Some The Best Marketing I Did Was Giving It Away for Free

When I first started Red Squirrel Marketing, I needed to do what every new business needs to do: meet people, build trust and somehow convince local businesses that I could actually help them. Rather than spend weeks talking about myself online or sending cold emails, I decided to try something much simpler. I booked a table in a coffee shop in Aberystwyth and offered local businesses a free one-hour marketing drop-in session.

There was no complicated funnel, no sales presentation and no obligation at the end of it. Businesses booked an hour with me, turned up with whatever marketing problems they were facing, and we talked them through. We discussed websites, social media, branding, advertising, content, customer communication and whatever else happened to be relevant to their business. My only aim was to give them genuinely useful advice they could take away and use.

Over two days I met ten different businesses. Four of them became paying clients almost immediately. Another two eventually became long-term clients. Looking back, that means something I originally set up simply as a way of meeting local businesses ultimately led to work from six of the ten people who walked through the door.

I think there is a useful marketing lesson in that. Professional services can be difficult to sell because people cannot always judge the quality of what you are offering before they buy it. Giving somebody an hour of your thinking changes that. They get to experience how you approach their problems, whether you understand their business and whether they would actually enjoy working with you. Trust starts to build before anybody has discussed a contract.

It also worked because the session was genuinely designed to help rather than disguise a sales pitch. I wasn't withholding the useful bit until somebody paid me. I gave people ideas, challenged some of their thinking and tried to leave every business in a better position than when they arrived. Some took the advice and went away. Others decided they would rather have me help them implement it.

I've often thought I should do something similar again. Not because I expect exactly the same conversion rate, but because I still like the principle behind it. Find a room, invite a handful of businesses in, spend some time understanding what they are trying to achieve and give them some useful marketing thinking with no strings attached.

Sometimes the most effective way to demonstrate what you can do is simply to sit down with someone, have a coffee and start helping.