Free is wonderful, but it doesn’t work in every situation, especially not when you are short on cash, or worried about your personal finances in the near future. So how can you energise your sales in other ways? We have compiled five easily implemented alternatives to free products or services that will charm your customers, and help spread the word about your business.
Alternative 1: Free Shipping
Who doesn’t love free shipping? It is a slightly boring way to appeal to your customers, but it always works.
There is something annoying about delivery fees and despite having been in business for years myself, I still can’t point exactly to the reason. Goes to show how we buy with emotions though.
Alternative 2: Sell At A Small Discount To All
Shave a bit off the prices for any customer. Remember to do your calculations first, or you risk losing money. When deciding on a percentage, the number 10 sounds so small compared to 100, so 30 seems more generous. But that is a lot! Even 20% off is significant.
Start the math from what you would give up and you will view it differently. You need to feel comfortable after the sale, too.
Alternative 3: Sell At A Heavy Discount To Few
Scarcity is an option, if you feel like going bigger. Offer the 5 or 50 first customers (depending what you sell of course) 50% off.
It creates shock value, and your audience is bound to notice. Once the huge sale is off, you can surprise them by offering a 10% discount to everyone still interested.
Alternative 4: Add A Bonus Offering For Free
A bonus could be a free complementary product such as a tie to a shirt, or mini course to a full-sized course. Or you could provide a support session of 30-60 minutes as add-on to a premium course.
But what if you are offering services rather than products? Most of us are familiar with guarantees when buying things like electronics, but could you come up with a clever way to add one to a service? Anything unexpected usually gets people’s attention.
Alternative 5: Restricted Free Due To Necessity
By restricted free we are thinking of a short campaign to raise awareness, which may help new customers find their way to you in the future.
An example is a local juice bar which inventory was about to go bad due to the pandemic. They decided to use it all up by donating to a hospital. Obviously it was primarily about supplies going to waste and reluctance to let it happen, but getting a bit of press isn’t harmful. Good deeds don’t go unnoticed.
Besides free due to the product expiring, you could create a free offer for a limited time due to limited imventory space. Maybe your older collections take up too much space, so to get more of the inventory moving, you offer up some for free. The average discount then can still be manageable, but a customer may feel like they have made a better bargain compared to a generic discount code. The human mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.
Come Up With More Of Your Own Alternatives!
You know your business and audience the best, so choose a way that doesn’t feel gross to them. Sometimes completely free is best, whereas in other cases it is unsuitable to sell anything on discount. One size definitely doesn’t fit all when doing business.
We encourage you to get creative and come up with even more alternatives to increase sales by decreasing your profit temporarily. Some revenue is still better than none at all.
What thoughts arise from our examples? Tell us in the comments below!
If you found this blog post helpful, you might enjoy these, too:
- Five Tips For When Business Is Slow
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- Roundup: Blog Posts For The Worried Entrepreneur
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