Everyone loves getting something for free, and you can use this behavioural fact to increase traffic to your website and generate qualified leads.

Not everyone who visits a website is ready to make a purchase, and in many cases, consumers will comparison shop, visiting several times before making a decision.

Creating a newsletter is a common freebie, and the result over time is a large mailing list of qualified prospects. In addition to the newsletter, you are able to email announcements of new products or services to this custom-made pool of potential buyers.

Many website owners give away freebies such as a special report or e-book to increase newsletter sign-ups, and this gives visitors to the website an additional incentive to take action.

Another benefit of offering freebies is the valuable market information it provides. A significant response to an offer suggests the item is a hot topic among qualified buyers. Such data can be useful in driving new product development for the business.

There is however one downside of the freebie offer in prospecting, and that is the possibility of attracting people who solely want the free things and are not interested in purchasing anything in the future.

One way to decrease the likelihood of this is to make the free offer enticing only to those in the market for the products and services you offer, and unappealing to those who are not.

Industry stats show that response rates triple when a freebie is offered as incentive for prompt action, effectively lowering your cost per lead.

Even if the free gift increases the total expense of the campaign, the higher volume of qualified leads will result in higher sales volume, thus offsetting the additional expense.