Freebie Marketing

It has been a known marketing technique which a lot of companies have been adopting. It is to sell something very cheaply or giving it free, and to gain something more later, or to have a constant income periodically. For example, companies like HP and Epson would sell their printers more affordably so that they can earn consistently from their ink cartridges. Console games like Playstation and Xbox would sell their console a little cheaper when they earn from its rights to sell to the Game Builders to create games for these consoles. If you take a good look at the Xbox for example, you would notice all the parts inside (the hard disk, the video card, the processor chip, etc) are put together and sold at a price which is much lower than having to buy them yourselves in the market.

I just come across a news from New York Times about Sony Playstation 3 were sold at a loss, while Sony recouped its losses through selling digital cameras and the movie “Spiderman 3″. It is as important that you might have other income sources if you were to adopt such a strategy especially when you are selling massively which might not have much gains in the near future. In fact, Sony made a bigger profit while maintaining its loss from playstation.

It is not easy for a startup company to start a console game even if the boss is a big-time engineer. In fact, this is usually for the “big boys” in the market where Microsoft, Sony or even Apple will be the feasible players. In fact, it is not so possible to sell it expensively when your market is mainly children where they have to persuade their parents to buy for them. As a parent yourself, think about spending more than $1500 for your kid to play that console game when you might have thought the trend will wear off eventually… By the way, games are not fully included yet…

In fact in the Internet business industry, giving freely has been the luring bait. For example:

1. Giving lots of downloadable freebies when you buy their main downloadable product.
2. Giving a free subscription of free lessons to understand more about doing something before buying the course.
3. Giving free chapters of a book by email subscription, before you decide to buy the actual book.
4. Organizing a contest to give something free where you get their emails or linkbacks in return for future business gains.
5. Giving free demo of the software to try before you buy.
6. Giving free ebook for viral marketing purpose.
7. Even blogging here freely for public view, it is for exposure and it is maintained by advertisements.

It is always good to give free things. In fact, it can be a win-win situation if you are quick in your creativity. Your prospects get to educate about your products and their problematic needs for it. They might even have a sample trial for it for total satisfaction. In fact, you might even throw in 30-day money back guarantee! It is as good as giving it free for usage for 30 days…

Free things are usually for promotions or charities. Whichever way, it is still a marketing exposure for the company. It can be a charity in a sense that you might be a sponsor for a certain event… Or you might have built a foundation for a certain charity to give back to the society while you are gaining a lot from your own business… Promotions (as mentioned a lot above) can be about giving free samples, free trials or free addons to a purchased product.

It might be hard to think of something to give… But just start your thinking cap, and try it out bravely at the expense of your own product and you will start to understand how this freebie marketing works…