Who doesn’t love free stuff? Everyone does. But, unfortunately, someone has to pay a price for it – and that someone may perhaps be you, the e-commerce store owner.
Free stuff looks like a great idea on paper, but before you go ahead with the idea, you need to make a few quick evaluations and calculations at your end. Post this, you may determine that there is almost nothing that you can give for free while making a profit. However, we have good news for you. You can give free stuff to your customers while generating real profits and doing so will offer simultaneous benefits:
- Establish and enhance customers’ trust
- Increase marketing power
You can think of giving away free stuff as an opportunity for reaching out to your existing and new customers and building fruitful relationships with them. When you give away free stuff to your customers, you help your customers in building trust and gaining confidence in your products by first delivering something valuable to them.
We have put together a list of different ideas that you can use for incorporating giving away free stuff into your marketing strategy, helping drive and increase your e-commerce sales. You can even explore other creative ideas to leverage the benefit of giveaways:
- Give Away Free Stuff (maybe as a discount)
While selling products online, giving away the stock which requires little to no cost may create a great marketing hook. Instead of offering a discount on the complete cart, you may pick a small or the smallest item and give it away for free to your customers. This way, the customers can have something they really want as they had added it to the cart, as their freebie. This may be even more effective than a cash-value discount as it would have a lasting impact on the customers’ minds and may actually save you money.
For example, picking a $5 product from the cart of your customer and giving it away for free would cost you less as compared to offering a 10% discount on the entire cart of $150 or more. This can even be effective for the retailers who are selling products online on Amazon or other established websites, as there is a wide scope to sell bundles of products on such large and third-party platforms. All you need to do is market or sell one of the smallest or any product in the bundle for free.
- Provide a Free Analysis or Quote
What are the things you can do easily and quickly that would also be valuable for your potential customers? You can think along the lines of the online forum which gives free advice or an option of online chat for giving answers to people’s questions.
You can even have an online questionnaire that helps your customers decide whether they require something new or something better, different or replaced?
For example, the optometrist can offer free eye tests and if any customer finds that they need glasses, they can sell the products online as the solution. Depending on the products/services you are selling online, there might be an opportunity that some sort of analysis might help your customers. They can also use the value you provide as a lead-capturing tool, drawing them in the sales funnel.
- Promote a Free Trial
Promoting a free trial works great for retailers. Free trials prove to be a great way of allowing potential customers and clients a bit of time to know your business before making a purchase.
Furthermore, a free trial that offers value can lead to high conversions. Though it is not technically known as “free trial” as you can pull this by sending the products to your customers and charging for the same while offering them an option of returning the product within a specific period for a full refund. It might seem to be an expensive strategy, but it actually works well as your customers would feel secure to buy from an online store business knowing that they would get their money back if they are unsatisfied or do not like the product at all.
- Make Shipping and Delivery Free
Order fulfilment is not as easy as it might seem to be. There are numerous different ways to decide about delivering times and most of them have their distinct cost profile. The conventional wisdom dictates that, as a seller, you should simply pass on all the delivery options to your consumers and allow them to choose. However, this might not be the best option in the present-day scenario.
It may be better to calculate and work out what your minimum cart amount should be for offering free delivery to your customers. You can leverage the benefit of this by encouraging bigger purchases. While planning your delivery strategy, you can also consider adding prompts to the carts of your customers, making it easy for them to contemplate as to how much more do they need to spend to qualify for free shipping.
Entice New Customers and Boost Your Sales Like Never Before
Now that we have mentioned the top four hacks of giving away free stuff to your customers while boosting your online store business’s sales, you must be convinced to include such strategies in your overall marketing strategy. Moreover, sometimes, the surefire way to gain new clients and retain the existing ones is to showcase your capabilities, and when it is about giving away free products, half of your job is already done, because people love freebies and discounts.
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