Internet Marketing Giveways & Freebies Attract Thousands of New Customers for Free!

There are tons of giveaway events these days. I recommend that you participate in as many as possible if your goal is to build your list. The next section shows contains an RSS Feed from my Blog http://AskEarlAbout.com/GiveAways It will list the events that are now open for download as well as upcoming events you can join as a contributor.

I recommend that you subscribe to my Blog's RSS Feed, and or bookmark it, but you can also follow it here.

All smart marketers understand that "the money is in the list". This applies to off line marketers as well as to those online.

Any marketer worth their salt is interested in identifying as many new prospects as possible, and then qualifying them over time.

Their prospect list is their primary source of future business. It is the list they want to focus on and market to. The beauty of internet marketing combined with free giveaways is that it allows new prospects to raise their hands and ask to be marketed to.

Joining most Give Away events as a contributor or Joint Venture partner is free. What is required is that your provide a worthwhile report that people can download for free and that you assist in generating traffic to the event.

A steady stream of such events occur throughout the years with a tendency for a flurry of them around key holidays.

A variety of different software programs have been created to run these events but they tend to have similar rules for participation.

The central idea is that everyone contributes products, and everyone encourages their existing lists to participate in the events. That's why it's considered to be a joint venture, because everyone depends on the others to do their share of promotion or the events do not work.

Event promoters have refined their systems in the last couple of years with a variety of techniques to make these events worthwhile for both established players with large lists and for newbies with no or small lists.

Established players can compete for prize money won by attracting the most people to the event, and by a point system or other devices to get their free offerings a higher placement in the catalog of freebies.

The higher the listing the more people are likely to see it and potentially download it, creating a new lead.

Newbies are less likely to have large established lists, but are often offered a low cost optional upgrade that allows them to be placed higher than those who choose to go the totally free route.

The cost of these upgrades are often more than justified by the additional traffic it generates.

Many free giveaways have other features that make buying the opt in advantageous even for established list owners. For example many have systems to allow a streamlined process for downloading products.

Experienced marketers with larger lists are in essence sharing their lists with the group, but in return are also getting customers from the smaller list owners who are potential customers and potential joint venture partners.

So far the balance appears to be working for all parties, and the event promoters work to keep it that way.

You can keep up with current and future give-away events by visiting and subscribing to the RSS feed on my Give Away blog. www.askearlabout.com/GiveAways

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:

E-Books,

Reports,

Audio/Video products,

Membership pass, and/or

Software/Script

The host of the event then pools all the gifts contributed collectively by the partners on one page or member's area. They will typically rank the gifts based on the number of points or visitors the contributor has helped bring to the site.

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 sign up page.

You, as the partner, prepare an opt-in page for visitors to sign up to your mailing list to download your gift. So anyone who wants to download your gift must opt into your mailing list to download your gift.

The gifts are given away at zero-cost, however the one requirement is that the visitors must sign up for your mailing list to receive the gift.

Your visitor-turned-subscribers has the option to cancel their subscription to your mailing list at any time. But you generally can expect most to stay on your list for a while. During this time it's important that you build a relationship with the newcomers to your mailing list or e-zine or membership site.

If your free report is on how to select and properly apply ski wax, and someone downloads your free report you can be relatively certain that the person is a skier. They have raised their hands and identified themselves. You now need to followup with other good information that will lead them to understand that you are the best resource for their next pair of ski's or ski vacation or what ever ski related product you are marketing.

Okay, so that's EXACTLY how you're going to build your mailing list after all. But where DO these visitors come from?

Give Away events are the internet equivalent to a swap meet. Contributors are swapping access to their subscribers with others hoping to recruit other contributor's subscribers in return.

On the launch day and during the limited time of the 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. With the host and other partners doing the same, these events can draw a massive amount of traffic.

In this collective effort, as long as your gift is displayed with a link to sign up for your mailing list to download it, and people are interested in it, you can receive plenty of sign ups in a short time span!

If yours is a highly specialized niche, you will likely have fewer people download and subscribe that those with a broadly popular niche. But those that do, will be just the people you want to focus on. If you have a popular product or niche, you can expect to attract a larger pool of people, but you will also need to be even more vigilant in your followup as you will likely have competition for their attention.

But the good news is that you now have that chance.

Keep up with current giveaways by visiting my blog, While there subscribe to my RSS feed. www.askearlabout.com/GiveAways

Hopefully, 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!

Some Give Aways will require that you not only have a mailing list, but a substantial one. Others are more open to the newer marketer with a minimal list, but they will want you to buy in to the upgrade. If you have a minimal list, this is a small price to pay for having access to the lists of the other participants. After a few events you should be able to build your own list to the point that you will be able to qualify for all but the most exclusive events.

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 most Give Away events as long as you have over 1,000 opt-in subscribers. It took me about four events before I reached that level from a virtual 0 initial list. Once I was able to get in that first event, I had no real trouble finding other good give aways to join.

If you are totally new to the process and have an offline product that you would like to try via the free giveaway concept you may contact me directly. I may be willing to consider sponsoring it on your behalf using my list.

Your Own Gift

The attractiveness and appropriateness of your gift is the single most critical aspect to your success with 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.

If you have an offline business, think about a "How to" report, or a "What to look for" report. They need not be huge efforts. A solid well written 7-15 page report that offers solid information that will impress your prospective customer with the quality and efficacy of your product is all you need.

You will need to convert it into a PDF format and add an attractive cover to the report.

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 just because you're giving it away free.

There are many solutions to creating your own first product, depending upon your objectives. I will detail some resources in a separate segment below.

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.

Be sure to require a double opt-in for your visitors. This helps ensure that you are getting valid email addresses and cuts down significantly on your exposure to Spam complaints.

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! I use and recommend Aweber.

If you are new to list building and don't have a reliable auto responder service check out Aweber's free trial subscription.

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 designed and used specifically for the individual Give Away events.

Be sure to include the following details in your landing/signup page:

An image of your gift,- people DO judge a book by its cover especially online.

The benefits of your gift, in the form of bullet points or a concise paragraph or two.

Remind your visitor that he or she is required to sign up to your mailing list in order to download the gift.

Provide a privacy statement indicating that you will NOT rent, share or sell his or her details away,and that he or she can cancel her subscription at any time!

(Please understand that many people who join your list will unsubscribe. That's okay. They weren't really interested. You are interested in those people who stay on your list. They are your prospects, and future customers.)

And finally your opt in form, where they actually subscribe to your list.

It's also a good idea to provide a contact email so people with questions can get in touch with you. This is even more important on the download page you set up on your auto responder once people do subscribe.

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 sign up rate. Also, some events might require your photo so be prepared to have your best photo available!

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 sign up conversion rate.

Keep up with current and future giveaways by visiting my Give Away blog. While there subscribe to my RSS feed. www.askearlabout.com/GiveAways

Now let's talk about something more interesting - how to make money from joining Give Away events.

You can make money by promoting giveaways when your list members join and upgrade through your affiliate link. Event promoters share this fee to reward contributors for spreading the word to their lists. This is the grease that helps make these events worthwhile to large as well as small list owners.

The Give Away event affiliate program - if the event you're joining has an affiliate program, you can earn commissions generally from any of your referrals taking advantage of the host's One Time Offer.

When you go to a free giveaway, the host and often contributors who upgrade will run promotions for various products that are not free when people first arrive at the site. A certain number of people will buy these. Most will scroll to the bottom of the offer and push the no thanks button and gain entry to the free stuff.

If your referral buys, you get paid a portion of the sales price. Another way to reward people for sending people to the event, and another reason people with big and small lists participate.

The above two revenue points are part of the Give Away design, but you can build upon those opportunities by implementing the following ides as well.

Your own One Time Offer

Prepare your own One Time Offer.

You can introduce the One Time Offer to your visitors after they sign up and before they download the gift from you.

Offer them 2 options on your landing or signup page: They can buy your offer and still download your free gift -OR- they can pass the offer and just get gift. Most will just grab the free gift, but some will buy, particularly if you make them an offer they can't refuse. The key to one time offers is making them an offer they won't be able to get later, usually at a rock bottom price. Remember they are at your site in a freebie frenzy and are not looking for high end products. That said, if it's the right offer some will buy right then and there.

If you are going to use this tactic, I recommend either very low price products for say $7 or so, or very valuable products worth hundreds or thousands at significant discounts.

Back End Offer

Slip a good back end offer in your Thank You page where the gift is. Whether you're having a One Time Offer or not, you can cash in 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.

Automated Emails

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. This is the traditional tactic of internet marketers.

If you are using the give away to build a list of prospects for an off line product, this is where you will get serious about your relationship marketing efforts.

A series of pre-canned emails elucidating key aspects and benefits of your products while keeping your name and proposition in front of them on a regular basis. This is marketing on auto pilot. Make sure each email makes it clear how to contact you to make their purchase.

Affiliate links

If you're contributing an E-Book or report as a gift, you can make money by including affiliate links in your written digital product. Generally this is done as a resource page at the back of the report. However, there is nothing to prevent you from building them into the entire report. If someone buys through your affiliate link, you get paid.

Using these tactics you really can receive by giving away.

Keep up with current and future give aways by visiting my Give Away blog. While there subscribe to my RSS feed. www.askearlabout.com/GiveAways

There are frequently several challenges that face people interested in using free give away events to promote their business.

These are finding a product to give away, and the mechanics of setting up their pages to maximize their ability to monetize the event.

Product Creation

The easiest route for many people starting out in the internet marketing arena is to use Private Label Rights Products that permit their use in Give aways.

There are a variety of sources for PLR material on the internet. If you are going to use this approach, I highly recommend that you learn the basics from one of the industry leaders. Doing so will greatly cut down on your learning curve and will get you going faster an surer.

Of the many folk out there, I am most comfortable recommended Doug and/or his wife Terri Champigny.

Doug offers an excellent resource Called How to be a PLR Pro

It is very reasonable priced and will get you off to a good start whether you use Give Aways or not.

If you are serious about creating your own product, the best course on product creation in existence is from Bob Jenkins, affectionately known as Bob the Teacher.

He offers a three week internet course called Discover Product Creation. It is rigorous and will not only help you create your first product, it will teach you some significant internet skills that will serve you well.

I have had the opportunity to take several of Bob's courses and can attest to his skill in making the complicated easy. I had the opportunity to take the original version of this course and think it is his best to date. That said, his course requires some real work on your part, he even made us do homework.

If you are serious about learning how to create your own products for sale or give aways, this is highly recommended. By the way, I love PLR material, but in the final analysis, you really want to do your own products. This is especially true for those of you looking at creating reports for giveaways to market offline products.

If you already have a handle on product creation, you still need to understand how to best get your pages set up to maximize their income potential in a give away. I've touched on it above, but you will find a more detailed account from Mike Paetzold. He offers a very reasonably priced how to manual called Easy Giveaway Plan

I want to discuss a new free product that was released this past week that will greatly enhance your chances to profit on your Giveaway Gifts and any other products you may be marketing. It's called Instant Bonus Pages and was released by my Badger State Neighbor, Jeff Dedrick. Odds are you got multiple emails about it. If you grabbed the product like I did, skip to the next topic. If not, let me tell you what it does and why you want it.

As all experienced Giveaway fans know, you don't want everything that's offered for free. But this is one item that most of you will want to grab. If you haven't signed up and started using it, you're leaving bucks on the table every time someone downloads one of your products, grabs one your giveaway gifts or joins your list!

The concept is really simple - you use this new tool to add 1-6 free bonuses to your pages - reports that people can download for no outlay. If they choose to also grab an "One Time Offer" (OTO) while they're there, you make a commission. Once set up, you can add code your product delivery pages, thank you pages and more in seconds. This is a real time saver, and it looks great.

This really makes a lot of sense for any offering, but especially so for Giveaway event offerings. I was just getting ready to create my own "standard set" of such bonuses, when this came out. I have already added it to all my Giveaway products and will make changes to all my for sale products this week. I expect to make thousands from it this year. Get it now, this link opens in a new page. You can come back here afterward. Instant Bonus Pages