Giveaways That Gratify You, Too

"Yours free!" It's a rare head that doesn't turn at that
news. By offering freebies that zero in on the interests and
desires of your target market, you can take advantage of
this powerful psychological appeal to grow your business.
And by choosing giveaways with news value for your audience,
you can easily enlist the aid of the media in spreading the
word about your offering to prospective customers. Here's
how.

Great giveaway strategy begins with a wise choice of your
free item. You'll be tempted to give away what you sell for
a limited time, but according to veteran online publicist
Steve O'Keefe, this is a huge mistake, undercutting the
perceived value of the giveaway product. People won't buy
what they see being given away or what they know was given
away in the past.

Instead, the best giveaway, both for its appeal to your
target market and for its newsworthiness to magazines in
your industry, is something that people can get only by
satisfying the conditions of your giveaway. They can't buy
it from you and they can't get it from another supplier,
either. This could be an industry directory with a novel
twist, a cleverly worded T-shirt, a set of third-party
product reviews or some sort of corporate toy. Along with
maintaining the exclusivity of the giveaway, make sure the
item is something wanted mainly by your prospective
customers rather than the general public.

Similarly, be careful how you publicize the free offer,
because you could find yourself with an enormous number of
inappropriate requests if some "best things in life are
free" operator passes along news of your freebie to junior
high students, retirees who like to collect things or
missionaries without any income of their own to do business
with you. You might even qualify those asking for your
giveaway item by requiring a request faxed on company
stationery or an online form filled out. To protect yourself
from an endless obligation to fulfill the offer, set an
expiration date for the giveaway.

Giveaways can work very well as lead generators. When I gave
away thousands of copies of a free booklet called "Six Steps
to Free Publicity," it was safe to assume that anyone
requesting it was a potential candidate for publicity-
related products and services. The mailing list from that
giveaway helped build my business.

You can also offer giveaways as a bonus for a certain number
or dollar value of sales. For instance, the Talisman
Billiards Accessories Company in Thailand offers a free golf
shirt for every offer over $70. "I do see a lot of people
increasing their order to get the free bonus," says Tony
Jones, Talisman's general manager. The golf shirt would need
a humorous imprint or some hard-to-find design relevant to
the audience to be considered newsworthy, so you'll need
creativity if media coverage is among your aims. Put on your
thinking cap for a giveaway with pull power!