Sometime in late March, I made an offer to anyone with a COVID-related cause, that I will build them a website for their idea, for free. Call it “corporate social responsibility”, or socially conscious business, I rolled this out via Sweet Jam Sites, my web design-and-build productized service.
Initially it was discouraging, because people who approached just wanted websites for their businesses or personal use, not for COVID. Or they wanted the sun and the moon installed on their website, which I don’t have the bandwidth nor capability to do. But soon came along this NGO called WASH in Southeast Asia. They work on issues of water, hygiene and sanitation, and they needed a simple informational site for a research project they were doing. The site would also be a landing page to collect survey data to better understand behaviours around things like safe distancing and sanitation for COVID. Perfect! I made the site for them within a few days, and after a few rounds of iterations back and forth, the site is now launched! All within two weeks!
This was great fun, and very heartening to be part of. It satisfied the altruistic side of me (especially during my Altruistic April month), and the desire to help make a difference to what is our generation’s World War. It aligns with the ethos in which I like to run my businesses, with Sweet Jam Sites being one of them. I’ll still do it in a heartbeat, without any money, if I’m asked again.
But as part of Money May, the business side of me is now asking: Is FREE ever a good business strategy?
Will giving away free websites bring more influence and marketing value? For sure. But would it be influence and awareness with the right audience (who can pay)? Questionable.
Would this bring in more gigs? I do hope so, but there’s no telling with any degree of certainty.
Does it feel good? Oh damn well it does! But….
With this being the first free site that went out, it’s just n=1 data point. Will report back when I get more data. Hopefully it won’t take a huge n to find the answer to the question asked in my title.
Is FREE a good business strategy?
More marketing experiments to come…