Marketing Tip #231: Give something away for free, upfront, and expect nothing in return
by Fred Roed on 02/10/07 at 3:02 pm
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I love the news about Radiohead’s middle finger to the music industry (read about it here). They’re letting the purchaser decide what they want to pay for their upcoming release ‘In Rainbows‘ in a few days time. Brilliant. Download it off their website, and then cough up any amount of money you choose (if anything).
The music industry is in hysterics.
Remember, Prince did something similar recently when he gave his latest album ‘Planet Earth’ away in the UK by inserting it in a popular newspaper. Everyone thought he was crazy. He caused an uproar, with certain luminaries in the industry saying things like ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.‘ The result: a sell-out tour to the UK, a whole bunch of ecstatic fans, and millions of extra squid in his pocket. In hindsight, giving his hard work away for free seems like a pretty smart marketing move.
We at World Wide Creative are trying something similar with the Heavy Chef Sessions, where we arrange a free workshop / seminar at the end of every month for our clients. This takes a lot of time, effort and money to organise, and we’ve yet to earn a cent from our endeavours. However, the plan is that the goodwill with our clients will make it all worthwhile.
Jon Hughes, ex World Wide Creative team-mate and Ideate co-founder, went to a talk by Raymond Ackermann a few years back. The aging Pick n’ Pay retail magnate shared some nuggets of wisdom which Jon shared with us, and that have always stuck with me. The best one was: ‘Create an island of loss in a sea of profit‘
In other words: give something away for free or at break-even, so that you can make money in other areas.
In the meantime, diarise the 10th October to get your reward from the Radiohead site. After all, what comes around, goes around…
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
