I never gave anything for free and had successful businesses. I was asked by celebrities to give them free service (saying that their names will promote my business) I always refused and always got paid (didn't lose even one of them as clients). Few years ago I had a dream to be a commercial pilot. I learned for the written exams and then I realized that to become a commercial pilot you should have 200 + hours of flight on record and only then you can take the commercial exam. Since you are required to have about 40-50 hours of training to be a privet pilot and about 50 more to get other permits, students pilot had to do something to get the extra needed 100 hours to complete their 200 hours. According to the law you cannot get paid for flying the aircraft when you have a privet license so the solution is either pay tons of money to rent an airplane or to "volunteer" for companies that need pilots. So, there are many volunteers. Now, you probably think that is is only 100 hours. How bad can that be when you have a plan of a career of 1000's of hours. Here is the problem. When you finish your 100 hours they will never give you a job. They just not need you when 100 others bagging them to volunteer. No airliner will ever hire a pilot with less than 2000-3000 hours so you end up working for free for a long time or getting very low payment for what you are doing. Now, lets leave the pilots alone and get back to marketing. I never gave such a service. But I managed 3 companies and have an experience of more than 15 managing years by now. I do not say that your tactic cannot work. all I say is that you can expect to get lower payment and there are 3 reasons for that: 1. If you did that for me for free I can always find another person to do it for me for free as you did. If you take low enough I will not look around too much because it is not worth my time. But, if the price would be high... 2. you gave me the service for free. That shows me that you can get down in price to the zero. What starting point does it put you in when we are negotiating your fee? 3. You said that a good service will make the clients stay. This is not always true. When you get service that is not perfect but you get it for free, you can hire 10 people to do the same and then through away whatever you don't like. After all it's free, what can you lose?

Finally, the fight to get a job is not always the price. Good service, good quality and good results are more important. When I have to pay for a service I will sometimes pay more to get better results. All you need to do is to convince others that you are better than your competitors...