I need your advise on free gift giveaway.

[Robert]

I can get a small item, costing only about 15p, which I could give away as a free gift. I'd say that it would be useful to 75% of my market.

( Obviously I don't want to go into too much detail here, if possible )

I thought I could create a website ( freewidget.com ) where people could order the item. But this website would heavily advertise my real business which would hopefully get my name known in this market.

15p is effectively the same price as 1/2 a Google Adword click for me.

The problem is if I spend 21p on postage plus 4p envelope that's 40p per giveaway. So I thought I'd give it away free if they'd pay postage.

But how would I take payment of 25p?

I could ask people to send an SAE I suppose. But is there something else I can do? Paypal/Nochex are out due to charges.

[crus]

Give it away free,

a good example of this type of marketing was an email going around giving away a tiny pack of jelly beans in return for your a1 marketing data.

I would go down that rouot and get someone to sponsor the email confirmation or the packaging to cover the cost.

D

[Robert]

Sponsoring is something I had not thought of. Interesting...

[Bizgifts]

Robert,

If you struggle to find a sponsor, just do a few calculations to see if it is worthwhile using the giveaway.

Eg if you give 500 away at a cost of £200 from which you receive an average of 2 new clients worth at total of £600 profit, then you have a a good return on investment. You may only get 1 client, but worth an average £1000 profit over the next 2-3 years, still a good return.

Calculate your anticipated conversion rate and profit per customer either from one transaction or over a period of time and you will get a good idea of whether you need a sponsor or not.

I'd avoid getting people to pay postage unless your £0.15 widget has a far greater perceivable value.

Good Luck

Mark