As competition becomes fierce and choices multiply with alarming regularity, marketing needs to raise the bar on the compelling attractiveness of its offers. Not only do these offers need to convince the consumer to use your offering, at times you need to wean consumers away from entrenched competition. This seduction needs a powerful emotional or rational inducement or a combination of both.

Nothing attracts more than a free offer across all product/service categories and almost all kinds of customers (except for the ‘snob value’ conspicuous consumption variety). Marketing needs to leverage ‘free offers’ smartly to attract its target audience and then subtly phase in pricing so that consumer starts respecting the offering (if anything is available for free for a long time, people start doubting its quality). Consumer boredom is the biggest enemy of any promotional campaign; and an intermittent ‘free offer’ breathes new life to old or ongoing products/services campaigns.

Omnipotent Free Offers
‘Free offers’ are one of the most compelling rational brand inducements to attract consumers. A well researched freebie offer can even connect with the user at an emotional / sentimental level in addition to the immediate logical reason (zero risk in purchase). For example a toothpaste brand can offer free dental health checkups. While the rational benefit would be useful, no cost checkups, the emotional connect would be the ‘we care about your well being’ feelings conveyed to target consumers by the toothpaste brand. Freebies in promotional campaigns help build immediate brand connections and if maintained intelligently, build sustainable brand loyalty too. For example the toothpaste brand could also offer free toothbrushes for a year, followed by toothpaste gel sachets and then free oral care accessories like flossing packs etc. This would ensure that the consumer stays loyal to the brand as he would get addicted to the series of freebies offered to him.

Freebies for New Products/ Service launch
New product and service launches face a user dilemma – how to induce existing users to try their untested / unknown offering. Offering free samples of the new offerings is one of the best methods to demonstrate the usefulness of the new product/service. Software companies, web companies and other hi-tech companies offer limited period trial versions of their offerings in the hope that the customer will get ‘hooked’ by the useful features and buy it at a later date. Freebies / trial (beta) versions in the technology sectors also help the manufacturer/service provider to gauge consumer responses through value added critique of their products/services which can then allow the manufacturer to modify the offering accordingly.

Freebie Packaging
Unknown product / service brands from small startups face a big credibility crisis for their product /service brands. In such cases co-branding and affiliate marketing is a proven method for achieving faster success. Here too freebies are of great help. Even though the brand clout of your offer partner (co-branding company / affiliate) is far more; he needs to talk positively about your offering. A freebie is thus needed to compel users of the co-branding/affiliate to start faster sampling of your new offering. Freebies also kick start a useful viral/ word-of-mouth-advertising appeal. “You know, Myer is offering 2 T-shirts free with a pair of Lee Jeans and it’s there only for the next week ” - this promotional offer could spread like wild-fire, enlisting brand supporters to the unknown T-shirt brand (as they are convinced that their trusted brand will not let them down by selling an inferior offering).