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Asked

How do you guys feel about "COVID-19" sales-pitches?

Probably like yours, my inbox has been flooded by sales pitches from all kinds of companies, pitching with something COVID-19 related. "In this time of crisis we thought you might bee interested in our product X" or "because of the crisis we are giving all new customers an X% discount or X-months free trial".

How do you guys feel about it?

Pablo Fernandez
@pablof7z

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Stefan W
PRO
@efekto

It goes directly to the trash folder if this is an answer ;-)

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Alex Golub
@alexgolub

It builds anger towards the brand who uses this kind of "inhumane" approach. I personally wouldn't do it. I've seen backlashes towards this kind of marketing attitude.

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I agree with @efekto and @alexgolub. You need to be very careful with this. You don't want to be seen leveraging the pandemic for personal gain.

I've seen some companies provide their services for free. For example tools that help teams work remotely. That might still be an acceptable strategy. You do something good, don't (immediately) gain from it, but you do build up a good reputation and those free customers might end up becoming loyal paying customers in the future.

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@marc I think we shouldn't be too hard for companies that offer products for free. disclaimer: I offer Simple Analytics for COVID-19 projects for free in return for a backlink. As long as you're not planning to earn money from those customers and don't ask for payment information.

That's also why I added "Does it drive you into a paid account" to saasforcovid.com. Just to make it clear for customers how companies act. If companies offer something for free, I think it's great. No judgement.

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I like that "Does it drive you into a paid account" filter. 👍

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Stefan W
PRO
@efekto

I really don't feel to judge anybody's business. I simply ignore it, because I see mostly promotions, which has no relation with COVID-19, it's just another "get something free that you start using my service" and then use COVID-19 as an opener. It's something different, if eg a Restaurant make a promotion with free delivery during COVID-19, as this has some relation to COVID-19. But if COVID-19 is just used to make people opening the Email or get attraction I think it's misusing a really bad situation.
BUT.. repeating. It's not that bad that I want to judge it. I just trash it in my inboxes, as it's much to much used.
BTW. For sure a really good idea that you add this "Does it drive into paid account"....

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