Posted on: 18 July, 2002
Author: Heather Reimer
Don't you just love those nice ladies who stand in grocery store aisles handing out tiny food samples? Garlic sausage hot off the ... the latest ... cheese food on a ... cocktail w Don't you just love those nice ladies who stand in grocery store aisles handing out tiny food samples? Garlic sausage hot off the griddle... the latest processed cheese food on a cracker... cocktail weenies. I was thinking about those ladies and how popular they are while I pondered the marketing of my web content services. You see, recently I decided to copy the cocktail weiner strategy and give something away for free. I had read tons of articles about the magic of "free" but for a long time was skeptical about whether it would work for me... I mean, what on earth can a writer give away free? And hasn't the impact of that over-used four letter word worn off by now? Apparently not. Internet marketing kahuna Jim Daniels gives away copies of his e-book precisely because free works. He says, "Offering a free manual gives me an opportunity to show off my expertise and possibly gain a few more potential prospects and customers... If you can give it away for free, people will remember you." Well, I don't have an e-book to give away. But this is what I did and what you can do, too.My primary means of promoting my writing services is through distributing business- and writing-related articles like this one (a freebie in itself). At the end of each one is a short author's tag which acts as a plug for my services. This is the ONLY advertising I do. Until I had my cocktail wiener epiphany, that tag read like this: "How can you free up more of your precious time and improve your traffic and revenues? Hire an experienced content provider to write and regularly refresh your online material. Heather Reimer has been a professional writer for 16 years. She specializes in custom web content... blah, blah, blah."I used that tag for months with pretty mediocre results. I blamed it on the poor economy and the fact that most webmasters have a tendency to think writing is easy and anybody can do it, so why pay? But that wasn't the entire problem, as I discovered when I tweaked the tag by adding this line:"Get a free content analysis report on your site when you request an estimate." Shazzam! Serious clients started taking me seriously, overnight. Turns out webmasters care much less about my years of writing experience than they do about the possibility of getting help to improve their sites and getting it on the house. It also gives them a chance to see if I know my stuff before they commit to hiring me. The sex-appeal of free could work for you too. But be prepared - there will be the inevitable lollygaggers and time wasters. There will be cheapskates who use your great ideas without hiring you... who take your free samples and make a meal out of them. It happens, it's cool, it's all part of the wonderful world of free. As those nice grocery store ladies can tell you, you have to dish out a LOT of cocktail wieners before somebody buys a package. But the point is that even the nibblers might be back someday because your free gift left such a good taste in their mouths. And when they do, you'll have a second chance to get your product or service into their shopping carts. Article Tags: Cocktail Wiener Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com