Giveaway and List Building Guide

Okay so let’s talk about ways to get traffic to JV giveaway sites when you haven’t got a list to start with.

If you have a Twitter, Facebook, Myspace or other networking site, tell all your friends or followers about the best giveaways to join.  These are all types of lists in their own right.

You can tell your friends and family about the giveaway sites, especially if they are new to the internet and want to learn ways to make money from the internet.  They can pick up loads of free resources and ideas from giveaway sites.

You could start a blog, and blog about the benefits of giveaways and provide links to the latest giveaway sites.  Much like I am doing here at greatgiveawayguide.com, just make sure you get your contributor links from me.

You can also write articles about the giveaways and why people should partake in them, also you could consider writing brief press releases about interesting up and coming giveaways.  These can be submitted to article directories and press release distribution sites respectively.

All the content that you do create can be socially bookmarked, so that your contributor links start to appear all over the internet, and you will get lot of sign ups underneath you.  Onlywire.com let you social bookmark multiple sites in one go, and it’s free.

Note before you start creating content, you should do some keyword research to find some good competitive terms that people are searching the net for.  I like to use the Google External Keyword tool for this purpose.  This way when you do submit to article directories, press release distribution sites and social bookmark sites, you will gain numerous links for your chosen keywords and people will easily find the links you promote.

Something that I have not seen anyone do, and am considering myself, is to offer incentives for people to sign up under your contributor link.  Something like a free MP3, additional ebook, interview etc.  You’ll get plenty of freebies from the actual giveaways themselves, to match the number of giveaways that there are.

Lastly, there is always the upgrade option on the giveaways, this will give you the necessary boost up the rankings with your free gifts and enable you to concentrate on building a list of your own.

 If you have any traffic tips of your own, please do comment and share them, so we can all learn and earn together.

As you already know, adding a free gift to an online giveaway is a great way to build a list, so I have created a ten step giveaway guide on how to list your free gift on an online giveaway.

(1) Find a site that lists giveaway events, like here at the Great Giveaway Guide, and click on the contributor link of the giveaway event that wish to add your gift to.  Read through the page to cehck that your gift is appropriate and check the rules of the giveaway.

(2) At the bottom of the page is where you will need to enter your name, email address and password.  In some online giveaways, a password will be generated for you. I recommend that you set up an email account dedicated to just giveaways, as you will receive a lot of emails as a result of signing up to them.

(3) You will then need to check the aforementioned email address to activate your contributor account to that giveaway.

(4) When you click on the activation link, it is likely that you will be taken to a One Time Offer page where you will be offered the chance to become an upgraded contributor.   You should seriously consider this, especially if your list is not that large and you do not have means of traffic to invite new members and contributors.

The updated contributor status will mean that your gift will appear closer to the top of total gift listings, getting you more subscribers and allowing your gift to stay online for the duration of the giveaway as you will have enough points to warrant it. Often you’ll also get the chance to add your own OTO and more than one gift.  The price of this upgrade varies from about $17 to $47.  If you are not interested in this option, you simply scroll down past the order button, to select No Thanks Continue.

(5) You’ll then be taken to the login page where you enter your email address and password and press login.  It is likely that you will be shown another OTO (or two).  So read through these to see if you like the offer, or simply scroll down to the bottom of the page to select No Thanks Continue.

(6) You should now be on the main account page.  There are only a couple of sections that we are interested in, depending on the giveaway software used to create the event.  Usually the two sections we would be interested in would be Settings (or Profile) and Manage Gifts.

(7) Looking at the Settings (or Profile) page, we want to make sure to enter our Paypal email address (and sometimes Clickbank ID) so that if anyone that we do refer to this giveaway buys the OTO, we will receive a commission.  Once this is done, hit the save button, or commit changes button as is the case on this particular giveaway I am going through.  This will take you back to the main menu.

Also be sure take note of your contributor referral link and affiliate link that are found here.  In some giveaway events these links can be found in the Promote and Invite Contributor links on the main menu, depending on the giveaway script that is used to create the event.

(8) Now from the main menu, select the Manage Gifts link, and then the Add New Gift link.

(9) You will now be taken to a page where you will add the details of the free gift that you are giving away.  Typically, you will be asked for an image of your free gift, which you upload from your computer or provide an image URL for.  Next you will need to add an appealing title and enticing description to make sure people want to download your gift.  There will also a place to add links for the landing and download pages.  Some online giveaways will also ask for download instructions,  a support email address, and affilaite details if this is applicable to you.  Press Add Gift and you are almost done.

(10) Promote the contributor link to your list before the giveaway goes live and the members link when the online giveaway is on air. If you don’t have a list yet, you get traffic through Twitter, writing articles related  to giveaways and blogging about giveaway events to name a few.

That’s it, that is the giveaway gift giving process.  Rinse and repeat with as many online giveaway sites that you can find and that list will building momentum in no time.

Participating in free giveaways, is not just a about building a list, and getting a load of great products for free, but is a great opportunity for creating multiple income streams. First of all, did you know that most free giveaways have a One Time Offer, which all new members and joint venture partners are exposed to on first signing up and you will get a commission for everyone who signs up (as long as you enter your paypal address on signing up).

Of course, the main purpose of contributing a gift to one of these free giveaways is to build a list.  This in itself presents a few opportunities to create multiple income streams.  As well as a list of people to promote future offers to (and to provide great content and free gifts to, so they don’t unsubscribe), you have the opportunity to place other offers in front of your new subscribers.

You can place an upsell to a product of a greater value, on your confirmation page, or download page. Or even create a One Time Offer of your own, that is presented to your new subscribers, before they get to the download page and this time you will get the whole amount if someone decides to take you up on the offer.

Another thing you should make sure you do, is include affiliate links in your free gift, try to find ones that have a recurring income, so that you stand to earn money on a monthly basis, should your readers take you up on any of these offers. Also remember to cloak your links, so that you don’t lose any commissions.

To do all of this successfully, you need to promote the online giveaway so that your gift goes higher up the list and more people will see your free gift and sign up for it.

But what happens when you don’t have a list to start with?

Well some giveaways will not allow you to sign up, unless you have a list of 1000 people or more, but I find most are happy to include you on their giveaway if you actively promote the giveaway in offer ways.

You can look at creating Squidoo lenses about giveaways, blog about them, create You Tube Videos, include a link in your forum signature, sign up for Pay Per Click, send out ads in safe lists, buy some ezine ads, write some articles and social marketing to name a few ways.  As long as you are bringing a steady stream of referrals to the free giveaways you participate in, who is to say that you don’t have a big enough list?

I’m sure by now you are beginning see the potential of participating in giveaways and the multiple income streams it can bring you. So start finding and promoting these giveaways today, and watch your internet business grow.

Will giving free gifts away at these free giveaways help you?

The answer here is – it depends.

There are some essential issues that you have to think about, before embarking on this course of action.  Things like the quality of the gift you plan on giving away, making sure you make use of your list, the quality of the free giveaways you participate in and promotion of the giveaway.

You can’t enter any old free junk on an free giveaway sites, stay away from free ebooks that pop up everywhere unless you can think of some tantalizing copy that makes people choose your promotion, over the others.  What I would recommend is creating something unique, something never seen before. And don’t offer an ebook, think about offering software (according to the free keyword tool at WordTracker, ‘free software’ is searched 2757 times each day, whilst ‘free ebooks’ is searched 921 times each day), videos, audio, an email course, a free service, graphics, memberships, anything except an ebook!

Ignore all this talk of creating a freebie list with free giveaways.  You are essentially building a list of people who are interested in what you do, and learning from you.  You also need to think about what information you are going to provide in emails to your subscribers, what you are going to promote in the future.  Whatever you do you must not let your list become dormant, as that would be a waste of everyone’s time. Give them good information, and they may well decide to act on your recommendations later down the line.

Or you could try a different model and promote CPA (cost per action) offers, which are free for you to promote, free for your subscribers to try, yet you will get paid for each lead that you send.

You should also look at the quality of the giveaway that you are entering.  Some look amateurish and gaudy, these are the ones you should avoid, as you don’t want you or the free products you offer to be seen as low quality and desperate.

Lastly, you must not expect a free ride when you decide to offer a free gift on a free giveaway.  If everyone did that, you would not get very good results from the free giveaway.  So if you do not yet have a substantial list you can promote to, you must promote it using other methods like blog posts, videos, classified ads etc.

Now you have the full picture, and can decide whether participating in free giveaways could help you.  It really is one the best ways of building a list fast, so if that’s what you want go for it.

You might have already heard the buzz about free giveaways, but never really considered them, or are unsure of them, as a way forward for your own promotions and building a list,  so here are some answers to questions that should help you decide whether they could be viable for you.

What are giveaways?

Free giveaways are sites where an alliance of marketers come together and each giveaway products to make their subscriber lists even larger.  Each marketer will promote the giveaway and the visitors will flock in, and start giving their email addresses in exchange for the free gifts, and subscriber lists grow.

Why do people give things away?

There are a couple of reasons why people choose to give things away.  The first one being, you are giving people the opportunity to sample your work and if they like what they see, they will stay on your list.  The second reason is leverage.  You are being given the opportunity to get subscribers, that have been referred by other marketers, and they are getting the opportunity to get more subscribers from the people you refer, making everyone winners all around.

How do giveaways help build a list?

The premise of giveaways is that you are offering a free gift in exchange for an email address.  Your position on the giveaway list is determined by the amount of people that you refer to the giveaway, as members, or joint venture partners.  Obviously the higher up the list you are, the more people will see your offer and more subscribers you get.

How to promote a free giveaway with no list?

You might want to start of giving gifts in giveaways, when you have a very small or non existent list, so what do you do?  Well you can use other free promotional techniques (or paid) to refer people to the giveaway, things like writing articles, creating videos, or giving away viral ebooks with links to a giveaway announcement site to name a few.  As long as you are making steady referrals, the owner of the free giveaway is unlikely to mind, or even notice that you don’t have a list and best of all your gift will be climbing up the ranks, and being noticed by more people.

How do I get started, giving gifts away in free giveaways?

First, you have to decide, or create, on what gift you want to give away, create an opt in page so people can sign up for your gift.  When that is done, you need to sign up for as many giveaways as you can find, as soon as you hear about them.  Now, I mean drop everything, put your gift up on the giveaway site, and start promoting straight away.  Just imagine the amount of subscribers that you will get from having a high position on the rank, from the beginning, rather than the last days of the giveaway.