A message that I’m constantly trying to get across to my clients is the power and value gained by “giving stuff away”. With a business that uses the Internet, it’s important to establish yourself online and giving stuff away is one of the quickest and most effective ways to do this. You don’t have to give up your valuable patents to share your knowledge with potential clients and lay the groundwork for turning freebies into paying customers.
Demonstrating Expertise
How does someone know that you can do what YOU say you can do? Demonstrate it. Make a Video Clip or write an article demonstrating just how much knowledge and expertise you have in your field. It can’t fail to impress and when you impress, you make an impression – leave a good impression and they’ll remember you, which means they’ll come to you when they need your help.
Establishing Credibility
Getting someone to buy something from you online is tough. How do they know who you are and how can they trust you? People buy from people, and the Internet causes a bit of a problem with that sales philosophy. So, extend your personality into cyberspace by giving away your knowledge and advice. Establishing credibility online is about convincing people that you can be trusted. The more they can find you efficiently demonstrating expertise, the more credibility you’ll establish and that means people will buy from you.
It Ain’t As Easy As It Looks
So you write an article about how to turn your blue widgets into red widgets, or you demonstrate your own skill with a YouTube clip. People are impressed by your skill and knowledge. But once they have a go at it, they quickly realise that it takes skill and knowledge to do it like you do it. So they give you a call…
Branding
Everything you give away will include your branding. Imagine it’s basically an advertisement for your brand, product or services. But instead of just distracting them – the intention of most ads, the freebie is actually useful to them – helping them see you as helpful and making you the first point of call when they need your expertise, product or service.
Linkable You
If you put something out there that’s genuinely useful, people will link to it. Links can help with search engine rankings as well as provide all valuable traffic.
Referable You
When people like something, they’ll refer other people to you – which means you get free marketing.
It’s been my personal experience that every time I give stuff away for free, I end up getting dozens and dozens (if not more) of leads from it.
But won’t people steal your ideas and run away with your fortune? No. Ideas are ten-a-penny. It’s the delivery that counts.
But won’t people just be able to do stuff themselves without your help? Well, if it was that easy in the first place, they wouldn’t need you anyway.
Zig Ziglar once said ‘You can have anything you want in life, if you’ll help enough people to get what they want’. Give it away and it’ll come back to you.
Tell me in the comments below what YOU give away for free and how it’s helped you to bring in leads and sales.
photo credit: Stephen K. Will
