Free Marketing Ideas Part 17 – Free Advertising Offers

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Groupon and Living Social.

This Week’s Topic = Free Advertising Offers

You are a potential advertiser. If you’re not already spending money on paid advertising, that is how the companies that profit off of paid advertising see you.

And because they see you as a potential advertiser, aka customer of theirs, they will make an effort to win your business. Companies like Facebook, Google, Bing, and others want you to spend money advertising through their medium, and they will entice you with free trials. So take advantage of them.

Google and Facebook frequently make these free trial offers, by giving you what amounts to free money to spend. They want you to spend this money, find that it creates new customers for you, and then continue to spend your own money with success. And they know that if the money you spend does not produce any returns, you will likely not spend money with them. So they’re willing to help you make the advertising work.

Take advantage of this opportunity by signing up for their services. Create an account, but don’t necessarily start spending right away. They may contact you, but if they don’t you should not hesitate to contact them first. Let them know you are interested in testing out their advertising platforms, but that you are not completely sure it will work for you. You can even go so far as to ask for help and a free trial. Big companies like these won’t hesitate to work with you, because they are chock full of resources and eager to win your business.

But it’s not only the big companies that have these kinds of offers. You just have to keep your eyes open. Chances are, if there is an advertising opportunity that interests you, you can test it at a discount, if not for free.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!

3 Easy Offers, and Why Marketers Like Them

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1.       One Month Free

The “one month free” offer is a popular one for subscription services or anything where there are recurring payments over time. And it can come in a number of different forms, such as 12 months for the price of 11, pay nothing for 30 days, or a 30 day free trial. In any form, the idea is to get someone to sign up for a service without paying right away. With this offer, you are likely to get people to sign up who would not have had they owed money up front. The only risk is that they cancel once there is money owed, but you can protect against that with the contract that they sign.

2.       Buy One, Get One Free

You might think that the BOGO deal is equivalent to offering 50% off your prices. But you’d be wrong. Because the one thing that buy one, get one does that half off does not do is set a minimum purchase. Since you have to pay full price for the first item before getting the second item free, you avoid the person who would buy one item for half off, essentially doubling your revenue from that person. But it works because to the consumer, I’m still saving 50%.

3.       Free Shipping

Still the king of the special offers, free shipping has time and time again proven to be the most effective deal you can offer. The word “free” is a big part of that psychological draw of a free shipping offer. Shipping costs often make or break a sale. So publicizing the fact that your company offers free shipping can bring in more shoppers than you’d otherwise have. And marketers like it because you can even add the cost of shipping back into the cost of the products you’re shipping, and still benefit from a free shipping offer.

Free Marketing Ideas Part 8 – Start an Email List

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, “Free Marketing Ideas”. Each week I will identify and explain a simple marketing idea that you can employ at low or no cost. Last week’s topic was Develop a Referral Program.

This Week’s Topic = Start an Email List

Anyone who had ready my blog in the past knows that I am a big proponent of email marketing. And getting started with email is one of the best free marketing ideas you’ll ever hear. Here’s why:

The first step to start an email marketing campaign is to start putting a list together. This is easy. And it allows you to do many different things.

To start a list, all you need to do is create a simple signup form somewhere on your website (or in store). If you’re using an email marketing tool like iContact or Constant Contact, they will have tools to help you plug their own signup form into your site. You can usually customize it, add fields aside from name and email that you want to keep in your list, and tell you exactly how to add it to your website.

Once the signup form is installed, you can start promoting it. Promote it in your Twitter feed, on your Facebook page, and from different sales channels on your website. Incentivize people to sign up by offering special sales or discounts, or promising free content that they would otherwise not get.

Make sure you are also collecting the emails of your customers as they purchase or become members. You can add them to your marketing list or create a separate list just for existing customers. Both of these channels will start to grow your reach as a company. Soon you’ll be able to announce new products, new sales, and new offers to a large database of emails.

Share your thoughts on this idea, and other free marketing ideas in the comments section below and keep the conversation going!

 

Steal This Blog Series – A Look Back

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It’s been ten weeks since we launched the “Steal This” blog series here on Zach Heller Marketing. In those ten weeks we’ve highlighted a number of successful marketing strategies that companies use, and showed you ways that you can take them and apply them to your own business.

Let’s take a look back at the 10 Marketing Ideas You Should Steal:

  1. Amazon Recommendations
  2. Sell the Emotion Like Apple
  3. Zappos VIP Service
  4. Samsung Attack Ads
  5. Seamless Warning Emails
  6. Quiznos Lunchtime Email
  7. Movie Trailers
  8. Japan Thigh Ads
  9. Promote Urgency
  10. ING Referral Program

Steal This #10 – ING Referral Program

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Welcome to the latest edition of my new weekly blog series, Steal This. Each week I’ll highlight a marketing activity that a company is using and suggest ways that you can model it and make it work for you. Last week’s topic was – Promote Urgency.

Today’s topic is: ING Referral Program

ING Direct (now CapitalOne 360) launched onto the online banking scene and saw tremendous growth from 2005-2007 and beyond. They attributed much of that growth to their referral program, which was one of the best and most successful referral program in the industry.

It worked very simply. ING Direct customers could refer friends and collect $25 per person that signed up for an account. In addition, the person you referred got $50. It’s cash in your account, just for signing up.

So how can you steal it?

Create a referral program that actually benefits people. $75 in free cash has a lot of appeal. It benefits both people, and the potential market is very broad.

The keys to a good referral program are 1) offer something people actually want and can clearly see the value in, and 2) make it easy for people to use.

Here’s a quick presentation on creating a referral program:

Building an effective referral program from Ambassador

As always, tell me what you think of this week’s idea and suggest other marketing programs to “Steal” in the comments below.