I was just reading this article about Google’s abysmal advertising budget and this quote from the writer summed up how great products and services generate natural and amazing marketing on its own:

Like Google, Starbucks made a name for itself by developing a distinctive product that quickly resonated with consumers whose enthusiasm became infectious.

Those rich, compact words describe great marketing so well that if I were writing a foundational goal or mission statement or whatever for any new potential business idea, product or service, that’s how I’d write it …

With just some tweaking, here’s the quick formula for the kind of marketing of a Google or Starbucks:

“[Company name] will [create/build/develop] … a distinctive product that resonates with our consumers in a way that produces infectious enthusiasm.”

[By the way, this kind of language permeates the hot business marketing books circling around today.]

Google and Starbucks have created such stellar products — in which their customers love, cherish, admire, etc. so much that they give great word-of-mouth marketing to — that they can afford NOT to do much traditional marketing.

Their “distinctive” product does it for them!

Here’s one way to lower the bar for your product’s free trial: Don’t require them to give you their credit card!

Insertit, a new codeless content management system, has a 30-day free trial … and on their signup button it says very plainly: “No credit card required.”

They are differentiating themselves from the hundreds of other free trials that require a credit card in order to sign up.

As a prospective client for these services, I think to myself, “If it’s free, why do they need my credit card?” And if they really want my credit card that bad, it is a red flag that tells me signing up for this product will probably turn out to be a great source of irritation for me. They’ll probably require me to cancel it somehow and then I’ll have to make sure my credit card isn’t billed.

Of course, this approach might not garner as many “qualified” or serious contacts, but my theory is you should lower the bar for your prospective customers to actually USE your service.

Why do you think car dealerships want you to test drive their cars?
Why has Sam’s Club, for years, offered “taste tests” of certain foods?
Why do software companies, like Adobe, offer trial versions of their software?

Because if prospects end up test driving (or eating) their product, then the chances are significantly greater that they will end up buying.

Think about it … a user downloads or test drives your product and spends the next 30 days getting familiar with the product. They find all the shortcuts. They see first-hand all the functionality you’ve got Or better yet, they see the results they can have using your product …

In other words, they’ve invested their time in the learning curve for your product.

Now, it’s an easier buy for them because they already know how to use your product.