Smit Shah's Blog

Smit N Shah

Article # 6
FREE stuff helps marketing

Corporate marketing or product marketing can be done in several different ways. One of the ways companies have been marketing for a long time is by giving out free stuff. This method helps gather a decent crowd. Free signs always get attention. Marketers take advantage of the fact that it does and place their banners and posters with offer information in locations where they are bound to catch your eye. The term FREE is usually highlighted in the entire advertisements, which is what draws more attention. Similar strategies are also being used for radio and television marketing, where companies try go reach a bigger audience by marketing it as a free product. The idea of giving out free stuff always draws a crowd. Most of the free stuff usually carries a logo or an advertisement about the sponsoring company. So when an individual takes that item to work or at home or even to school others curiously enquires about it and thus helping increase the awareness about a company. Getting a customers attention is winning half of the battle. Most products on the market are good, but its the competition that makes it harder to sell, so having the customers attention definately helps increase market awareness.

I remember when I was in school doing my bachelors, Citigroup used to be on the campus quite frequently giving out free t-shirts for applying for their credit card. Their agents always drew a big crowd. I remember me and all my friends signing up for those offers. The t-shirts that they gave out had their logo on them. So every time we wore them to school, our friends would joke about where we got them from. But at the end of day, it did get us talking about Citigroup. As a matter of fact, here I am four years out of school still writing an article about it.

I would say that this does help build market awareness. However, on the flip side this kind of marketing is expensive. The marketing expense are comparatively higher and the per lead expense also increases. I also remember us at times, signing up multiple times, under different names to get the free stuff they had to offer. Hence, the quality of leads also tended to detoriate as the word got around. In general I think if the companies and their agents are cautious enough, they could walk away with valuable leads and it definitely helps increase awareness.

// posted by WizKid @ 12:30 PM