By Jay Conrad Levinson
Author, "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books
Over 14 million sold; now in 39 languages
The best-selling marketing series in history

LET YOUR PROSPECTS FEEL LIKE YOUR CUSTOMERS

This is the time to think freely. This is the time to think as hard as you can of what you can give away to your prospects for free. If you can possibly give away your product or service for a limited time, you have a good chance to habituate your prospects to your offering and a great chance to prove your service superiority. The idea behind this strategy is:

GIVE PROSPECTS AN OWNERSHIP EXPERIENCE FOR FREE.

You're in business because you offer a product or service that delivers desirable benefits. You're in business because you're better than many of your competitors. You're in business because you want to earn hefty profits consistently.

As a guerrilla, you are able to surpass customer satisfaction and allow those who patronize your business to experience customer bliss. They can tell how conscientious you are by means of your follow-up, by the way you pay attention to details in their life and business. Customers of guerrillas are as contented as customers can get.

That's why you must give serious consideration to transforming all of your prospects into customers. If they won't do it by purchasing what you have to offer, regardless of your investment in marketing, perhaps they'll purchase what you have to offer if they first can try it at absolutely no cost.

If they have the experience of owning what you offer, they'll understand the advantages of being your customer. And then, they'll be far more likely to actually make the purchase.

This means that a prime marketing investment will be your freebie. It will be a limited time use of your product or a limited time use of your service. You'll be giving those valuable things away for free, risking that you'll get nothing in return. But if you're truly confident in your quality and service, that risk is dramatically minimized.

Here is what guerrillas give away for free:

1. They give gift certificates to their own business, whether the certificates are for products or services.

2. They give printed brochures to anybody who requests one.

3. They give electronic brochures, on audio and video, once again to people who ask for them. And they are quick to offer their free brochures in their other marketing.

4. They give money to worthy causes and let their prospects and customers know that they support a noble cause, enabling these people to support the same endeavor.

5. They give free consultations and never make them seem like sales presentations. They truly try to help their prospects.

6. They give free seminars and clinics because they realize that if their information is worthwhile, it will attract the right kind of people to them.

7. They give free demonstrations to prove without words the efficacy of their offerings.

8. They give tours of their facilities or of work they've accomplished elsewhere, again transcending standard marketing tools they might employ.

9. They give free samples because they know that such generosity is the equivalent of purchasing a new customer at a very low price.

10. They give invaluable information on their website, realizing that such data will bring their customers and prospects back for more, thereby intensifying their relationships.

In addition to these, guerrillas are creative in dreaming up what they might give for free. Of course, many advertising specialties such as calendars and scratchpads, mouse pads and ballpoint pens are emblazoned with their names and theme lines, but guerrillas exercise extra creativity as well.

The highest form of that creativity is displayed when they give for free what they ordinarily sell. HotMail attracted more than ten million customers for its free email service. Now, that service is supported by advertising. By ending each free email from the sender with an offer for free email for the recipient, MSN's Hotmail uses word-of-mouse to the ultimate.

The investment of your free product or service for a limited time must be measured against your current marketing investment. But if you're a guerrilla, your quality and service will prove more than anything you can ever say in a marketing context. Your customers truly enjoy being your customers. Now, they know why you are so confident in your offering. Nothing can substitute for an actual ownership experience.

I realize that all companies cannot give what they sell for free, not even for a limited time. But if you can see daylight in giving your offering for free, you might lift your marketing to the highest level while forming bonds that might otherwise have never been established.

Jay

Jay Conrad Levinson The Father of Guerrilla Marketing