about what you're going to do with it. Have a plan of action, what you want to get from that Facebook group, and what will it give to people? How much time and effort you're going to put into it, it's a lot of thinking behind that. But again, that gives your potential clients the know, like and trust factor. You can do live videos there, giving out free information before they buy from me. So that is a massive one, and that works well for service-based customers as well.
If you're into doing graphics or have done some graphics before, you can give away some free graphics.
Planners and calendar pages is a good one. We have got an e-calendar that I've talked to you about reasonably often that we give out on Trello. You can go to our website and look at that, but that's something else that you can give out for free.
Worksheets you can give to people. Again, if you're more graphic minded, they're a really fun way to add your brand into it and give out some extra information.
Sometimes you can do spreadsheets, depending on if you're into that.
Free printables are similar to worksheets, but they're excellent for people to print out certain things, think of something to do around your business, what can help a client. Draw that up and then get them sent out with your newsletter, and then they can print out themselves.
Free challenges, I've seen quite a few people do these on Facebook groups, like five-day challenges and all things like that. They can work quite well getting people into your group or get them somewhere in your funnel. And they can then buy off you.
A mini-course is a similar thing. You could do any course that's based on what you want to achieve. You can do that on Facebook, or wherever your clients hang out, or where ever is easiest for you to do a webinar. You can do the webinar and combine it with the course.
Free consultations, we offer those as well. They are an excellent way to start knowing your potential clients and find out about them. There's usually a limit on free consultations, but that's a perfect one.
Resource library, tutorials and templates, roadmaps of things, email courses, and live training. So again, similar to like courses, but you're doing it live. So similar to this, we're giving away some live training. I've been teaching you about various things in business. If there is anything else you would like to learn, pop it in the comments or send us a message, and I will give out as much information as possible. We are doing these every Wednesday, generally in the evenings. Or you can do it yourself if you've things to say and want to do a live.
Free trials of a product or service. If you're like a business coach or something like that, you can do a free trial on the part of your package that you've got, you can do a small one, and then they can get the hang of what you do for them.
You can offer discounts if you've got products or services, everyone loves a discount. Even if it's a slight discount, people will tend to buy from you if there's a small discount on it.
Swipe files. I've seen a few people do these now.
Maybe bundle a few things up. So if you've got loads of different services you can do, you can bundle these up and make a free section from each one of them for a give way.
Video tutorials, they're massive. If you are not used to video, obviously this isn't one for you, but if you're used to doing some tutorials, do some tutorials.
Free reviews are a good one as well. Free reviews are pretty good now.
Suppose you're a coach; you can do a coaching call. These are a bit like a discovery call.
So there's a whole list there, and I could think of the top of my head.
If you do have any more that I haven't mentioned, feel free to comment so others can see it because we do want to be helping out as much as we can. So if you can help someone as well, feel free to put it to this.
As always, if we can help you with any of your outsourcing or you'd like training on social media or anything to do with your business, get in touch with us, and we would love to help you. We can work alongside your budget as well, so our minimum payment is just an hour's work. In one hour, you can get a whole lot done for not much at all. We'd love to help as many people as we can.
So I will look forward to seeing you all, and we will see you all again, this time next week.