One marketing concept Dan Kennedy often talks about is to take an idea that is working in another market or business and apply it to your own.

I notice that recently in Internet Marketing the trend is to give away a lot of stuff for free (or nearly free). To lose out on the front end with the long term plan of making money on the back-end. Actually, this isn’t new even by IM terms but marketers are now giving stuff away on a MASSIVE scale (see the recent Stompernet promotion). These promotions cause a major buzz and news spreads virally. It may take 6 months or a year (or longer) to start profiting from an event like this, but the investment will be worth it for future profits.

Of course, anything that is done online has probably been done successfully offline – good marketing is good marketing and will work as well now as it did 100 years ago. Dentists will give away free or virtually free tooth whitening to bring in new clients who will eventually pay high premiums for cosmetic work on their teeth. Housing companies will pay for you to move into your new home because eventually they will see huge profits from your purchase.

And yet, it surprises me that with this marketing tactic working so well for so many years that more companies don’t employ it.

When I worked at TopShop one Christmas 15 years ago, we were told that a customer should always be given a carrier bag when they buy something. In fact, no customer should leave the shop without a TopShop carrier bag. This is another great marketing tactic. As much as we like to think of ourselves as individuals and free thinkers, humans are actually conditioned to follow the crowd, so the more people who are seen with TopShop bags, the more likely others will come in and shop there too.

In this era of environmental ‘friendliness’, it would be silly for a company to insist someone use a plastic carrier bag, and all the supermarkets in the UK now sell bags made of cloth, jute and strong plastic so customers can use them again and again. They also reward customers with pennies off (or loyalty points) for using their own bags, so it’s not unusual for a customer to use Sainsburys branded cloth bags in Tesco and vice versa.

I was thinking last year that it would make a lot of sense for one of the supermarkets to have a Big Green Bag giveaway, where every customer was given at least one re-useable shopping bag. If that bag was branded with their supermarket name, it would create the same effect as the TopShop bags were supposed to create 15 years ago. It wouldn’t matter where they actually shopped, other people would think they were regular shoppers at XXX supermarket. Plus, the goodwill it would create would be enormous.

I waited and waited for a supermarket to run with that idea (OK, maybe I should have contacted my favourite, but that’s what they have marketing departments for). I believe Sainsburys did do something similar back in 2006 but only for customers who bought a certain number of items from their organic range (close but no cigar).

Eventually, Morrisons had the right idea. Only problem was that they gave away strong plastic bags instead of cloth or jute bags. They may last longer but plastic is still plastic and when the bag splits it will still take centuries to biodegrade. They chose the cheap option.

Maybe Sainsburys or Tesco will eventually take a hint from the Stompernet launch and realise the value of giving away stuff on a massive scale i.e. great quality shopping bags, fully branded with their name. When they do, remember you heard it here first (unless I simply missed them do it already) and I will expect my fee from their marketing budget.

In the meantime, think about what you can learn from the Stompernet launch or any other good marketing tactic you see online or offline. How could you apply it to your business?

Related Internet Marketing posts:

1. Internet Marketing Stuff I’m Loving this Week – April 22, 2010
2. Internet Marketing Stuff I’m Loving this Week – June 19, 2010
3. Immediate Edge Revisited and the New Edge Blueprint