Giving Things Away - Does it Make Business Sense?
On two separate occasions recently I have had the story cited to me of the English Author who released his book as an eBook for free, on the understanding that it would increase sales of his hard- and paper-back books.
And the anecdotal evidence is that this is true - by giving readers his book in electronic format for free he has increased sales of the actual books.
How does this work? With fiction, we like to read in a certain scenario - be it on the train, on the beach, in the bath, in bed or on the sofa - but the key to this is that these are all leisure situations.
Even if you want to read a self-development book and improve your management skills, for example, it is highly unlikely you will sit at your desk reading a book for the simple reason it would send the 'wrong message' to your colleagues.
So by giving the eBook to your leisure readers, you are giving them a taster of what they want, but not in the format they want.
People like a book in hand - perhaps a reason why the electronic readers are not the huge runaway success they could have been.
People don't seem that keen to read books for pleasure in electronic format.
But what about business publications? We are more used to reading business publications in electronic format though.
Is it because we receive so much of our business communications this way that it is an acceptable format? Even so, if we receive that eBook on how to increase our SEO or learn to be a better manager, do we like to read it on screen or do we print it out? It's a question that bears research, and certainly will change with the generations.
But what about giving away products to create an increase in sales? These are highly competitive times, so everyone is looking to improve sales and in some case just to keep hold of their clientele.
By offering something for nothing, either as a reward for a behaviour (newsletter sign up, referral, etc), you are inducing people to visit your shop or your website.
But, will they be the smash and grab one-stop visitors who just take what's on offer and then never return? The key is in offering things that they want - not just the free stuff.
If you are selling chocolate, for example, then by all means offer free samples, but make sure that when they come into your shop there are more chocolate delights to entice and interest them.
Don't offer free chocolate if you are selling pet food! The free offer is about attracting the right kind of client, and then ensuring that you have something additional to offer that will get them to return.
This may take experimentation (I am in fact doing just such an experiment on our ecommerce site), and you will have a natural percentage of freeloaders, but if you can acquire sufficient custom from the promotion, then it will be valuable.
But, as with any marketing exercise, measure the cost against the return, and repeat what is successful and drop that which drains your resources and does not give you enough return.
And the anecdotal evidence is that this is true - by giving readers his book in electronic format for free he has increased sales of the actual books.
How does this work? With fiction, we like to read in a certain scenario - be it on the train, on the beach, in the bath, in bed or on the sofa - but the key to this is that these are all leisure situations.
Even if you want to read a self-development book and improve your management skills, for example, it is highly unlikely you will sit at your desk reading a book for the simple reason it would send the 'wrong message' to your colleagues.
So by giving the eBook to your leisure readers, you are giving them a taster of what they want, but not in the format they want.
People like a book in hand - perhaps a reason why the electronic readers are not the huge runaway success they could have been.
People don't seem that keen to read books for pleasure in electronic format.
But what about business publications? We are more used to reading business publications in electronic format though.
Is it because we receive so much of our business communications this way that it is an acceptable format? Even so, if we receive that eBook on how to increase our SEO or learn to be a better manager, do we like to read it on screen or do we print it out? It's a question that bears research, and certainly will change with the generations.
But what about giving away products to create an increase in sales? These are highly competitive times, so everyone is looking to improve sales and in some case just to keep hold of their clientele.
By offering something for nothing, either as a reward for a behaviour (newsletter sign up, referral, etc), you are inducing people to visit your shop or your website.
But, will they be the smash and grab one-stop visitors who just take what's on offer and then never return? The key is in offering things that they want - not just the free stuff.
If you are selling chocolate, for example, then by all means offer free samples, but make sure that when they come into your shop there are more chocolate delights to entice and interest them.
Don't offer free chocolate if you are selling pet food! The free offer is about attracting the right kind of client, and then ensuring that you have something additional to offer that will get them to return.
This may take experimentation (I am in fact doing just such an experiment on our ecommerce site), and you will have a natural percentage of freeloaders, but if you can acquire sufficient custom from the promotion, then it will be valuable.
But, as with any marketing exercise, measure the cost against the return, and repeat what is successful and drop that which drains your resources and does not give you enough return.
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