By offering consumers access to a sample, trial, discount or experience as part of a marketing campaign it allows marketers to identify these prospects who have not only expressed an interest in their goods or services but who have already opted in to receive communication!
Says Keith Lindsay, New Business Director for Prima-Data, “This site has been born out of two different but convergent global marketing trends. On the one hand we have many products and services that have a marginal cost of very close to zero, making them an attractive option to give away to consumers expressing interest. Added to this, the web offers an avalanche of free content, mostly with revenue streams primarily stemming from ads. Consumers have now actually come to expect a lot for very little!” This new marketing phenomenon has come to be known as “Free Love”.
To quote trendwatching.com:
| FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that's available to consumers online and offline. FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers' ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques. Expect FREE LOVE to become an integral, if not essential, part of doing business. |
Marketers (and SA marketers, in particular) have, for some time, been crying out for decent opt-in leads, especially when those leads are more highly targeted than has been possible in the past. At the same time, consumers are more savvy than ever before - demanding more in exchange for any interaction with marketers. Now, Free4Me brings both of these two groundswell issues together with a compelling value proposition for both consumers and marketers alike.
Marketers can now offer consumers something valuable, but still cost-effective on the Free4me site in exchange for their details and permission to communicate with them - and in doing so, have access to those consumers who have already indicated they are interested in their product or service.
Prima-Data is confident that this mutual value-creation will develop Free4Me into one of the most sought after marketing platforms in SA, allowing clients to more accurately target these willing consumers via email. And, because consumers are responding to specific offers, response and conversion rates are expected to exceed those traditionally expected for existing 'cold' prospects.
“In a very short space of time, we have been amazed how marketers are able to create value out of nearly nothing. Be it redundant stock or promotion goods, soon to be updated publications, trial vouchers or simply valuable information, we have found that companies are able to create great consumer value to stimulate interest, thereby driving site registration.”
“What excites us most is the sustainability of the model,” says Lindsay. “We strive to minimise the ‘winner-takes-all' competition approach, rather opting for the ‘everybody gets something' model, even if it is simply a guaranteed discount.”
The site is also bristling with some fresh ideas for advertisers. “One of our innovations has been added functionality that allows marketers to load their own offers (for free of course!) in a stripped down offering on the Free4Me site. Marketers can then opt to trade up to premium campaigns which provide them with additional functionality such as profiling or research questions as well as the full data set of respondents to their own offer. Links are also provided to the client's homepage or a promotional page."
Another Free4Me innovation is the ability of registered users to rate the offers published on the site. In other words, really cool and great-value offers will be rewarded by floating to the top of the listings!
Check out www.Free4Me.co.za as it continues to add offers that turn browsers into prospects and prospects into customers, all the while, spreading their own brand of “Free Love” on the SA marketing landscape!
For more info on www.Free4Me.co.za, contact Keith Lindsay on , 021 468-4004 or 083 275 5761.
