Many companies are now offering free perks in order to make signing up for their service more appetizing. This is a great way to incentivize customers to sign up for something that they more than likely will also sign up for anyway, but may not be sure which provider to go with. Vonage for instance is offering $300 in gas and groceries to sign up for a 6 months of their bundled phone and TV service.

ATT is offering $50 netbooks to customers in Philadelphia and Atlanta who sign up for their “At home and on the go” broadband service.

Deals on hardware to promote a digital service are becoming more and more commonplace, and are a great marketing strategy to incentivize new service membership.Even Etrade has subsidized new blackberrys in order to promote its service.

These types of deals are mutually beneficial both for provider and customer. It is a sign of the times when something as essential as internet service needs to throw in perks to entice new customers.
This strategy can easily be used by small business marketing, especially for service based companies. Reducing the cost of essential hardware is effective in two ways, both as a way to appeal to the customer’s wallet, but also in promoting word of mouth advertising, since people will talk about the great deal that’s available on the essential piece of hardware.

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