Small Business Questions and Answers
1

I have a homemade soap business. I would like to drum up new business around the holidays and was considering offering some free samples that would include a coupon off a later purchase. The only thing that worries me is the offer going viral on the freebie websites. Is there a way to ensure that only legitimate potential customers participate?

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I'm glad that you are aware of the freebie sites, because they will ravage any free offers you might have and while there might be some conversions, I doubt those are the types of qualified leads you're looking for.

My opinion is that rather than giving straight samples for no purchase, give away samples of other soaps with a purchase, so that you can try to cross promote different soaps that might be a bit more obscure. Also, this alleviates the shipping burden of free samples as well.

With any coupons you put out on the net, always try to set limits as well, so that you try to create scarcity.

Such as first 50, or 100 people to buy XYZ candle will get this free sample. Then add a check digit to your coupon code, so that it's like:

XYZ-PROMO-001

XYZ-PROMO-002

XYZ-PROMO-099

XYZ-PROMO-100

This way, you can monitor any codes and be able to cancel the coupon code if it's being used maliciously and out into the wild.

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