Giving Away the Farm – the value of free.

The Internet at large has drastically changed the consumer’s perception of free. Nearly all Internet business models, including Second Life’s, begin with offering access to free content or entertainment and rely on the hope that one day they will convert their audience into paying customers, or find customers that will pay to communicate with their audience.

As a result, the Internet has not only raised the bar on the quality of free, it continues to fuel the consumers sense of entitlement to free goods and services, weakening brand loyalty and creating a commodity shopping mentality.
All that said, why would you consider marketing strategies that are based on giving away the farm? Simple, because it still works – provided your expectations of the promotion are based in reality and your goals are long-term.
Freebies, like loss-leader sales are designed to entice add-on-sales, build brand awareness and acquire new customers by introducing them to your products.

To get the maximum value out of give-away programs, the savvy SL marketer should:

Group messages – no postage necessary

Direct marketing is the science behind junk mail. As the name implies, it is a direct line of communication between the advertiser and a prospective customer. In many ways Group Messages share a number of similarities to traditional direct mail, along with a few new barriers and unique advantages.

A career in traditional direct marketing is an ongoing education on other peoples’ money. While there are a number of strategies that have proven effective over the years, the process of developing high performance direct marketing is all about testing, back testing and more testing. Discovering what you should do is often determined by figuring out what you shouldn’t do. It’s a game that is often scored and won in ¼ percent increments, but what a juicy ¼ percent it can be.

Seeding the Blogs for PR Success.

SL Fashion Bloggers cater to the crème de’ la crème of qualified shoppers, they share their audience freely and their heart, soul, and reputation survive on making themselves and each item they wear desirable. As a result, they are the go to source for the fashion conscious in Second Life as they assume the role of a “personal avatar stylist.”

Really? Could it get any better than having an accomplished stylist present your product in an overly appealing manner (in a wonderful image they created for free) then provide a direct link to purchase it at the heightened moment of impulse bliss? In a word, no – it cannot get any better.

SL Fashion Blogs come in two varieties; those written by independent fashionistas and those published by creators. Both are accessible through numerous RSS feeds or through direct links. While they differ slightly on content strategies they share a common result, product sales.

While it is an admiral goal to eventually publish your own Blog it isn’t necessary if you can win the hearts of a few fashion writers – by showering them with gifts of your highest-quality products. Of course, sending them products will not guarantee you will be published but not sending them will guarantee you won’t.

Before you embark on dumping your entire product on random writers you select of off various blogs, keep in mind the following: