So much of the effort that Internet marketers put into our businesses is channelled into building our mailing list. Arguably, our mailing list is the single most important component of our online enterprises. Without a list we would have nobody to market to and, therefore, no business.
There are so many ways of building this all-important list. We have opt-in forms on our blogs, squeeze pages and so on. There are even more ways to send people to these capture pages and opt-in forms all grouped under the phrase “driving traffic”. There are literally hundreds of ways to drive traffic to a web page. Many of these traffic-driving techniques involve a cost to the marketer but there are some that don’t cost anything but a little time. One such tactic is a thing called the giveaway event.
Giveaway events are nothing new. In fact they have been around for quite some time but they still work. A giveaway event is a temporary website at which a group of Internet marketers, called contributors, get together and offer free digital products to those who will visit the site during its lifespan. These visitors are known as members. There is no cost to join the website as either a contributor or a member, making the event attractive to both.
To be a contributor to a giveaway event the first thing you need is a digital product to giveaway. This might be in the form of an e-book, graphics, software or even video training. You might have developed the product yourself or it may be something that you have giveaway rights for.
Once you have your product, which is called a gift at these events, you will need to set up a squeeze page for it. A squeeze page is simply a page that promotes the product and has an opt-in form on it so you can capture a visitor’s e-mail address and usually their name as well. Once this in place you simply enter the web site details on the giveaway site and wait for the event to launch.
On the day that the giveaway event launches every contributor promotes the event in order to attract as many members as possible. There are many ways to promote the event. For example, if you already have a mailing list, no matter the size, you could send out a broadcast e-mail. Alternatively, or additionally, you could use social media like Facebook or Twitter to get the word out.
Once the members join a giveaway event they then have access to the website they can download the free products that the contributors have supplied to the event in exchange for their name and e-mail details and so are added to the specific contributor’s list.
Giveaway events are a simple but effective way of getting a list started for a new marketer. It costs nothing to be involved with them except for a little of your time but these events can deliver surprisingly significant results. After you have participated in your first giveaway event you have all you need to simply repeat the process at subsequent events.
