Video Guide: How to Build a Brand with Free Stuff

Hi, I’m Mike Essex, the Online Marketing Manager here at Koozai. Today I’m going to talk to you about the power of free stuff and how it can help build awareness of your brand online. We’ve got six separate strategies that we are going to go through today, and if you’d like any more information on any of these strategies, there is a more detailed blog post available at Koozai.com.

The first thing I’m going to talk to you about is reviews, which is the typical approach of giving away products and then asking people to talk about them online. What you need to do in this case is find bloggers in your niche that are already talking about your type of product or your competitor’s products and approach them and ask them to cover yours. Find blogs that are already quite popular, that have got a good readership, a decent page rank always helps as well, and then ask them first. Don’t just send them a product because you may be wasting your time. If they are interested in covering it, then all you have to do is send it and then engage with the blogger until they talk about it.

Next up we’ve got trials. Giving someone a 30 day trial of your product is a really good way to hear what people think and also to convince people that your product is worth purchasing. If you’ve got digital media, then this is fantastic because you can prove to them that your product is worth using. Even if you’ve got a physical product, then you can also give it away for 30 days, so in effect you’re lending it to the person and then if they like it, you just continue to charge them on a monthly or weekly basis.

Next we’ve got competitions. Just like the reviews, find relevant websites and give them some product to give away. A good thing to look for in this area is blogs that have competitions that you have to tweet or “like” to enter, because this helps build social awareness as well. So every time people enter, they’re mentioning your product and it just continues the debate about your brand.

Then we’ve got information. So if you can see that people online are looking for information that they may normally have to pay to find out, then you could give it to them for free. A recent example is people looking for Super Bowl start times. People couldn’t find it anywhere on the Internet. So wehen someone just wrote a blog post about it, they got themselves a lot of traffic. They saved the people from buying a TV Guide to find out themselves, and they had AdSense on there, so they made a bit of money as well. If you can see a need for content that you can give people for free, then go for it that way.

Likewise, knowledge. If you can give away information on your business, not corporate secrets, but just enough to whet people’s appetite, it proves that you know what you’re talking about and your brand. We do these videos, for example, to raise awareness for Koozai, and we’re giving you information for free. So even if you’ve got something like a radiator, you can show people how that radiator is made and then walk them through the process. It just proves that you know how to make radiators, just because you’ve given away that free information.

Last of all we’ve got guarantees. Like free trials, a money back guarantee proves that you’re confident in your product. If people don’t like it, they can return it. Generally, a really low proportion actually do return it, but you’re just proving to people that the product is good and they, in effect, won’t have to return it. The free offer is there, but very few people will take you up on it.

Using these six strategies is a really good way to prove that your product is good and to gather positive mentions online. You don’t need to do all of them straight away, and I’m not advising that you go out and give away £100,000 of products overnight. It has to be controlled through blogger outreach and brand monitoring, which are topics that we will cover in future videos. But for now, just try giving away a little bit of information, a few products here and there and see what you can get from it.

I hope you’ve found this video guide useful, and for more information on Koozai, visit Koozai.com or “like” our Facebook page or follow us on YouTube. Thanks for your time.