FREE Stuff
That's the key to your marketing success.
It's that simple...give away free stuff and you'll make more money.
One of my friends spends a great deal of money on Pay Per Click ads but doesn't work hard to capture the traffic that the ads drive to him. Sure, he turns some of the visitors into paying clients - but how many of those prospects leave without him ever knowing they were there?
How many will click on his ads again and again, eating up his ad budget when he could have been building rapport with them for free by getting them to subscribe to his newsletter?
He needs to give away something of significant value to the prospect for free to capture them as a lead.
OK - simple enough you say. Everyone does that.
Apparently not.
Let's take it another step further.
My favorite way to sell personal training...free sessions.
I can already hear the 'doctors don't give away their services for free' comments coming my way.
Save your breath...it's a bad argument.
The highest paid doctors in the U.S. are cosmetic surgeons in Beverly Hills and guess what...they give free consultations:)
But let's be honest...I would assume that pretty much everyone has been to a doctor...you know what to expect.
What % of people have worked with a personal trainer?
Let's see...about 14% of the people in the U.S. belong to a fitness facility and only about 3% of the members of fitness facilities utilize a personal trainer.
I'm not very good at math, but I'm pretty sure that's less than .5%.
So we expect people to pay in advance and assume all the risk for something that they likely have zero experience with...and are unwilling to let them test drive it.
No wonder most trainers are poor.
We let every prospect have a free 'test drive'...not just prospective training clients, but also prospective gym members. I wouldn't expect anyone to agree to a 12 month commitment without trying it out first. (Yes, most all of our clients make 12 month commitments.)
If you want to dramatically improve the response rates of your ads, marketing pieces, seminars and anything else you do to generate business - offer a free trial. I suspect you'll be rewarded with response rates that double or triple what you're used to. And if you can deliver on what you promise in the ads - you should have no problem turning these 'test drives' into paying clients.
It's that simple...give away free stuff and you'll make more money.
One of my friends spends a great deal of money on Pay Per Click ads but doesn't work hard to capture the traffic that the ads drive to him. Sure, he turns some of the visitors into paying clients - but how many of those prospects leave without him ever knowing they were there?
How many will click on his ads again and again, eating up his ad budget when he could have been building rapport with them for free by getting them to subscribe to his newsletter?
He needs to give away something of significant value to the prospect for free to capture them as a lead.
OK - simple enough you say. Everyone does that.
Apparently not.
Let's take it another step further.
My favorite way to sell personal training...free sessions.
I can already hear the 'doctors don't give away their services for free' comments coming my way.
Save your breath...it's a bad argument.
The highest paid doctors in the U.S. are cosmetic surgeons in Beverly Hills and guess what...they give free consultations:)
But let's be honest...I would assume that pretty much everyone has been to a doctor...you know what to expect.
What % of people have worked with a personal trainer?
Let's see...about 14% of the people in the U.S. belong to a fitness facility and only about 3% of the members of fitness facilities utilize a personal trainer.
I'm not very good at math, but I'm pretty sure that's less than .5%.
So we expect people to pay in advance and assume all the risk for something that they likely have zero experience with...and are unwilling to let them test drive it.
No wonder most trainers are poor.
We let every prospect have a free 'test drive'...not just prospective training clients, but also prospective gym members. I wouldn't expect anyone to agree to a 12 month commitment without trying it out first. (Yes, most all of our clients make 12 month commitments.)
If you want to dramatically improve the response rates of your ads, marketing pieces, seminars and anything else you do to generate business - offer a free trial. I suspect you'll be rewarded with response rates that double or triple what you're used to. And if you can deliver on what you promise in the ads - you should have no problem turning these 'test drives' into paying clients.
posted by Pat Rigsby at 5:16 PM
