kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
Why You Need a Free-Giveaway
ByOffering something of value for free is a very important step in marketing. It is a way of introducing yourself to prospective clients in a non-intrusive, friendly manner. People are naturally more cautious and skeptical these days so you need to make it as easy as possible for them to get to know you at their pace – which will be different for each person.
As well, offering a free-giveaway is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to build a list of prospective clients and customers. In order to do this, you must ask for the person’s name and email address. When people have indicated an interest in finding out more about you by asking for your “sampler”, then you can offer it in exchange for their name and email address.
The easiest way to get prospect’s contact information is to have an opt-in box on your website. If you look at my website you’ll notice that I have my opt-in box in the top right corner of every web page.
When you use this in conjunction with an autoresponder/list management system such as Aweber, people’s name and email addresses are captured automatically and put into a list so you can contact them further via email.
In this day and age of internet selling and buying, the majority of people are comfortable with giving you this information. Once you have this data you will now be able to continue to develop the relationship with these prospects and move them through the other steps in your marketing process.
If you don’t have an opt-in box but you do have a website, the best thing to do is get one created and set up. It doesn’t cost much as it’s pretty easy to do and many Virtual Assistants can do it for you.
However, don’t worry if you haven’t got your website up and running yet, you can still collect names. You’ll just have to do it manually and then input them into some kind of spreadsheet (Excel) or a database program like Microsoft Outlook or ACT.
There are many ways to use your free-giveaway and leverage it. But first you need to have a free product to entice people onto your list, and into a marketing relationship with you.
I encourage you to spend some time today thinking about what you already have of value and how you can repackage it into a valuable free-giveaway that your target group wants and needs.
About the Author
Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches simple, innovative and powerful marketing strategies to help business owners find and keep their most profitable clients. To learn more about how she can help you take your business to the next level, and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at http://www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com
1 Comments
February 9th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Good point about the value of marketing with a free giveaway. I especially like the point about taking some time to think about what to repackage as a free giveaway.
I recently inventoried my site and all the content I have created over the past seven years and found a surprising wealth of content I could use for both free giveaways and paid products.
I’m disappointed, though, that the writer didn’t go farther than saying merely, “There are many ways you can use your free giveaway and leverage it.”
I’ve given away plenty of free giveaways. Where I could have done better is in not thinking through how I was going to leverage them.
Any time you create a free giveaway, you should have in mind specifically how to leverage it. More and more as I create content nowadays, I look beyond the specific content I am creating to see how I can later repurpose it either for free giveaways or paid content of a larger scope.
It’s easy to give things away and hope for the best. The true value of free giveaways is in planning out how you will leverage them.