I’ll always remember the primary freebie advertising and marketing piece I created and put on the web: a free information that will help you develop your Instagram following.
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I wrote all of the copy in a Phrase doc and tossed it out to my viewers. Inside a couple of hours, I had a couple of hundred new subscribers on my electronic mail record. Seeing folks bounce onto my record in change for the worth I used to be providing was an exhilarating feeling. After that, I used to be hooked.
Over time I’ve made dozens of freebies to assist me develop my electronic mail record and within the course of, I’ve discovered what makes a freebie generate leads efficiently.
Desk of Contents
What’s freebie advertising and marketing?
Freebie advertising and marketing is a method the place companies supply a services or products for gratis in change for a buyer motion. Freebies might be digital or bodily and the commonest buyer actions embody signing up for an electronic mail or textual content record, partaking on social media, or downloading an app. Freebie advertising and marketing has the facility to extend a model’s perceived worth, buyer loyalty, and leads.
Does a freebie advertising and marketing technique work?
In most buying choices, prospects carry out a psychological cost-benefit evaluation to find out whether or not a purchase order is value the associated fee and threat.
With freebies, nevertheless, an attention-grabbing phenomenon takes place. Psychologists have discovered that labeling an merchandise as “free” skews the standard cost-benefit evaluation. It boosts a product’s perceived worth, generally even above a higher-quality paid merchandise. This phenomenon, often called the “zero worth impact,” prompts an emotional response in our brains. To me, it looks like a dopamine hit. A freebie can:
- Improve worth perceptions.
- Foster buyer loyalty.
- Decrease inhibitions and guilt.
- Improve portions and order quantities due to the notion you’re getting extra for much less.
Now, will freebie advertising and marketing work at changing your new leads into paid gross sales? That will depend on how nicely you’ve aligned your freebie along with your viewers — and what you do after the supply.
Methods to Select the Proper Freebies to Give Away
There are a whole lot of sorts of freebies. The fallacious one might appear off-brand or entice the fallacious viewers. The proper one, nevertheless, can enhance your visibility and provides long-time lurkers the nudge they should take motion.
First, check out the big selection of freebies companies use to draw prospects — a few of these are higher for B2B, whereas others for B2C.
Freebie Advertising Concepts
- Free product samples
- Free trial intervals
- Downloadable templates like undertaking administration trackers, social media calendars, or budgeting instruments
- E book or white paper
- Quiz outcomes
- Free session
- Low cost codes or coupons
- On-line course or webinar
- Cheat sheet or guidelines
- Content material bundles corresponding to templates, guides, or movies
- Referral program, corresponding to providing reward playing cards or reductions for referring new prospects
- Branded swag
- BOGO (purchase one, get one)
- Free delivery
With all these selections, right here’s find out how to know which can work finest for your enterprise.
1. Know your viewers.
First, I all the time ask, what’s the number-one factor my viewers is fighting proper now?
Freebies ought to really feel like a shortcut to fixing that. As an example, plenty of small ecommerce companies wrestle with selecting the best tech stack and overcoming platform limitations. So, I would need to contemplate creating an “Ecommerce Tech Stack Cheat Sheet” with a listing of free and inexpensive instruments and the most effective third-party apps for every of the foremost ecommerce platforms.
2. Leverage what you already know.
Second, the most effective freebie concepts are those you don’t have to achieve for.
Take into consideration checklists, swipe information, or instruments you have already created for purchasers or inside use. What are the matters you possibly can get on a soapbox and speak about for half-hour with out warning? Considered one of my best-performing lead magnets got here from a slide deck I virtually deleted.
In case you’re a service-based enterprise, you don’t need to give your total proprietary framework away, however you’ll be able to supply a pared-down preview of what you do for purchasers. Consultants and repair companies usually don’t share sufficient of their course of with prospects, however this offers simply sufficient of a sneak peek for potential prospects to really feel comfy hiring you.
3. Choose the best format.
Subsequent, contemplate the format to your freebie. In case you’re providing a client product for a giveaway or BOGO supply, select one thing low-cost and high-inventory that may work throughout sizes and genders.
On the B2B aspect, contemplate what format your viewers is most certainly to reply to. Ought to it’s long-form or quick? Interactive or static? Textual content or multimedia? Listed below are a couple of codecs which have labored nicely for me:
- PDF guidelines: Fast wins in a tidy format
- Electronic mail mini-course: A multi-day drip that builds anticipation
- Interactive quiz: Excessive engagement, particularly on social
- Notion or Google Sheets templates: Sensible and immediately helpful
4. Take a look at and iterate.
To check in case you’ve discovered the best freebie, begin small. Launch a free supply or A/B check a number of affords, observe your conversion charges, and tweak the supply or format based mostly on how folks reply.
Freebie Advertising Examples
Listed below are six examples of how manufacturers have used freebie advertising and marketing to achieve their targets.
1. HubSpot Advertising Plan Templates
At HubSpot, we love a superb freebie. And we’ve discovered that you just find it irresistible too. Most advertising and marketing, gross sales, and repair execs didn’t main within the area we find yourself working in — our work modifications quick and we determine every part out as we go. For that purpose, free data templates are value their weight in gold.
We’ve constructed a library of 116 (and counting!) free enterprise templates powered by HubSpot instruments to assist data staff win at work day-after-day. One well-liked one is our free advertising and marketing plan template, a Google Doc that entrepreneurs can merely copy and full.
The template comes with fill-in-the-blank instance copy to make planning fast and simple, with suggestions for finishing every part. Different templates embody a social media content material calendar, a gross sales plan template, and a coding template.
2. Develop with Google AI Coaching
Most resource-strapped small enterprise homeowners know that AI can save them time, however they don’t have the talents to get began.
Enter Google: In partnership with America’s Small Enterprise Improvement Middle (SBDC), they began providing free AI coaching to small enterprise homeowners. They provide a one-hour workshop, two 10-hour programs, and an AI course for educators.
This can be a sensible transfer for Google since small enterprise homeowners make up a big proportion of their Workspace and Adverts buyer base. The extra expert they’re, the much less buyer help they’ll want and the extra they’ll use Google’s merchandise.
And, in fact, it’s helpful to assist enterprise homeowners study and develop.
3. Dairy Queen’s Free Cone Day
Once I picked my daughter and her buddy up from college the opposite day, they begged me to drive them over to Dairy Queen free of charge cone day. So, eyeing the chance to be the hero, I drove them to the closest DQ. Whereas we solely saved about $6, everybody was comfortable and the win felt a lot greater.
One yr in a tongue-in-cheek “examine,” DQ discovered {that a} free cone made 92% of individuals comfortable, elevated in-store site visitors by 10%, and drove in-store gross sales by 12%.
Wendy’s has one other twist on this promotion — as an alternative of providing Frosties simply in the future a yr, they promote a $3, limited-release keyring permitting prospects to assert a free cone all yr.
4. Pixory Product Giveaway
Journey model Pixory is aware of find out how to do a giveaway proper. This basic social media giveaway provided the prospect to win 11 totally different merchandise together with airplane tickets to NYC, a 5-star resort keep, Sax reward playing cards, new baggage, and different luxurious objects for the winner and a buddy.
To enter, members merely wanted to comply with their account, then like, tag, and share the publish. The Instagram giveaway boosted engagement and visibility for the model, incomes 32,612 likes.
5. Panera’s Limitless Sip Membership Free Trial
The one factor higher than a freebie? Repeated freebies. A number of years in the past, I used to be delighted when my MyPanera rewards account provided me a free espresso day-after-day for a month. You may guess that I used to be there earlier than work most days that month and acquired fairly a couple of pastries too.
At this time, that supply nonetheless exists within the type of Panera’s Limitless Sip Membership membership. Whereas the membership prices a month-to-month payment, you will get began with a beneficiant two months free earlier than paying something. That signifies that for 2 months after signing up, you’ll be able to declare a free sizzling or chilly beverage each two hours with limitless refills.
Panera, like many different manufacturers, has discovered {that a} freebie can deliver folks within the door for bigger purchases and construct habits that will likely be onerous to interrupt as soon as the trial interval ends.
6. Jenna Kutcher’s Checklist to Launch Course
Wish to construct your electronic mail record? Once I need to deal with one thing new, there’s nothing extra useful than insider data from somebody who’s been there, achieved that. Within the case of electronic mail advertising and marketing, that’s HubSpot Creator Jenna Kutcher.
Kutcher’s Checklist to Launch Lab is a step-by-step blueprint for rising an electronic mail record, full of core methods, electronic mail copy templates, and plug-and-play guides for creating lead magnets.
Her genius supply faucets into free academic content material as a lead magnet, creating worth upfront to construct belief and enhance the chance of future purchases.
By providing useful content material like step-by-step steering for electronic mail advertising and marketing free of charge, it attracts and nurtures a selected target market who’re making an attempt to do the identical factor and may later convert into paying prospects.
Freebie Advertising Technique: Methods to Run a Profitable Freebie Marketing campaign
There’s far more that goes right into a profitable freebie advertising and marketing marketing campaign than the freebie itself. If I have been ranging from scratch once more, right here’s the technique I’d comply with:
1. Outline your objective.
First, decide what objective you’re making an attempt to perform. Is it electronic mail signups? App downloads? New social followers, or demo requests? Make certain your freebie maps on to that consequence.
2. Create a high-value freebie and supply.
Do not forget that perceived worth issues. Make it really feel premium — even when it solely took you an hour to make. Attempt to supply a case examine, knowledge, or some juicy insider data that isn’t already obtainable on the web.
Then, write a proposal that speaks to your viewers’s ache factors (Keep in mind: resolve their issues and make their lives easy!) and displays your distinctive voice. A spotlight for my model is that every one my affords really really feel like they’re coming from me, as a result of they’re!
3. Construct a devoted touchdown web page.
Subsequent, create a mobile-friendly, Search engine marketing-optimized touchdown web page with a transparent CTA.
Right here’s the very particular, very actionable CTA that Kutching makes use of for her course. You’ll discover “Enroll Now” and “Get began for simply $79” on the touchdown web page as nicely, however this one is probably the most compelling.
Professional tip: Use HubSpot’s free touchdown web page builder to create a mobile-friendly, Search engine marketing-optimized web page to your freebie marketing campaign with a transparent CTA. You may even generate a primary draft with Content material Agent.
4. Promote and distribute it with automation.
Right here’s crucial key to success with freebie advertising and marketing: you have to arrange a workflow for what occurs after somebody claims your freebie.
For instance, join your freebie to a follow-up electronic mail sequence welcoming the prospect and sending them related content material or one other supply to deliver them in-store or join with you for a session. You may add them to retargeting advert campaigns to remind them to make use of the freebie or improve to paid services or products.
This doesn’t must take handbook work. As a substitute, use a CRM with automation to create a number of touchpoints with the prospect. Attain them with web site pop-ups or follow-up emails to nudge them to the following step within the journey.
Professional tip: That is the place HubSpot Advertising Hub actually shines — you’ll be able to arrange buyer journeys and phase based mostly on what they downloaded and what they click on on subsequent.
5. Refresh and relaunch.
A typical mistake folks make is making a free supply, then setting it and forgetting it.
For me, transforming and refreshing my top-performing freebies is a constant apply. I must schedule common check-ins to see which items are performing nicely and the way I can hold them recent and efficient. In case you created a well timed useful resource, you may must both scrap it or rework it to make it timeless.
Listed below are some questions you’ll be able to ask your self when evaluating an current freebie:
- Does the freebie nonetheless align with my model and messaging model?
- Does the freebie’s content material nonetheless ship high-quality and useful steering?
- Does the freebie have any time-sensitive language or outdated pop-culture references?
- Are there new insights or examples I can add?
When you make updates (even minor ones), it’s time to relaunch it. You don’t have to cover the replace and let the identical ol’ system roll on as standard. A concentrated burst or promotion might kickstart a brand new wave of leads. You seemingly have tons of individuals in your viewers who’ve by no means downloaded this specific freebie (or who aren’t even paying prospects but!).
reminder right here is that we’re all the time speaking manner much less about our affords than we predict we’re. I like to recommend relaunching your freebie with pleasure and intentionality. Give your refreshed freebie a mini-spotlight wherever it feels proper for your enterprise.
Begin attracting leads and prospects with freebies.
A number of years and numerous downloads later, I nonetheless get excited each time somebody opts in for one in every of my freebies. Why? As a result of I do know it means the content material resonated — and that I’m serving to resolve an actual drawback for somebody.
I’ve seen firsthand how a well-crafted freebie can spark significant engagement, develop a high-quality electronic mail record, and open the door to long-term buyer relationships. However I’ve additionally discovered that not each freebie works. Essentially the most profitable ones are rooted in deep viewers understanding, useful experience, and alignment with your enterprise targets.
In case you’re simply getting began with freebie advertising and marketing, my recommendation is easy: Begin small, check relentlessly, and don’t be afraid to place your concepts on the market. You don’t want an ideal PDF or fancy funnel. You simply want to unravel an issue your viewers cares about. In case you lead with worth, your viewers will comply with.
Editor’s be aware: This publish was initially printed in August 2024 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
