Free

In For Free

Garth Beyer

There are two situations for any club, event, outing, etc,.

1) You pay to get in and then you pay for things inside.

2) You don’t pay to get in and then you pay for things inside.

In both circumstances, you pay for things inside, but there is a large mental processing gap when it comes to how much you’re willing to spend inside.

See, the situations you pay to get in, you’re lead to believe everything inside will be cheaper. It’s not. Then you begin to rationalize your purchases, typically beginning with, “Well, it was already $15 to get in…”

On top of that, you may rebut with an example of an all-inclusive package. Supposedly, you pay for the all-inclusive package and everything “inside” is free. Thing is, it’s never free. When you’re inside, you then have to pay for an upgrade or to get the special drink that’s not included in the package or to get into VIP.

Taking a look at the other side

Everyone loves free. In fact, I’d argue they love getting into something free more than having everything inside be free. When you make an exchange with money, the value of the item (perceptional value) increases. That is, people who, say, buy a brat at a brat fest think the brat tastes better than someone who pays to get into the event and then gets the brat for free.

What does this mean for you and me?

It means to let your customers, clients, friends, strangers into your business for free and then charge them for what’s valuable inside. Consider all the business models that incorporate the situation where customers must pay to get in, then everything inside is free. Newspaper subscriptions. Water parks. Strip clubs. Movies.

Having clientele pay for what’s inside and not pay to get inside is not a flawless model (think Netflix), but it’s one worth considering when developing your business plan. One worth arguing about. Perhaps, one worth rebutting (or supporting) in the comments section below.

 

Stay Positive & Never Underestimate The Power Of In For Free

The Problem With Free

Garth Beyer

You can push out sweepstakes for winners to win free X for a year. You can put out samples after samples, which, by the way, customers never call them samples, they call them free X. You can also give away a free X with each purchase.

You may make friends, customers, clients, by giving X away for free, but the ones you make won’t come back when X is no longer free.

Instead of giving free X’s to strangers, give X along with Y and Z to those you know will be back and those who have come back for X before.

Treasure the friends (customers, clients) you have now and more trustworthy ones will come knocking. And by trustworthy, I also mean those who benefit you as well, those who show up to pay, to give in return to what you offer, not to take free handouts.

 

Stay Positive & Are You Marketing To The Right Friends?

Is Their Attention Worth It?

Garth Beyer

Asking if your attention is worth it is just like asking what you want out of the relationship when you’re the one giving.

Better to ask if their attention is worth it. What are they truly paying when they watch you, buy your product, read your blog? Is it just time? Or are they paying with their child’s college savings? Or are they trading their long-held beliefs and world view for something different that you offer?

There’s a reason why they call it paying attention. Knowing exactly what your audience is giving to get what you offer puts you a step closer at understanding your audience and learning how to tweak the story you’re selling.

 

Stay Positive & Nothing Is Ever Free

Garth E. Beyer

A Matter Of Free

Garth Beyer

Free

Don’t give your honest hard work away for free.

Know what your art is and then make sure you receive respectable payment for it.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t give anything for free. No matter what your art is, there are trillions of other things that you can give for free other than your art.*

I’ve always been satisfied with buying a book and getting additional content for free. Or buying an appliance and getting a discount on a future purchase.

I’ve never been happy buying a book and getting another one from the same author for free. Or paying for a cupcake and getting a toaster oven for free. Is it the cupcake that’s valuable or the toaster oven?

Stick to what you deserve to be paid for. What that is, of course, you get to decide on.

 

Stay Positive & Free Should Not Come At A Price

Garth E. Beyer

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*as it goes, there are exceptions. Keurig can give away free Keurig machines because they know consumers can answer the question, “how does this benefit Keurig?” Consumers know instinctively that Keurig’s main profit comes from people purchasing K-cups, not Keurig machines. Thus, no one wonders why in the world Keurig would give Keurig machines away for free.

Why The Digital Age Is Creating A Stronger Sense Of Community

Garth Beyer

Getting things for free feels so good. Getting things for free when you know you shouldn’t – that feels even better.

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Everything that this digital age is producing – whether it be ads, shifts in cultural norms, or tangible products – the result is the same: a stronger sense of community.

(unrelated to digital age) You go to your favorite local coffee shop and since you bought one Turtle Mocha, you get a second one to go for free. Compare this to going to a local coffee shop and buying one Turtle Mocha, but when you pick it up, the barista gives you a second one to go “on the house.”

(related to the digital age) You get one month of Netflix free, after that one month you have to pay. Compare this to getting one month of Netflix free, and after that one month, you get the username and password of your girlfriends’ parents account.

In the coffee shop scenario, getting something free when you shouldn’t have established a connection between you and the barista (effectively the coffee shop too). In the Netflix scenario, you’ve reaffirmed the connection between you and your girlfriends’ parents (obviously a win-win).

This effect is one of the single most important reasons why I love advertising in the digital age. No matter the success or failure of ads, they always leave a stronger sense of community.

Either you buy into the brand and become part of that brands community (coffee deal drinkers or addicted Netflix supporters) or you find a way to get something free when normally you shouldn’t – be it through pre-existing connections (step-brother, in-laws, etc,) or through making new connections (class mates, coworkers, etc,).

The end result is the same: stronger sense of community.

 

Stay Positive & There’s A Reason It’s Called The Connection Economy

Garth E. Beyer

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Here’s a bonus read. Enjoy.

 

Downgrading What Is Free

Garth Beyer

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As unfortunate as it is, some businesses need to downgrade what they give for free.

Let’s stick with the same example from yesterday. Suppose that this bar and grill that gives large and cool designed mugs to those who go there on their birthday had to downgrade. Suppose they have to make cuts in their budget to stay open. They decide to give away the rest of the large and cool mug supply and replace them with small, round cheap mugs that just have their logo on it.

Unlike upgrading what is free, downgrading what is free hurts the customers you haven’t yet gotten.

On the positive side, it makes those who were there to get the free large, cool designed mugs feel even better. However, this has two repercussions.

1. Feeling better about something doesn’t mean they will want to come back again.

2. Giving something awesome for free is as much about optimizing word of mouth marketing as it is about making someone feel good for coming to your bar and grill, and not someone else’s.

The gamut here is that downgrading what is free risks negative word of mouth. Imagine someone who got the large, cool designed mug on their birthday then invites someone else to the same bar and grill in two weeks to celebrate their birthday, only, neither knows that the bar and grill downgraded their birthday mugs.

You can imagine where this leads.

This leaves us with the question of how we can make downgrading what is free, work. After all, while upgrading is always an option, sometimes downgrading is not.

The answer is, when you can’t change the product to make it better (or when you’re forced to downgrade), change the delivery.

People talk more about what they experienced than what they received anyway.

 

Stay Positive & Over, Over, Over Deliver

Garth E. Beyer

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Upgrading What Is Free

Garth Beyer

NittyGritty

There’s a bar and grill in downtown Madison that gives a birthday mug to all those that go there for their birthday. They also fill that mug up with a free drink of your choice if you couldn’t have guessed.

One year they decided to redesign the mug, making it larger and more aesthetically appealing.

It bummed out all those that had gotten the smaller, less good-looking one.

When you upgrade what is free, it is a sign of your business making progress, but you run the risk of hurting your previous customers. It’s never an easy decision to make when you consider that those who have gone to your bar and grill are more likely to return than those who have never been inside.

The first way to fix this is to give the redesigned, larger mug to everyone to begin with. Don’t wait for the profits to do it. We know that people buy into how things make them feel, what also matters, though, is that what the buy continues to make them feel that way. When free things are upgraded, it devalues the feeling of what has already been given away.

I don’t recommend doing it this way.

The second and ultimately beneficial way of fixing the problem is to reach out to those who already received the smaller, less good-looking mug. Suggest that they can come in and swap their mug with a new one. Or state that for the next month, if they come in with their old mug they get a special dessert put inside it, or a discount on their meal, or another free drink.

When you upgrade what is free, you can’t neglect those who already received the smaller, less good-looking thing.

 

Stay Positive & New Customers Is Progress, Old Customers Is Profits

Garth E. Beyer

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