Marketing

Summary: Learn why you should offer an ethical bribe to get people to take action.

The incentive technique you are about to lear is as common these days as Starbucks coffee shops, but the principle applies whether you’re asking people to join your mailing list or trying to get them to complete their online orders.

What am I talking about is the “Ethical Bribe”. Better known as offering someone an incentive to take some form of action. Sign up for a mailing list, complete an online order, tell a friend, you name it.

You’ve seen it hundreds of times. Amazon offers free shipping. TracFone offers free minutes for referring a friend. You get a free report, a free trial, a free bonus, etc. This form of freebie incentive has been around offline forever.

It’s the same online. You do this and I will give you that. Only, online the give away is usally something that doesn’t “cost” anything. It’s a free report, or free access, or a free service. Online, the incentive can be anything that is perceived to have value to the prospect.

Should you offer an ethical bribe to your customers? Take the customers point of view. Sign up and get something beats sign up and get nothing everytime and if someone needs a final nudge to take action then your incentive might just be the thing tips the balance and makes the deal.

Of course, you need to balance this with not creating an out of pocket expense and you need to pull the prospect through a series of steps to pre-qualify them as something more than just a freebie seeker.

I know, I know, your thinking you don’t have time to create a free something to give away to people. Well, here’s the genius part of the Internet. Look around for a product that you can buy and give away to your list.

You can also partner with someone who has a product related to your product or service so you can cross promote their product as an incentive for your own. Offer a give away when they do X. People are always looking for ways to cross promote and share traffic.

One last point to remember is that this is an ethical bribe. So, stay on the right side of the equation. If you have to wonder if your incentive has gone to far or has infringed on someone elses copyright, then just don’t do it. You can always contact that person to ask permission.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com