Free is a word with a catch. Either free is a word used in marketing to entice you to a larger sale or free is a way to get you to give up information that you would not normally let go of. In either case, there is a price attached to free. Yet, it is one of the best marketing gimmicks that have ever been invented.

Free is old school marketing at work. For years, free has been used as a loss leader to entice people into a store to make a larger purchase. Think of all the Black Friday sales that will give away some product to the early bird shoppers in their stores. People will stand in line for hours to get this deal! The marketing idea behind giving away a free item is twofold. First, it gets people who are interested in your products in the door. If they are shopping with you they are not shopping with your competition, which is huge! But it also means you have the opportunity to make an offer to get them to buy from you. Most of advertising is brand awareness. When we get someone to respond to your advertising and enter your place of business, call you, etc., to inquire about buying your product, you have taken a critical step in the marketing process. You have stepped out of the Awareness Phase of marketing into First Time Sales marketing. This is the goal of marketing. Free is the gimmick that helps you make that transitional step.

Now let’s take the free concept into today’s techno-savvy world. Free took on a different look when social engagement took off on the web. Social media does not cost anything to participate. We share our likes and dislikes freely. But is it really free? Much like the old school marketing tactics, these free forums are gleaning critical information from you so they can sell you something. On social media, you are defining yourself so you not only fit neatly into a specific demographic (your age, gender, area where you live, etc.), it also thin slices your likes and dislikes (i.e. the music you listen to, movies you watch, types of food you like to eat, etc.) Everything you do on the internet is being watched and categorized to a marketing segment so that you can then be targeted for advertising. If you are using social media to promote your products and services, you know that you can drill down pretty far into specific market segments. Pay-per-click programs give you access to all of this freely gleaned information to advertise to a specific target market.

Now there are a lot of people who really despise social media advertising. They believe it is a nuisance to have to sort through all kinds of unsolicited ads. I cannot open a web site without banner ads trying to sell me something that I have looked at on a Google search. Facebook is also bad about this. However, the smart marketer will recognize this and stay away from traditional advertising in social media. What do I mean by this? Let’s say we are selling tires for automobiles. If I were to post a traditional ad, I might emphasize a special where you could buy three and get one free on new tires. If I am being smart on social media, I would post that I (personally) just got a great deal on tires at the store. I might do a short video of me getting a free tire when I bought three. This becomes a personal endorsement of the tires. If I promote this to a list of people who are in my target market (owners of cars and trucks), it advertises the same product, but does so in a way that is more acceptable to social media users. And if I am being a really smart marketer, I will get everyone who buys three and gets one free to post a picture of themselves on my Twitter account, link their handle so all of their followers see the deal too, and I have a viral ad campaign.

The gimmick of giving away something free to entice a larger sale is as old as marketing itself, but it still works. Be smart about using it to your advantage.