The Spirit of Giving: Your Marketing Advantage

The end of the calendar year is always a good time to do a little reflection and a little looking ahead. (Heck, any time is, but this is a time that seems to bring that out in us a bit more.)

Among the things we think about is “giving.” There are several holidays that occur at this time of year (Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa, to name a few), all of which revolve around the concept of giving.

The Rewards of Giving

Not everything is about business, and not everything is about money.

People who live a balanced life know that their life is enriched by both “giving” and “giving back” – whether that be giving charitably financially and/or volunteering their time and expertise to whatever cause they feel most worthy. The “return on giving” comes in the form of emotional rewards, an uplifted spirit, relationships formed, a sense of satisfaction in the outcome, and more.

Business is Commerce

But if you’re in business, the transaction that you’re looking for is customer satisfaction on the one end and profit (not just income) to you on the other.

I like to have entrepreneurs and business owners or managers consider that the most satisfying transaction – whether it involves a trade of energy, time, goods, services or money – is one in which both (or all) parties feel that they got the best end of the deal. That means that your customer feels that s/he paid less for the value s/he places on what s/he received than s/he feels it’s worth to her/him, and you feel like you profited well, both financially AND vis-a-vis the relationship you have with that customer after the sale.

Giving as Marketing

In terms of business, I define “giving” as both giving something for free, and as giving something unexpected and/or out of the ordinary.

How many times can you be reminded that the “relationship timeline” that you must be aware of is that first your prospects must come to know you, then you must give them cause to like – and eventually love – you, until over time and in degrees they learn to trust you more and more?

Customers prefer to patronize – and then become loyal to – vendors who are generous. Not those who are “generous to a fault” or who “give away the store,” because how can you trust someone in business who doesn’t act as if they’re in business to make a reasonable profit? By generous, I mean generous in ways that add great perceived value to the customer without detracting from your bottom line.

Information as Positioning and Incentive

The easiest way that I know for any business – whether online or “brick-and-mortar, and regardless of the industry, products or services – to be generous is with information, with their expertise and experience.

I believe that offering free information is the easiest, fastest and least expensive means of marketing. You can use information to entice new customers, to incentivize prior and existing customers to do more business with you, and to help position you as “THE go-to” source for your products, services and/or events in your industry and/or your geographic area.

Examples of Free Information That Enhances Business Success

For whatever reason, I like to use dry cleaners as an oft-cited example. Perhaps because dry cleaners are in a highly competitive business that’s also (in general) geographically limited, and is often considered a “luxury” service, in that for the most part, most people can live their lives just fine without ever going to a dry cleaner. All in all, that adds up to the “worst-case-scenario” for me in terms of how difficult it might be to succeed.. Worst case – but not by any means insurmountable. Some dry cleaning businesses are highly profitable.

So how could a dry cleaner be generous in a way that ATTRACTS business rather than costs business? Here are two examples:

1. Publish a guide to helping people care for their clothes, carpets, draperies and other dry cleanable items so that readers can save money and time and/or even “do it themselves.”

The “call to action” in such a guide is to turn to its publisher (the dry cleaner) at times when someone MUST use dry cleaning to deal with problems that can’t be easily solved by someone on his or her own.

This “free” guide can be “given away” as a printed pamphlet or on a digital computer disk at the dry cleaners and/or at other locations willing to give it out, and/or as a downloadable file on the company’s Web site.

2. Hold a monthly “teleseminar” during which the owner, manager or other employee of the dry cleaner discusses ways to save time and money, avoid using dry cleaning services, and/or answering questions submitted either before and/or during the live call. This call can be recorded and made available for replay on the company Web site and/or as a digital audio file on a computer disc or even an audio CD.

As with the downloadable or printed “guide,” the call to action during these teleseminars is to call on the dry cleaner when it’s necessary.

When possible, the “cost” for obtaining a downloadable or print report or attending a teleseminar or listening to the recording could be obtaining the prospect’s or customer’s contact info – first name and e-mail at the very least; full name, phone, fax and physical address where possible and appropriate.

Won’t This Cost Me Business?

At first glance, it might appear contrary to a dry cleaner’s purpose to teach people how to AVOID using them by taking better care of their clothes, drapes, rugs, etc. and handling problems on their own.

But this kind of information provides two significant marketing benefits:

2. It sets up the dry cleaning company and it’s owner, manager or employee as being people who care about YOU – who care that you save time and money, and don’t feel like you’re “held hostage” by your lack of knowledge or skills. It sets them up as the kind of people and business you want to do business with because you LIKE them and TRUST that they have your best interests in mind.

1. It sets up the dry cleaning company and it’s owner, manager or employee as being highly knowledgeable and highly competent . It sets them up as the kind of people and business you want to do business with because you KNOW and TRUST (have confidence) in their ability to handle your problems and deal with you professionally.

Give More!

These two simple examples of “free” information products are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can offer free to your prospects and customers.

You can offer free samples, if you’re in a business that would benefit by that. You can offer a free “qualifying” consultation. You get the idea.

Think of – and implement – anything reasonable that  you can offer for free. Brad Fallon, CEO of Free IQ, calls this “moving the free line: – giving more value, for free, as an important part of your business success. You can watch his video about this topic below. In it, he focuses primarily on Internet Marketing, but you can easily transfer this concept your offline business as well.

And remember, great customer service doesn’t cost anything more than lousy customer service. Make being committed to offering truly outstanding customer service – before and after the sale – a high priority on your “free” bucket.

What Do You Think?

Do you agree that providing prospects and customers with more for free adds dollars to your bottom-line profits?

What ideas do you have for implementing this concept in your business?

How have you used “free” in your business, and what results have you achieved?

I look forward to reading your feedback! Leave it here as a comment, of course.

Jay Aaron
Strategic Visionary / Visionary Strategist
Follow me on Twitter: http://Twitter.com/newthoughts

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