We are living in the age of free.
Everyone is giving out free stuff. Customers are now more spoiled than they have ever been before. What does that mean for you? It means that, if you aren’t giving away freebies, you’re cheap. You’re holding something back. You’re not giving your customers what they expect.
So, show your customers some love… and start dishing out the goods.
Why haven’t you tapped into blogging? It doesn’t matter what you do. You can write authoritatively on a subject and make that information available to your customers. That’s what blogging for business is all about — giving out free info that people crave. The best part? It’s free for you too. It just takes a little thinking and a couple hours out of your week. Let’s go!
Pens. Keychains. Notepads. Magnets. Anything you can print your name on. There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to write something down and not having a pen. Or, what about when you want to hang something on the fridge but are out of magnets? What if you gave away those products for free… and your name was on them?
If your business is location-based, what edible goodies are you providing for patrons? Do you have a Keurig? What if you baked muffins and brought them in for your customers? Imagine what a difference that would make.
Do some research. Some companies give you discounts for bulk purchases of gift cards. While it can get expensive to hand out gift cards to every customer every time, they work fantastically for contests and “thank you’s” for new account acquisitions.
Blogging is great, but a downloadable PDF is even better. Go in-depth about your industry or product, share customer experiences, anything that helps your customers. Do some research, write something up, and give it away. You’ll be glad you did.
Digital content is easier and cheaper, but sometimes customers need something tangible. Create an informational (not promotional) brochure or booklet that gives away valuable info to your customers. Or, do something creative by creating an original comic strip revolving around your brand. Whatever you do, make sure it’s something you can place in your customers’ hands.
Customers have kids… or maybe your customers are kids. Give them something to play with. Yo-yos. Stress balls. Rubik’s cubes. Simple little trinkets that would amuse them. Want to make a parent happy? Give them something to keep their children occupied!
Okay, perhaps now you think I’m running out of ideas. But I’m serious! When you share humorous content with your customers, you are giving them the gift of laughter. Your Facebook page should be littered (pun intended) with kittens striking funny poses or anything else that could bring a smile to your customer’s face.
More and more, people are using their smart phones for everything. The app market is highly saturated. However, if you could come up with an application that makes it easy for them to do business with you or even something NOT related to you but that makes their lives more interesting or productive, chances are they’ll download it.
A seminar or webinar (digital seminar) is perfect for showing your customers how to do something. Craft stores and home improvement stores have been doing it for a long time, but it can work for just about any industry. It has the advantage of an ebook or even video tutorial in that it is done in real time and customers’ questions can be answered directly and specifically.
There is little more frustrating than trying to visit a place of business and not being able to find a place to park. Give free parking! Have a lot or offer to validate parking if you don’t. It shows your customers that doing business with you is less of a hassle and has fewer roadblocks than alternatives.
There is no greater proof of the value you can provide than giving a piece of it away. If you are in a service business, you may want to offer a free consultation or a free trial. If you have a product, you may want to offer samples. Give it away. No strings attached. Just sheer demonstrations of what you can do for your customers.
What do you give away to your customers?
Featured image courtesy of Ð…olovia Creative Commons.
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Doug Rice is the Small Business Storyteller, a writer who helps small business people develop content for web pages, blog posts, newsletters, white papers, and more. He is an avid reader, a coffee snob, and a lover of all things business and marketing. On his blog, Doug writes regularly on issues related to small business marketing.
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I worked at a company years ago, where we would spend a lot of money on nice promotional items. However, they would remain in the closet because my boss never felt that anyone was good enough to receive these costly gifts. (Like being "sponge-worthy" on Seinfeld.)We had a closet full of expensive promotion items.
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We've done several of these, Doug. We've also kicked around the smartphone app idea...and I've thought about an eBook as I keep seeing author friends coming out with them. However, I'm a lot better at the 600-1000 word format versus the 50,000 words!
We also do the occasional webinar. For a networking event, I came up with an idea called "BI Over Beer". I sponsored pool tables and a few pitchers of beer...and got people to come talk about their business intelligence projects while shooting pool. I still developed some of my best clients that way!
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A) I love #2 because I own a Promotional Goods company (www.arielscreenarts.com) :), but I'm not commenting for Self Promotional reasons... and it does depend upon WHAT promo item you give away. Pens get lost people, and when was the last time you called someone from a PEN?#8 absolutely cracks me up and yes, joking with your clients is a great breaker-down-of-walls. I used to tell all of my Sales Reps that it was their J-O-B to bring sunshine to their customers on every visit. No discussing your own problems; they need to feel BETTER after an interaction with you, not worse.
Great post Doug, as always.
