If you have worked with me at all you have heard me talk about giving away free content…blogs, video and maybe even a free class or session. If you just gasped in horror when I said free class or session…don’t stop reading yet. This blog is for you!
Just this week one of my clients mentioned that the research shows free doesn’t bring in your target client. I found this comment interesting because so much of what I have learned about in the marketing world says the opposite. Everyone I’ve learned from says the best thing you can do is give away free content so potential clients can get to know you and most importantly trust you. So I decided to do some research myself and see if I could find “the research” she was talking about and read more about it. I headed to google and started searching. I have to tell you I am pretty good at finding just about anything on google but I struggled with this one. I put it a lot of different topics, keywords, etc. and could not find one bit of research that mentioned giving away things for free was not good for sales.
In fact, I found just the opposite. I found a lot of great articles that talked about how giving away free content was absolutely the way to go! I’ve included just a few of my favorites here below in case you want to read up.
One of my favorites articles talks about samples in the grocery store. I could totally relate to this example. I don’t know about you but I have walked out of Costco with extra things I didn’t even know I needed because of the samples!!
I’m not saying you need to give away a free month of classes or 5 private sessions….but if you are trying to get someone who has never done Pilates to come in and pay for high end services like Pilates classes and private sessions, I think you will be much more successful in getting them to buy and keeping them as long term customers if they have a chance to know you and experience what you do.
If you are not ready take the plunge into offering some free “tastes” of your services to new clients I highly suggest you start writing more blogs and doing more videos so clients can get to know you! The key to people making a buying decision often comes down to the trust they have in you. It’s absolutely vital to find ways to let people get to know you and create trust.