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vangogh
05-26-2009, 05:14 PM
Interesting post at CopyBlogger, The Golden Rule of Online Marketing (http://www.copyblogger.com/golden-rule-of-online-marketing/), that defines the golden rule in this context and leads to a nice example of how to make it work.


Golden Rule of Online Marketing: Give Something Valuable Away in Order to Sell Something Related.

The example looks at an artist and gets at the root of what people really want when they buy his art. It asks what he could give away that would put people in the frame of mind to buy the art.

Definitely worth a read.

Obvious ideas in this context:

1. Blogging in order to sell products or services related to your topic
2. Offering a free email newsletter in order to build a targeted list
3. Giving away free resources to attract links

The idea is really to give something away of value in order to get something back.

Do you give anything away? Does it work? Any ideas to add to the obvious ones above?

KristineS
05-27-2009, 12:58 PM
That is an interesting article. I think there's a lot of validity to it. You have to have something to get people to your site other than your products. Maybe it's a blog, maybe it's education, maybe it's just an offer that tells them you can fix a problem they have. You have to have bait of some kind.

On most of our sites we give away information. Either tips on how to grow a business or tips on how to use our products for maximum benefit. We try to be educational, since most of our customers are small business owners who are looking to develop their businesses further.

I think one caveat to this idea is that what you're giving away has to be valuable to your target audience. You can give away all the newsletters you want, but if your content isn't relevant and well written it won't have any value to your target customer base. You have to figure out what your will motivate your customers and then give them that thing for free. Random free things won't be motivating.

vangogh
05-27-2009, 01:33 PM
hat you're giving away has to be valuable to your target audience.

Absolutely. You have to give away something your market wants and what you're selling should meet the needs or wants of some of the market absorbing your freebie.

I thought the example in the article interesting. I like how it goes to the real benefit a person is getting from this particular artists work and then comes up with the freebie that also goes to that benefit. It's not an obvious freebie for an artist, but I think it would work well. It shows how a little creativity can be the thing for any business.