The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Have you ever given thought to the idea of giving free gifts to your customer? How can this help your business? We aren’t talking about just any other gift, but gifts that are of real value to your customer. For example, what if you give your customers a complimentary iPod? Let’s se how this will work for you:

As everyone knows, the iPod is probably the hottest consumer product of the last few years. They are just cool to have. And because they are relatively expensive, they become an even more valuable item. It’s not like getting something that costs Kshs 100 – this is a pretty nice item that you’re not going to get every day.

You could give any product away but when you give an iPod away, you’re taking advantage of the product’s marketing power.

You could just give away Kshs 5,000, but that’s not as special to someone. If you giveKshs 5,000 back, it feels to them like they’re saving money, which is good, but not as fun. But if you give away an iPod, that person feels like they’re getting your product AND an iPod. They’re getting an iPod for free.

If you had given them Kshs 5,000 back, they’re not going to spend that Kshs 5,000 on something fun or anything that they’ll remember in a couple of months. But if you give away an iPod, it’s something that they’ll remember for the years that they have it.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving
There’s one more indirect advantage of giving away an iPod – you’ll get some free marketing. When someone gets an iPod it’s usually a story. A Dad tells his friend that he’s now just as cool as his kids because he has an iPod just like them. And now that story is going to include your company. When someone asks Dad why he finally got around to getting an iPod, he’ll brag how he got it for free… from your company.

So that’s good and it might help bring you some new clients but there’s a way to really help your clients, who will become your biggest advocates.

Let’s say that you sold some sort of marketing service to dentists. For every new client that your service brings in for the dentist, you will give that dentist an iPod to give to the patient.

Now the kid who got braces from your dentist is bragging to his friends at school how Dr. X gives away iPods to his new patients. All of a sudden, you created a brand new marketing and sales program for your client. You only had to give away that one iPod to his client and he can continue to give away other iPods. But you created a real incentive for that dentist so that kids who wouldn’t normally want to get braces, would be excited because Dr. X gives away iPods.

Just Give Something Away

While iPods are one of the best products to give away, you can use this type of strategy with a lot of different products or services. If you’re worried about the price, you’ll probably make up the difference with increased sales. If that still doesn’t satisfy you, just increase your prices a bit to cover it.

Sometimes you have to give to receive and giving away iPods is a great way to receive a lot more clients.