Marketing Publicity Riddle for Annie Jennings PR - Should This Expert Offer $6,000 Consult for Free?

    BELLE MEAD, NJ, December 02, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Test your marketing and PR knowledge along with Annie Jennings. Annie notices an expert is taking a big risk in his marketing and examines the pros and cons. Is it a good idea to offer $6,000 per hour consults for free to get new clients? Let's find out!

All right, let's get inside the mind of Annie Jennings and find out what she thinks of this marketing scheme:

Here is the marketing scheme: Expert business consultant advertises he will give his $6,000 per hour consulting services away for free.

Annie's first thought is that this comes on top of all of the other marketing schemes packed with free offers of $60,000 or more worth of free stuff when you sign up for a Teleseminar or buy a $20 book, and initially it seems ridiculous.

(Why is Annie referring to this approach as a scheme? It's a funny word to use. Annie says the reason is that "it feels like something other than real marketing. It feels like a trick.")

So Annie decides to look up the word "scheme" just to see why the word seems to describe this marketing method.

Dictionary meaning of 'scheme': A secret and cunning plan, especially one designed to cause damage or harm.

But let's take a closer look at the "scheme-strategy".

Let's ask a question: Is it possible to offer $6,000 worth of consulting services for free and make it work for you? Annie says this is what you need to maybe make this work:

1. You have to be a highly established and respected expert in your target market with serious name brand recognition.

2. Your target market must have complete certainty you really do charge $6,000 per hour (not just pretend to for purposes of your marketing scheme) and everyone needs to know this in advance for sure.

3. I repeat: You have to really bill $6,000 per hour and have billed this way consistently over time and not just wish you could.

Oopsie: Now, let's look at some of the ways this marketing approach can backfire. For starters, you better hope the client (or clients) who have paid the $6,000 per hour does not see your offer.

After all, how would you feel if you paid $6,000 for something and then find out you could have gotten it for free? It's crazy and confusing.

This can happen: Plus, it gets people thinking that you should refund the money of everyone who paid $6,000, right? It gets even worse. Your prospective clients are getting really mixed signals and that weird nagging feeling in their gut that:

1. You are desperate.

2. If you have to give away your $6,000 per hour services, then you are not worth the price.

3. If you were worth $6,000 per hour, why are you marketing like this? (I told you it was crazy and confusing)

If the market has established your worth as $6,000 per hour by actually paying it, then you don't need to make this offer, because I would think at this point, there would be better ways to get new clients.

At the end of the day, this expert certainly gets attention, that's for sure.

But I think it is the wrong kind of attention. All heart, Annie

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