One business method that is both a sure way to build customer loyalty and is also great for reaching out to new clients, is often overlooked. It is the concept of giving something away for free. For example, you can give away a trial size in the hopes of getting an order. If you have ever visited the food court in your local mall, you will have seen this method of giving put into practice rather aggressively. It doesn’t matter how many Asian or Chinese restaurants there are, they all offer you samples of their chicken in hopes of getting the sale. They know that if they give away enough samples, they will turn some of those taste testers into buyers. Those that sell cookies in the mall do the same thing. What’s better after eating some salty chicken, than a fresh chocolaty cookie.

If you go to the different cosmetic brands represented in stores like Macy’s, JC Penney, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, they will offer trial sizes of makeup in an effort to get the sale. It’s also hard to walk through these stores without being offered the opportunity to test the latest men’s and women’s fragrances.

You may not be able to give away a sample of your product for your business. You may not even sell a product. If you have a service based business, you can give add-on services to the sale in an effort to close the deal. For example, if you have a steam cleaning business, you might offer to clean the stairs for free if a certain amount is spent by the customer.

When we purchased our car recently, the dealer threw in a free oil change and also offered to have the car cleaned again at their expense. I wouldn’t say that alone was enough to close the deal but it did make us feel better about the purchase. Some things that you can always give away and make a great lasting impression are smiles and kind words. These are free and can go a  long way in making someone’s day better. Always remember that we do business with those that we like.

So, what can you give away?

A lot of companies are going through tough times in today’s global recession and many companies have closed their doors permanently as a result. One of the reasons that they may no longer be in business is because they did not spend enough money!  They cut back on expenses too much. Let me be a little more specific here. They cut back on the wrong expenses.

It is alright to cut back on expenditures like new desks, chairs, memo pads, computers, software, and office supplies, but when it comes to things like marketing to get more customers, or spending money on client projects, you must refuse to cut back. Not having the newest computer more than likely will not put you out of business, but cutting back on the quality used on your product or service could very well create unhappy clients that will take their money and referrals elsewhere, and that truly can be the beginning of the end for your business.

When hard times hit companies, they often pull back the reins on spending and many times to a fault. Advertising and marketing are some of the first places that are cut back. But if you think about it, when you begin to remove your company’s voice from the marketing and advertising world, then you have just increased the ability of your competitors to reach even more customers by your absence  and thus increasing their market share. The best time to advertise and market is in a tough economy because there is less competition and it is simply easier to win.

So, when you are having to make tough budget decisions, elect to order a few less gel pens rather than cut back on your ability to service and reach new customers. This decision alone can help you not only sustain your business in tough economic times, but increase your market share when others are closing their doors.

This is what the marketing model looks like when applied to social sites like Twitter.

1. Target your customers quickly and easily through Twitter

You can find and follow potential clients online very quickly by using the Advanced Twitter search feature that lets you geo-target them within a certain radius and city. With it, you can get pretty specific quickly with Twitter when it comes to reaching out to potential clients. You can also use sites like Nearby Tweets to target in on future customers with their geo-targeting and industry specific search features.

2. Build Your Twitter Followers

Once you have located and followed them, tweet about content that is helpful and informative to your potential client, and they may return the “love” and follow you back. If you badger them with sales messages, you can expect a very poor follow rate.

3. Create a Blog

Include your link on Twitter in your profile that gives people the option to dig a little deeper into what your services and products are. You do not have to set up a blog but you will get the most benefit if you do and we will discuss why in the next step. You can also use a website or your Facebook page to provide more information about your products and services. Make it easy for visitors to find your services, products, and special offers once they arrive from Twitter onto your site.

4. Write Quality Blog Content

There are plug-ins available for Word Press that allow you to tweet the title of your blog posts automatically to Twitter. The tweet will include a link back to the blog article where people can read the full blog post. Once they are on your site, that is your chance to sell to them. These Twitter posts that include your links may get retweeted to their followers which will bring your blog more traffic.

5. Track the Traffic and Results

You should be tracking and taking a look at your traffic statistics to get a good understanding of where your traffic is coming from and how much traffic you are getting. Google offers the very popular free tool known as Google Analytics to help you do this. It is very easy to set up and only takes about 10 minutes to do so. By tracking your Twitter traffic, you will see what is getting you the best results and you will be able to adjust accordingly for better results.

There are many forms of media that can be utilized as tools for an effective marketing campaign. There are billboards, magazines, websites, email campaigns, brochures, direct mail pieces, posters, television ads, newspapers, radio spots,  promotional items such as your company slogan on a coffee mug, and lastly, social media sites like Twitter. We will refer to these tools as forms of media. All of them can be effective when used properly. Over time the tools in our toolbox may change, but the laws of marketing do not and must be applied to every tool in our  marketer’s tool belt. When a new tool appears it does not change the laws of marketing, it just changes how we reach the customer. It is merely a channel.

Here is a quick breakdown of the 4 laws of marketing that are used without such tools as Twitter and other forms of social media:

1. Locate Your Customer

First we must create a profile of the ideal customer. We need to determine  such things as their age, race, gender, yearly income, location, and educational level to name a few. We also need to know how and where they spend their time. Whether it’s when they are online, at work, or in a store. The data that we are gathering at this stage is commonly known as demographics.

2. Create Your Campaign

Once we know who our customer is, then we must reach them with the best tool or tools in our tool belt. For example, if you know that women who go to a certain mall purchase high end purses, then a billboard closely located to the mall featuring your high end purse would be the proper tool to use to help influence the desired purchase, even if you sold solely through an 800 number, and did not have a store in the mall.

3. Track the Campaign

You need to know what your sales numbers are before and after the campaign in order to measure the results effectively. It’s obvious that if net profits increased then the campaign was a success, and if they went down, we need to analyze the campaign to determine why. Once the campaign was run, we then must make adjustments to the campaign even if we had a net profit. With just a few little tweeks, we may be able to make more money from an already successful campaign.

4. Survey Your Customers

Poll your customers to find out where they saw your ads. Continue to put the most marketing dollars into the highest performing ads while closely monitoring the lesser performing ads. Don’t cancel the weaker ads immediately. Be sure to give them a little time before you declare them a success or failure.

When you go to Twitter.com, you will notice that you can send Tweets and DMs on the homepage, but you are restricted in what you can view on your screen.  Twitter only allows you to view a couple of tweets at a time. You can set up groups, but if you are following a lot of people or companies, then you will miss out on a lot of tweets because of the limited screen space.

What many people choose to do is to use free software that is readily available online. By doing so, you will have increased control to read, post and reply to tweets. Some of the more popular free solutions out there are:

Spaz – Which offers a mobile version and changeable skins. They also offer a desktop version of their application as well.

Tweetdeck – Allows you to create groups, auto shortens URLs for you, runs on Mac and PC, and you can organize everything into columns.

Twhirl – This application can be downloaded and run on your computer. It allows you to handle a few Twitter accounts at the same time. Twhirl also lets you update other social media accounts such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace to name a few.

With any of these free Twitter interface solutions, your Twitter experience will be more enjoyable and more productive.