Everybody, especially small businesses, have been chatting up a frenzy about Chris Anderson's new book and Wired article, "Free." It's an exciting and thought-engaging concept that examines how giving services, products, and other things for free can actually push your business above the competition.
What I felt was the most important point to mention to our readers, about the concept of "Free," was the fact it wasn'...
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Everybody, especially small businesses, have been chatting up a frenzy about Chris Anderson's new book and Wired article, "Free." It's an exciting and thought-engaging concept that examines how giving services, products, and other things for free can actually push your business above the competition.
What I felt was the most important point to mention to our readers, about the concept of "Free," was the fact it wasn't really a magic pill that solved the problems of a small business.
What "Free" does for a small business is actually quite simple and important, but it's definitely not the answer to all your problems. What it does do is lead to sampling and, furthermore, permission to engage with the potential clients/customers. Permission marketing, something we stress here a lot, is your change to speak back to the potential customer/client when they are ready to listen.
We here at LittleEngine give away free Small Business profiles/account in order to get your permission to talk to you about what we are doing and get you sampling our services. Hopefully you love what we are doing, and possibly upgrade to a pro account. However, we know there is no rush or push to get you to go Pro — if you love it, you'll go Pro (we're sure of this!)
This is permission marketing at its best and leads to many things, such as word of mouth and viral marketing. So when thinking of giving away something for free, don't think of it as the answer to all your problems — think of it as another way to get permission to talk to potential customers and clients.
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