A social media presence is a good start, but a presence alone is a lot like having a storefront on a quiet street and waiting for people to come in your door.
Sure, they may find out about you eventually – if you’ve invested in advertising, have great word of mouth, dominate search engine rankings, or you have an amazing location.
Getting someone to invest their time or money with your organization is difficult enough. But if you’re just getting started, or don’t have the luxury of the aforementioned, you’re in an even tougher spot.
So how do you get someone hooked without running out of inventory or robbing yourself of a potential sale? How do you give someone just enough milk to make them want the cow but not too much that they never buy?
By giving away some of your best stuff for free.
The “Free Samples” Approach to Social Media
When I worked at a sandwich shop in college, we were always looking for new ways to market our sandwiches. Because we were in a football town, there would be huge crowds of hungry fans walking through the downtown streets during home football weekends on their way to tailgate at the stadium. We’d go out with trays of our best stuff and give it away for free.
The emphasis is on best stuff for a reason: if you want people to get a taste of what your organization has to offer, invest the time, energy, and money into what you give away for free as it is just as important as what your customers pay you for.
And your efforts in social media should be approached in the same way: hand out high-quality free samples of the real deal. Here are some tips for implementing the free samples approach to social media:
People respond to real product, not marketing shells. Avoid the tendency to establish a presence and mail it in. If you want to build traction, you need to proactively use the medium to offer a sample of your best stuff.
We didn’t give out magnets or Frisbees or keychains or any other piece of marketing collateral, we gave away the product – the good stuff, the stuff worth paying for – for free.
In social media, this means avoiding the temptation to automate an RSS feed from your blog to post straight to Twitter. It means avoiding a one-sided content strategy and talking at people as opposed to with them.
Substance resonates with people. Ever notice how easy it is to ignore people handing out pamphlets on the street? Does your attitude change when you’re offered a free can of Dr. Pepper? Maybe you don’t take either, but chances are you gave the Dr. Pepper a second thought.
Deliver people a real taste of your actual product in your free sample, not just a marketing shell they can’t sink their teeth into.
Don’t sell your samples short. When you’re “just giving something out for free” you probably adopt the attitude “Well, if it’s free, people can’t expect much, so I’m not going to give them much.”
This temptation urges you to skimp on the meat, be sloppy in the presentation, and be surly with the delivery. The result undermines the purpose of the exercise.
Not only do you miss the opportunity to build a relationship, but you actually give a negative impression of what you have to offer. And your word of mouth sounds like this: “Yeah, I had their free sample and it was terrible.”
Be generous by treating your free samples as you treat your paid product. Make sure it’s just as good as what people are paying for and don’t be stingy. Investing in doing it right will make you memorable and pay dividends down the line.
Free may get their attention, but quality must hold it. A word of warning: your product must be enticing enough for second-helpings. Free samples need the same attention to quality as does the real product: Whether your product is sandwiches, resources for teachers, software, professional services or lemonade, you probably put a tremendous amount of quality in the things people pay you for.
So give away your best stuff. For free. They’ll remember how good it was and come back for more, with their wallets.
[image: doonvas]
Related articles
- What Making Sandwiches Taught Me About Marketing (engage.tmgcustommedia.com)
- Give People What They Want on Social Media (blogs.constantcontact.com)
- The Real Cost of the Free Sample (marketingpilgrim.com)
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