Read Uzo Onukwugha’s article titled “Freebies and Viral Marketing: Why You Must Give Stuff Away”.


Uzo Onukwugha’s article is reprinted here.

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Freebies and Viral Marketing: Why You Must Give Stuff Away

“Giveaways and test-rides are the most subtle form of promotion. The news spreads like wildfire (or virus) among friends and relatives who are interested in your products or services. This is the basis of the viral marketing.”

Freebies are products or services you give out to your customers at no cost to them. Sometimes they are required to pay a small postage and handling fees. To qualify as a freebie, your product must be free of ulterior motives or obligation on the part of your prospect. There should be no bait and switch or marketing gimmicks that mislead.

A freebie is different from a bonus which is an added product or service thrown in to increase the perceived value of your lead product and to make your offers irresistible to your customer.

According to marketing research, only happy customers come back. For one happy customer, three more people hear about it. (Seven people hear about bitter experience).

When people tell others, the news spreads. They do this even without knowing that they are advertising your product. This is where it becomes viral. Just like one sneeze can spread the flu virus to everybody around you.

The word, ‘viral marketing’ is borrowed from microbiology because of the way the (flu) virus spread with a sneeze. Before you know it; it has spread everywhere.

What is a virus? For the sake of simplicity, a virus is a piece of DNA or RNA enveloped by a protein coat. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid while RNA is an acronym for Ribonucleic Acid. Thus viruses are either DNA or RNA viruses. Either way DNA is the genetic material – the building block of life at the center of the cell. Even with this description, viruses cannot multiply independently. They need the host DNA to replicate (to divide again and again) and spread. This process happens in nanoseconds.

To spread, the virus sheds its protein coat and attaches itself to the host (preferably human) DNA and takes over the replication machinery. (Note that DNA controls cell division and perpetuation of all life on earth). Before the host knows it, it’s like the virus is saying to the host, “keep on doing what you are doing but use my own DNA and divide instead of yours”. This is subtle and the human host does not even realize it.

Soon – and this happens in seconds – the virus develops several million clones of the original. This is exactly how your freebies take a life of their own and spread all over the place just by word of mouth.

Now here are the reasons why freebies and viral marketing expand the business of your life and the life of your business:

We live in a universe of paradox. If you want anything to expand, give it away. That’s how you make more money. You must release if you must receive. Giving is evidence that you have conquered greed. (Greed is the greatest enemy of prosperity consciousness). You attract more customers by your generosity. You build relationships and your good name travels before you. This is a powerful incentive to make people subscribe to your opt-in list. You can sell to these people again and again at a future date.

This brings to the law of reciprocity and obligations. Humans are spirits trying to have a human experience. And once a relationship is established, these prospects are likely to be customers that will continue to be loyal to you. Remember, you make friends, before you make sales. This is when customer loyalty exceeds customer satisfaction. People only give their money to those they know, trust and like. People buy into you before they buy your products. Therefore, don’t sell yourself cheap! Try to giveaway something of value.

Remember you are only playing into human nature and psychology. Right from when we were kids, giving was seen as a sign of love. This creates attachments. We carry this trait into adulthood. Humans are reward-oriented and risk-aversive. People love gifts at no cost to them. And gifts are powerful incentives that make people do what ordinarily they are not intending to do.

Thus freebies are a subtle type of product promotion and advertising. Call it a form of up-sell or soft-sell, if you may. Remember humans are radios without batteries who broadcast the word. This helps you to get even more people to take you on your offer, opt-in to your list and you make back-end sales again and again. It is a known human behavior that whatever gets rewarded gets repeated. This is how you expand your business as you draw more and more targeted traffic. This is how your business takes a life of its own. This is viral marketing in a nutshell.

Uzo Onukwugha is the CEO of http://www.weblinkbusiness.com. He expounds the laws of spiritual marketing and business success. He believes that entrepreneurial spirit is the basis of business creativity. Forward your comments and concerns to: uzonukwugha@yahoo.com. Subscribe to his Newsletter and Weblink Business Tips.

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*IMNewswatch would like to thank Uzo Onukwugha for granting permission to reprint this article.

 

 

 

 

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