When you start a relationship with a networking contact or prospective customers, one of the best tactics is an offer for a free gift.
I’ve noticed that there were some questions about what makes a good gift and some common misconceptions.
I do a lot of “list building” promotions and we use gifts for readers that want to get a newsletter and more information. The “gifts” have to be easy for many people to get and it’s common to make that a simple e-book or Mp3. We call them gifts because they are free, and very little obligation (you can unsubcribe).
A real gift of value can position you as a provider of value in business (or life). Dr. Robert Cialdini refers to this as the Law of Reciprocity. A gift given without an expectation of quid pro quo seems altruistic and might look like it’s less likely to sell, but studies show that the life time value of customers who get a gift early one is almost always higher than something that looks like you are buying an opportunity to pitch them
Here are some tips to increase the value of using online gifts?
Make it a real gift If you send everyone to the same page with an free report signup and then offer that as a “special gift” on another promotion it’s not special
Don’t make people sign up for your mailing list. We use this this option on a regular basis “free gift plus newsletter” but don’t assume that the recipient is giving you permission to mail any ad you wish. The more limited and targeted you use email, the more value it can have for your readers.
Give away something that others are paying for. That shows it has real value right now
Make it a wide appeal. No need to give your lead generating gift when it’s publicity for you, your site and your business.
These guidelines for for contests, charity gifts etc. There are plenty of times when a “free download” gift is perfectly right.. on your sites landing page or in as a bonus for someone buying at a partners site. That’s what we call a “lead generation” marketing program.
I ask myself this question when choosing a gift: “Would I think this was a good value if I wasn’t doing this for a living”
The law of reciprocity says that when you give a real gift, without demanding quid pro quo, you create a bond with the recipient. In marketing, we know that some of the people will come back and that the publicity value will outweigh the small investment in the gift.
Ultimately, giving away real value in gifts gets you the best results. Free can be more valuable that charging.
Marketing, promotion and business today are easier than ever. Tools can help people. Metaphors abound, but “social media as a weapon” feels odd to me.
You start by listening. You can look at a complaint, a sarcastic comment or an off based remark as an annoyance, but I’m personally thankful for every real engagement. Bots (both software and people who post like they were a bot) are in the way, but real people writing are a blessing and I’m grateful.
Today on EmprieAvenue, I got shareholder mail (a private message sent only to players who invested in a stock by that stock’s owner) with a very long pitch that ended up mostly whining about abuse to their system).
Readers responded politely and then got this reprimand:
We sincerely apologize if you misinterpret our business overview.We will used your opinion,feedback and suggestion to improve our company organization strategy in our upcoming board meeting.We have an open door policy feel free to share your idea with us.
The people writing the replies were shareholders. That means they have
Spent the time and effort to be identified as real humans to play the game
Picked the stock and invested (it’s a stock market game)
Read the shareholder mail
Spent a couple minutes more to write a response
My reaction before reading the shareholder replies was to either delete the message. In my experience, they aren’t there to learn, they’ll just get mad and move on.
After reading the replies, I wanted to punish the player. Since that not the way I roll, I’m keeping the stock (connection) to watch and see what happens and writing this post without mentioning names. That’s how I roll
Do You Use Social Media as a Weapon?
You know that marketing today must include listening and engaging with your customers/prospects/vendors/network/shareholders. When you do engage, make sure it’s done as if the real person reading and responding is your best friend (use “mother” “sister” or “lover” here is you please.. I use “child” as I’ve learned that nothing my children do should ever make me angry).
Getting this down will allow you to attract the people you are looking for, without looking for them. I call this marketing philosophy LISTEN AND LOVE. There’s no reason you need consider any marketing too, and especially social media, as a weapon.
Social media technology at it’s best is a collection of tools to help you serve your customers better.
We talk a lot about listening to customers and engaging them wherever they want as opposed to making them come to you on your web site or in your store.
Tesco literally did this by taking the whole store to busy commuters in Korea.
Tesco takes social media beyond conversation and get mores sales
You have started listening to your customers. I’m sure they are telling you how they’d like to shop.
What are you doing to go above and beyond to meet your customers needs?
I picked a outrageous claim in my Twitter box auto DM for the “Dumb Auto DM of the Day” today. (I post one of these with the tag #DADM on most days when I can to remind people who might have forgotten that they set up one and how they never are personal).
I don’t put any personally identifiable information on my #DADM tweets. My intention is to share a smile, teach a bit and initiate conversation, not belittle the person with the Dumb Auto DM.
Today’s tweet assumed I has just joined Twitter, which I laughed at.. but since it’ has the work “finally” I would think most of the people who could build the users network would be insulted.
Then there is the suggestion that an attached link has the secret to making money online. If anyone reads that far, that’s certainly a red flag. People won’t follow the link and likely will drop you if you spam them with a sales pitch instead of a personal greeting or real conversation.
My #DADM was Re-tweeted (RT) by several people and I got some @ replies and had the daily conversations where people tell me they hate automation and drop people for it and I remind them that sometimes real people use them and are just learning.
Then a BOT picked it up and @ replied with another offer to make money online. The account is NOT the one with the auto DM.. this is a separate scam from and account that is likely already shut down
There’s a lesson here. Funny to see the tweet, but I’m posting to have a piece to refer people to when they ask “Are some auto DM’s Okay?”
My answer: Maybe. You can use Twitter however you want. If you say “Thanks for following” you won’t get many believing it was you.. and some will hate you for it. But it’s your choice. Like we say in Twitter Revolution:NO RULES
Automation is wonderful. The same API that spammers and bots use allow us to integrate Twitter with other sites and reach out to people we want to meet. Like all good tools, it can be used for good or bad.
Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.
Whenever I share the tweets I get from bots (search for #DADM on Twitter, I get lots of comments from people who claim that they automatically stop following anyone that uses them.
Hating bots is like killing the messenger. There are good task for bots all over the net. You might even be reading this post because a bot caused the headline to appear somewhere.
The animosity people feel toward auto DMs on Twitter is for bots that post repetitive messages. Even a “thank you for following” message end up looking like spam when you add “check out my xxx”
Social media can be very profitable when you use it to interaction with prospects, clients and thought leaders. When I say “interact” I mean to listen or have a two way conversation.
If your primary goal is to blast out sales messages, you may find advertising to be just as effective. What’s profitable in social media is hidden in the things that advertising can’t do.
If you have a bot, or even a person sending out a repetitive message, think about dumping that in favor of some more listening. When you do, you’ll find that people are anxious to find someone to share their interests, questions and problems with. Answer those and they’ll be attracted to you and your products and services.
A profitable relationship with a social media connection can’t be as simple as “value per new fan” but it helps to add metrics wherever you can.
For instance, if you get new customers from any source, you can divide the lifetime value of each by the number who engage and get a rough score. If you could get 1000 new fans on a Facebook page, and earn $1000, you’d know that each is worth $1.
The problem is that rarely do we see exclusive use of a medium like this. Your existing customers will “like” your page, and important consideration, but not enough to assign all their sales volume to that act.
Syncapse tried to look at it from other viewpoints and published this report:
