Free Stuff is Good for Business
FREE is a hugely popular search term. When you offer something free on your web site or blog, you will definitely see an increase in traffic if you optimize for it and get the word out via social networking.
Market research has shown that while sales pull in customers, over the long term companies are better off giving something away instead offering a discounted price. Obviously no one can do this all the time, but offering freebies once in awhile is a smart move.
The reason this works so well is because once customers see an item marked down, they remember the lower price and watch for it to return, and may also discount the quality of the product in their minds.
Like the toy surprise inside a box of Cracker Jack, free stuff enhances the value of a product. When you buy something, if there’s a free sample attached, it seems more attractive. (Surely I’m not the only one that looks behind the front row to find the “extra value” package!)
Take advantage of this mindset by offering something free on your site or with your product/service. One thing customers will definitely be looking for this holiday season is free shipping, so if you can afford to offer it you’ll likely get more orders.
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Yes, free is a great word to add to the keywords you use on your site. It can bring in some good traffic. Plus free quality giveaways are great link bait.
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There’s also something else to consider. By giving away something free, you’re associating a positive emotion (i.e. pleasing someone by giving them a free gift) with your product and/or brand. Creating this association with a positive emotion is a great way to get people to remember you. Just as you can do by making people laugh with a funny advert.
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Free is good – but it needs to have perceived value.
I recently offered a “free” ebook. However, to get it for “free” you had to enter a special code – otherwise you had to pay $24.95 for it. The special discount code was good for a week and BOY did that ebook get snapped up!
Since the perceived value was high, the offer of “free” was compelling.
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@George – I was thinking I should offer something free, but I guess I already do!
@Dan – that’s a VERY good point!
@Virtual Impax – I wondered how that went – I downloaded it before it went up to $24.95!
Free is a good KW to add, as long as you’re offering a freebie…otherwise it’s just blackhatting.
And here I thought we was gettin crackerjacks
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@Dennis – yep, that’s just me being a blackhat – pretending to offer free Cracker Jacks!
LOL Nice. You realize that wasn’t meant to you…not specifically anyway.
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I completely agree about the problem of discounting – if people see a reduced price they’ll usually remember it and consider the product to be worth only the discounted price.
One alternative to giving away free stuff is to include testimonials or an unexpected gift voucher. Including customer testimonials helps people feel happier about their purchase (reducing the likelihood of returns) and gift vouchers naturally encourage customers to return without having to tarnish the perceived value of a product by reducing its price.
Very true… I’m adding this to my list for marketing (the list is now very long, hopefully I’ll implement these items quickly enough).
But added to just giving away free advice with for instance a good ebook, giving a free item with your product is another great idea!
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Free is good on many levels. Perhaps the most important one is that they get to sample something before they buy. It’s a safe way to see if they want to buy.
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Exactly, I am also with this post. Free is a highly competitive and more traffic driven keyword. Using the free we get much traffic because everyone wants a free service in the field. Thats why your article is conceptual. Thanks for the nice & valuable information.
Just be extra careful with “free trials” so as not to “accidentally” pay for the first month or whatever without realizing.
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Regards
Jacques
Excellent post. It also very informative post how to grow our business. Thanks for sharing it here..
The “FREE” word is really attractive almost to everyone. It is true that the attached mind set of the people to this is lower or degraded quality of the product or service being offered. There are lot of sites that uses free and they are all competing to be the number one ranking for the search engines. It still ends up looking at the content and value of the site being endorsed.
Yep. Free is my favourite price.
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Free is of course attractive! Who dosen’t want FREE?
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Yes, freebies create a lot of interest on almost any website. Apart from getting traffic and incoming links, it is also a good source of making money by including your affiliate links in freebies like ebooks.
Recently Wired magazine had a large issue on the new business model which involved lots of free stuff for the consumer. It is a good idea and does reel in the consumer so you can sell them more and end up getting back the value of whatever you gave them.
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I wonder if “free” adds value to higher-end products or services. If you are trying to sell a Ferrari, and it is advertised as having free floor mats – that might not sound very good.
I do think “free” can add value to most things under a certain ceiling of perceived pre-existing value.
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Even I have a number of sites with keyword “Free” somewhere in the domain. Its always better and easily pronounceable !
I am agree with this post that the word “free” is valuable for higher-end products or services.It can bring a great change in sale.So in order to increase traffic on my site I’ll try to follow the effective knowledge from your post.
The best blogger I know that ranks on the first page “making money” gives nothing away.
I agree that giving something away can get you traffic, but nothing beats the #1 spot in the SERP’s.
I want to rank on page one for free. That would beat cracker jack and day in my book.
I just read an article in INC magazine about Marcus, the owner of Plenty of Fish (dating website). They asked him what his strategy or business model is, and he said “Pick a market where other people charge a lot of money, and then give it away for free on your site.” I am paraphrasing, but that was the idea.
I agreed with him – if you can figure out a way to monetize your ‘free-ness.’
Interesting marketing strategy – I like it!
free stuff is really a bussiness in its self,
as you said though for any business its a great marketing stratagy to offer a one time freebie
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i do think it could work