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Give Away 101
“How to Build Your Mailing List Through The
Wonders Of Giving Away!”
Give
Away Events Uncovered!
All smart Internet Marketers and list
owners know that “the money is in the list”. And I know
you are one of them, too!
Therefore, every marketer who firmly
believes in how much business, influential power and wealth a mailing
list can bring are doing just about any and every way possible
to build their mailing list.
That’s why you see marketers running
advertising campaigns such as:
And the savvy marketers often run these
campaigns with one goal: build their mailing list! (Besides
trying to sell, of course.)
Now some of these methods require low
to high costs to run, which can be out of the option for beginning
marketers who are on a tight budget. And one thing is for sure: all
well-executed advertising and list-building campaigns require a high
degree of skill.
In the last couple of years, a new
method of list building was conceived primarily in the Internet
Marketing circle. It’s called:
Give Away
Events!
This is one of the recently discovered
methods in Internet Marketing where list building is now made
possible through the spirit of giving away!
It can be carried out as and when you –
or anyone – like to.
The cost of hosting an event can be
next-to-nothing.
And to join a Give Away event in the
shoes of a contributor or JV partner is zero cost.
But you can rake in hundreds,
possibly thousands and potentially tens of thousands of
subscribers through joining Give Away events!
And to get kick started, you just need
a gift of your own and an auto responder to suck fresh, red-hot
leads in!
And to discover how
building your list in such a fashion come true in the shoes of a JV
Partner, you really owe it to yourself to read on!
How
Do Give Away Events Really Work?
Give Away events are carried out
primarily in the Internet Marketing circle itself. However, it is
very possible to carry out Give Away events successfully in other hot
niches with the cooperation of a group of partners and contributors
in the same niche.
I also suspect that it has probably
been carried out in offline businesses, in a similar way, to get hot
prospects and leads, though I cannot vouch for this truth. It’s a
subject fit for another book, nonetheless.
So how do Give Away events really work – and
how does it help YOU build your mailing list?
Well it works like this: think of a
GIANT ad swap.
How Ad Swaps Work
In a regular ad swap deal, you and
another list owner (who probably has a similar mailing list size as
yours) do an ad exchange.
You send the partner’s advertisement
to your mailing list.
Your partner sends YOUR advertisement
to his or her mailing list.
Usually, you will want to send an ad
that encourages the reader to subscribe to your mailing list
(we’ve been talking about it until now so you know the drill!).
You can call this “legally
stealing subscribers” if you want to. After all, the average
subscriber is subscribed to more than 10-20 mailing lists, possibly
more, which is a perfect norm these days.
While ad swapping is a perfect way to
build your mailing list by playing the game of “using
subscribers to make subscribers”, the leverage effect is often
1:1 in a real sense.
You can only carry out one ad swap at a
time, for starters. And even if you do swap ads with more than one
list owner or e-zine publisher, the leverage effect remains 1:1
because you have to send that many advertisements to your list, too,
in proportionate to how many list owners you agreed to swap ads with.
This doesn’t mean I’m discounting
the power of swapping ads; it’s a good and essential marketing
method you can do now and then.
But if you want to discover how you can
build your mailing list at warp speed, read on:
How Give Away Events Work
As said earlier, Give Away events are
almost similar to what I call a BIG version of an ad swap.
The host of the Give Away event invites
partners, who are primarily list owners in the same niche, to
contribute a gift.
The gifts are usually digital products,
like:
The host of the event then pools all
the gifts contributed collectively by the partners in one page or
member’s area. This is where the visitors will go to download
any gifts of their choice, and the link of the gift they click on
brings them to the individual partner’s signup page.
You, as the partner, prepare an opt-in
page for visitors to sign up to your mailing list to download your
gift. So in a real essence, anyone who wants to download your gift
must opt into your mailing list to download your gift.
While the gifts are given away at
zero-cost, the only requirement is that the visitors must sign
up for your mailing list to receive them.
Your visitors-turned-subscribers has
the option to cancel their subscription to your mailing list at any
time, of course, but this is a good opportunity you should be taking
to build your relationship with the newcomers to your mailing list or
e-zine or membership site.
Okay, so that’s EXACTLY how you’re
going to build your mailing list after all. But where DO these
visitors come from?
Like ad swaps, Give Away events are
really using subscribers to make subscribers.
On the launch day and during the
limited time event, you and other partners are required by the host
to endorse the Give Away event to your individual mailing lists.
In other words, you are going to tell
YOUR subscribers to go to the Give Away event to download their gifts
at zero-cost, and the reason may vary depending on the occasion. It
could be a gesture of “thanks for being our loyal subscriber” or
even in conjunction with a holiday season.
Whatever the valid reason is, you
should be instructing your subscribers to check out the Give Away
event on a website where all the gifts are pooled together. With the
host and other partners are doing the same, it will be a massive
gathering of traffic at the website where all the gifts are being
pooled.
In
this collective effort, as long as your gift is displayed there with
a link to signup for your mailing list to download it, and people are
interested in it, you can receive plenty of signups in a short time
span!
What
You Need To Have Before Joining A Give Away Event
I’m sure by now that you’re sold on
the powerful benefits of participating in a Give Away event.
But before you start plunging into one,
be sure to have the following essentials checked!
Your Own Mailing List!
That’s right.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times in this guide that Give Away
events are pretty similar to ad swaps in one thing common: it’s
using subscribers to make subscribers.
Bear in mind,
though, that having your own mailing list just isn’t enough; you
need to have a substantial one!
Nobody likes a free
rider in any Give Away event. Period. And don’t let that person be
YOU! Unless you can contribute subscribers almost up to par with
other partners, you’re better off not joining a Give Away event in
the first place.
As a matter of
fact, most (if not all) Give Away event hosts are strict about
partners having a minimum mailing list size before participating in
their event. Also, it’s important to note that you have to be
willing and agree to their minimum mailing frequency to your mailing
list; notifying your subscribers about the event you’re joining.
While NOT
all Give Away events are equal in their system, quality and results,
you can qualify for a big number of Give Away events as long
as you have over 1,000 opt-in subscribers, from my experience.
Your Own Gift
This is yet another
critical success factor (more
than just a need to join a Give Away event!).
Many events are
accepting digital products of some kind. They are usually E-Books,
software, scripts, Resell Rights, Private Label Content, membership
passes, reports, you name it.
In short, prepare a
digital product you are ready to part with.
Tip: notice
I said “your own gift” in the sub headline? I personally don’t
advice giving away other people’s products you own the (Master)
Resell Rights to. For starters, NOT all products with Resell
Rights can be given away freely. Doing so, you’re probably asking
for legal action being taken against you.
Secondly, you’re
better off creating your own gift so you can give it away in your
name and brand it in the process. You don’t want your visitors
remembering other people while you’re going a great length giving
them away to build your list!
Creating your own
gift doesn’t have to be hard, however. You can, for example, write
a 4-8 page report (easy feat, really) on a topic you know well. If
you own a membership site, you can give a trial pass away or even
offer a “lite” version. Pretty much the same can be done for
software and scripts whereby you offer a limited time trial.
Important Tip 2:
take a lot of pride and effort in creating a quality gift. This gift
is going to make your first impression good or bad. So don’t take
it for granted… because people will be downloading it by the
masses!
Auto Responder
I know this pretty
much a given if you already own a mailing list. But I want to address
a couple of important concerns.
Firstly, be sure
to require a double opt-in for your visitors. This is in effort
to prevent phoney details being keyed into your signup form by
freebie seekers… who also want to take a step further in putting
you into trouble such as spam issues. By requiring visitors to
confirm their subscription from valid email addresses, you can cut
more than a bunch of spam risks at stake.
Secondly, be
sure to sign up for a reliable auto responder account. You
wouldn’t want to use an auto responder that produces a high bounce
rate otherwise your list building efforts would be literally wasted!
Landing / Signup Page
This is the page
where your would-be subscribers would go to view the full important
details of your gift.
Usually, this page
is not shared publicly and used specially for Give Away events and
incidentally, you also include the opt-in form at the bottom of the
page.
Be sure to include
the following details in your landing/signup page:
Support/Email Address
Be sure to include
a way your visitors or subscribers can contact you on your landing
page and thank you page!
You wouldn’t want
to trouble the Give Away event host into handling yours. Besides,
where your gift and signup are concerned, it’s your domain and
territory to take care of.
It’s advisable to
include a link to your support helpdesk on these pages over your
email address, if you have a support helpdesk. Otherwise, email would
work, too.
Miscellaneous
These are some
other important things you may want to include in your Give Away
event preparation as a partner and contributor:
Photo &
Signature – it would make your landing page more professional
looking, and might just help with your signup rate boosting. Also,
some events might require your photo so be prepared to have your best
photo available!
Gift Image –
people DO judge a book by its cover especially online. Be sure to
prepare you gift image at various sizes (large, medium and small)
because chances are that the Give Away event host will need one from
you to display on the gifts page.
Forwarding/Tracking
Link – while not mandatory, it would be good to have one so you
can monitor your click throughs for both “sending subscribers to
the Give Away event” and “how many people are clicking through
your landing page to see your gift” so you can monitor the signup
conversion rate.
How
to Identify a Quality Give Away Event
Remember!
Not all Give Away events are created equal.
Having said that, some Give Away events
are great, some good and the others… real bad.
In fact recently, a number of marketers
believe that Give Away events are beginning to become “wash outs”
or diluted in their quality, and that they won’t work like a charm
as they used to.
Now for the great news: Give
Away events are still workable and viable list building models
– as long as they are done right!
It’s really only a matter of joining
the right Give Away event. So what makes a good Give Away event…
good? Some important criteria you will want to look out for are
listed below:
Give Away Event
Factor #1:
The
Partners are Cooperative
In short, are the
partners in the same event as you are willing to endorse the event to
their mailing lists as required? While it’s hard to tell if this is
going to be your first few times giving a try at building your list
through such events, you can usually tell whether the partners are
cooperative or not if the partners are somewhat closely related or
working together with the host.
This substantial
difference can be seen in both of what I call “Massive”
Give Away Events and “Mini” Give Away events.
Massive Give
Away events are usually participated by more than 20-30 marketers
in the same event, and its growth is often encouraged by the use of
affiliate programs.
Mini Give Away
events, on the other hand, are somewhat more “closed door”
whereby the host is more selective of the partners he or she chose to
work with.
While I cannot say
which type of event is better than the other, from my experience,
Mini events have most cooperative partners due to bias choosing and
“closed door” invitation. Incidentally, it’s harder to enter a
Mini Give Away event as an outsider.
Massive ones may or
may not produce good signup results depending on the partners who
join in. If the event is full of unknown marketers or free riders,
you probably can tell that it might not be executed well.
Give Away Event
Factor #2:
There
Are Some Hard-Hitting Partners in the Same Event
If there are a
couple of reputable partners joining in the same event, it would be a
good chance to hitch a ride.
Important tip:
In many cases, I learned that some top marketers usually just join in
without putting in any effort in endorsing (which makes him or her a
free rider, too). So if you learn that the specific marketer is that
kind of person in nature, it’s probably not wise to join in that
Give Away event… because the biggest free rider is there.
Not all top
marketers are like this, fortunately.
Give Away Event
Factor #3:
The
Event Host is Trusted & Responsible
You can tell this
if the event host regularly updates his or her partners on the event
– before, during and after.
The event host is
considered responsible if he or she monitors the event carefully on a
regular basis, and that he or she DOES indeed remove the free riders
from the event promptly, justifying other active partners’ efforts.
Give Away Event
Factor #4:
The
Event Has A Reputation
If the event has
been heard of or recognized by many, this would be another attractive
reason why you should join that Give Away event!
Give Away Event
Factor #5:
You
& The Partners Are All From The Same Niche
This way, the event
would work successfully with everyone sharing subscribers of an
almost same nature.
It would hardly
work if all the partners come from a different background or niche.
I mean, imagine pooling a gift to have people sign up for your
“relationship dating” e-zine when all the other partners are
referring subscribers from the Internet Marketing niche!
Give Away Event
Factor #6:
The
Give Away Event Is Hosted For A Limited Time Only
Give Away events
should be running for a limited time only, and the model is at its
best that way. It increases the urgency of people to sign up for your
gift while protecting the value of your gift (assuming it’s used
specially on for this occasion).
My idea of limited
time events are in the range of 5 to 7 days but fewer than
14 that’s for sure. When you hear of events running for
ridiculous time length like 21-30 days, or even forever… you will
do well NOT to join them because the above 2 success factors are
ripped away owing to the long time length.
The
Hot Spots & Places to Look For Give Aways to Join
Here’s the general rule of thumb:
you need to be in the “insider” circle to know when the
next Give Away Event is in the pipeline. In other words, you have to
be in the know and develop a relationship with other marketers who
probably would get the news first. If possible, be in that desirable
position.
Mind you, NOT everyone can join
a Give Away event. As said many a times throughout this guide, not
all events are created equal.
So the real secret to jumping in on the
next hard-hitting event is to really have close contacts with
would-be hosts of the coming Give Away events.
Here are also some more viable
ways you can use to find out when the next Give Away event is:
Subscribe to Other People’s E-zines
This is generally
applicable in the Internet Marketing niche itself. Now and then, some
marketers announce an upcoming Give Away event and are looking to
recruit new partners.
Often the case, you
will be joining a Massive Give Away event. However, as long as
there’s a chance to build your list at zero cost, why pass
it up?
You should
subscribe to marketers whom you know are real Give Away event junkies
(and are in the know). I know of one at
http://www.bestdamnezine.com/.
Richard Wing is one of the few marketers I know who built his list at
a very fast pace (he jumped from a few hundred subscribers to almost
6,000+ subscribers in the space of a couple of months), just through
Give Away events!
I would definitely
recommend him and his newsletter, for he’s usually in the know in
this field.
Join a Give Away Event in Action!
If you detect any
Give Away events that are already in progress and it’s still not
too late for you to join in, you can still try your luck at coming in
by emailing or contacting the host of the event.
Even if you can’t
make it on the current one, you will do well to ask him or her to
include you in the next launch or so.
Participate in Forums
Some popular
marketing forums like http://www.howtocorp.com/forum
and http://www.warriorforum.com/forum
have discussions on Give Away events every now and then. While you
don’t have to really participate, you can lurk in every now and
then to check out the latest Give Away event in the pipeline.
How
to Maximize Your Cash Points From Give Away Events
Up until now, all we’ve been
discussing is how to build your mailing list through joining Give
Away events.
Now let’s talk about something more
interesting… like how to make
money from joining Give Away events.
It’s already a given that you can
make money from:
Here are even more ways I suggest you
take advantage on to cash in on more cash points while getting
subscribers in the process from the events you’re joining:
Yes, prepare your
own One Time Offer. Very often, this is where you also keep 100%
of the profits without having to share with the host of the event.
You can introduce the One Time Offer to your visitors after they sign
up and before they download the gift from you. Be sure to offer them
2 options: buy the offer from you and still download the gift
afterwards OR pass the offer to get your gift.
Slip a good backend
offer in your Thank You page where the gift is. Whether you’re
having a One Time Offer or not, you can cash on another cash point
right here. The backend offer can be priced lower than the One Time
Offer but it’s up to you to decide how much money you want to make.
You can automate a
series of sequential emails to your new subscribers, endorsing what I
call “long term selling” products to them. You can also automate
some reminders as well.
If you’re
contributing an E-Book or report as a gift, you can still depend on
this cash point by putting affiliate links in your written digital
product and get paid for some more takers through your
recommendations.
Give
Away Event & List Building Tips
Hi, it’s me again!
I trust that by now, you know all of
what it takes to build your mailing list through this sophisticated
method widely known as joining Give Away events.
As the book draws a close end and nears
publication, I would like to part with some tips (or golden nuggets
if you may call them). Believe me, you will find them really useful!
Here goes!
-
Always use the same gift.
Okay, not really
always, but use it for a long period of time. Most marketers and
active Give Away junkies believe that they should always offer
something new in every event.
While they have a
valid point and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, the
problem is that you will find yourself drowned in creating new gifts
all the time! This is going to be the case if you decide to
participate in Give Away events actively.
Secondly, you will
find the issue of “double leads” becoming apparent when the same
subscriber to your list downloads your second gift by subscribing to
your other list.
When you send a
promo email out to ALL of your list, the same subscriber can get
annoyed by the same emails being thrown into his or her inbox
repeatedly due to the numerous subscriptions – hence the 100%
un-subscription!
Besides, there are
literally abundance of people online who probably have not heard of
you much less download your product so you can confidently comb the
net for new subscribers with the same gift. Just change your gift
occasionally and sparingly and when you do, be sure you reward your
current subscribers first so there’s no reason for them to opt into
your list again the second time or so.
-
Contribute your own gift.
That’s right. As
in, YOU create it. Of course, you can opt for engaging ghostwriters
or use Private Label Content but ultimately, it should be your name
on the gift.
Don’t carelessly
bundle a group of products with Resell Rights due to possible terms
violation (unless you’re pretty sure about it).
But the encouraging
factor about offering your own gift is because of the branding and
privilege of being unique, and if you understand the true value of
it, even the excuse of having no time seems lame!
You get what I
mean.
-
Join 2-3 Give Away events that
are held at the same time where possible.
Not only can you
build your list faster through this leverage, you only need to send
one promo email to endorse ALL 3 events! But of course…
-
Don’t over do yourself with
joining Give Away events!
Otherwise, your
email promotions will be full of sending subscribers to joining Give
Away events. And when that happens, your list might just be a haven
for freeloaders and phoney leads.
So do it sparingly
and at your own wise judgment. Speaking of phoney leads…
-
Comb your mailing list database
once in a while for phoney leads.
Once in a while,
spend some time combing your database for phoney leads. They should
be deleted because they can warrant unwanted trouble such as
potential theft, troublemakers and possibly hackers!
Since these people
didn’t want to provide their true details in the first place,
there’s no say as to whether they can be just as honest later on!
You can save some
of your trouble upfront by banning common phoney names such as “abc”,
“asdf”, “qwerty”, “zxcv”, “hjkl”, “aaa”, “123”,
“abc”, and so on.
You might also want
to ban and blacklist some domain names and known email addresses that
just places your emails in their junk box, such as *@neverbox.com.
And last but not least…
Don’t
forget to thank your new subscribers when they join in after the
event! GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR LIST BUILDING VENTURE!
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