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Marketing Strategies
Reduce Your Costs With Barter Offers
Imagine the scenario. You've seen a product or service on the
Internet that you'd love to purchase. You can see the benefits
of what they're selling, and you're sure that their services
will benefit your business.
So, what do you do? On impulse, you pull out your credit card
and proceed to the secure order form.
But wait a minute... what if you can offer this company your
product or service in exchange for what they're offering? Have
you ever thought of this before?
Before I explain further, just think for a moment of the
possibilities that this concept can hold.
Here we see yet another advantage of conducting business over
the Internet. I mean, could you imagine going into your local
supermarket and asking if they could exchange the price of your
weekly shopping for one of the services you offered?
On the Internet, exchanging services is easy. I'll go into
how you should do it in moment, but first let's look at the
advantages that Barter Offers can produce:
You'll save lots of money, because you can exchange your own
products/services for theirs instead of spending your
hard-earned cash.
Most of the time, all it takes is one email to set-up an
exchange between two people, therefore it's quick and easy.
It's a great idea for mutual advertising opportunities,
because you can both benefit from each other's traffic.
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How To Set-Up Your Barter Offer
Step 1:
First of all, you must consider what you're willing to exchange
as a trade for the other person's product or service.
Are you sure they'll benefit from your offer? If not, then
chances are they won't even consider the barter offer.
For instance, there's no point in trying to exchange
advertising services that targets an audience of pet food
suppliers, with someone who sells cars.
Step 2:
Make sure your offer is fair. Don't try and exchange $20 worth
of services for a product that's worth $150.
Once you've worked out your exchange, draft out an email
message that you'll send to the person explaining your offer.
Focus on the benefits that they'll receive from the offer. They
need to know that it's worth trading their own products/services
for.
Step 3:
Wait for the reply, and respond with further information if
they're interested. If they don't want to exchange services,
don't take rejection too seriously. Simply move on to someone
who will want to barter.
An Example Of A Barter Offer:
Below is just one example of how the barter offer could come in
handy, and what you could do to set it up.
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Advertising Exchange
Bill offers banner advertising on his website that
specifically targets an audience of Internet Marketers and Web
Promoters.
He sells 10,000 banner impressions for $99, and he's looking
to do an exchange with another company who would be willing to
show his advert in exchange for a banner on his website.
In his search he comes across Fred, who owns a newsletter
with a subscriber base of 5000 Internet Marketers. He thinks
this would make a perfect exchange, so he takes a look at the
prices they're charging for newsletter advertising.
He sees that they sell classified adverts in that issue for
$20 per issue. So, Bill emails Fred with an offer. In it, he
explains that he's willing to trade 10,000 banner impressions
for his advert to appear in 4 issues of the newsletter. (total
value - $80).
Fred sees that he's gaining at least a $20 value for
exchanging with Bill, and as it doesn't cost him anything to
place adverts in his newsletter, he agrees to the offer.
The result: Both Bill and Fred gain extra website exposure
without paying a cent. See how this could be useful for you?
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Tips For Offering Your Barter
Try and offer the other person something of a slightly
higher value than what you're wanting from them. This makes them
feel that they're getting a bargain, and increases your chances
of them agreeing to the exchange.
Email your letter directly to the person who supplies the
service or product. Personalize the email and mention their own
products and services in the message. This will attract further
attention.
Explain why you want to exchange services, and let them know
how it will benefit them. Most of the time they don't care about
what you're gaining from it, they're in the offer to get what
they can for themselves.
So next time you're about to purchase a product or service
from someone, think. Would they be interested in doing an
exchange with you? There's no harm in asking :-)
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