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How to Use Free Giveaways to YOUR Advantage
By Jackie | October 10, 2008
It’s free giveaway season again. I thought I’d take a minute today to talk with you about how to most efficiently use free giveaways, not get inundated and overwhelmed, and best of all how to make money using them.
Every year about this time there are more and more free giveaways. If you are new and haven’t been to your first internet marketing giveaway yet you are in for a treat. Pages upon pages of free stuff!
However, if it’s your first giveaway, or even your 10th there are some strategies you need to employ to take the most advantage without getting overwhelmed.
Let’s look at the reason why people put their products for free in giveaways.
It’s really easy.
TO GET YOU TO SIGN UP FOR THEIR LIST
That’s it that’s the only reason. Remember that as you go from product to product in a downloading spree, that everytime you fill in another name and email box you have just joined someone elses list. You will begin hearing from ALL of them within the next hour or so, both to give you the free product AND to sell you a bunch more stuff down the line.
That may not sound great, but it’s really not that bad. You can definitely use free giveaways to your advantage, and if you are smart about it, it’s not hard to do.
I’m going to just talk about using them as a member today ~ it goes without saying they are awesome ways to build your list. Especially if you get in on one of the big ones, done by some big names in internet marketing. A good example of that would be the Rising Star giveaway currently going on. It’s being given by Reed Floren who is a well known marketer.
How to use Free Giveaways to YOUR advantage
1. Be clear about what you want/need BEFORE you get there. You will be inundated with a ton of good stuff, and it’s so exciting to get stuff for free. Don’t just go in and get everything you can get your hands on. You will have too much stuff you never use, and be getting way too many emails.
So how do you get clear about what you want/need? Think about your current needs. Are you working on making your own products? Is there something in a project you need to learn about? Are you trying something new but don’t want to spend money on it? Ask yourself these questions.
Here’s some examples. Maybe you are working on using PLR products to create your own product to sell on a squidoo lens. Great! Think about what your lens is about, and then go specifically looking for PLR products on that TOPIC
Are you getting ready to start a new niche blog and need something to give away to your subscribers? Great ~ go in specifically looking for something that relates to that niche. Try to find it with PLR rights so you can change it up and use it anyway you want. But at least make sure you get resale or master resale rights. A free product that only you can use does you no good for a list. Unless you are using it for ideas to write your own product.
I am trying to write some short ads for a new promotion I’m doing. I don’t have much experience writing ads, they are so short!!! So I am going to go and see if I can find something about ad writing.
If you are putting up a sales page you might want to find something on writing sales copy.
Are you using twitter yet? I’m sure there will be something about using twitter available that you can download.
You see what you need to do here? You need to go in with a plan. Go in looking for what you need and let the rest stay. There’s no need for you to have EVERYTHING on your hard drive. I know it’s tempting but you just don’t need it.
And chances are you aren’t going to need it later ~ yeah I know you were thinking that. If you do end up needing something later you can go to the next giveaway and find it there.
The second element you need to deal with is the one time offers ~ also known as OTO.
When you sign in you will be faced with a powerful sales page offering you a million products for the amazingly low price of ~ whatever ~
OTOs employ one of the biggest sales techniques ~ urgency. You will only see this once. You will never see this again. You will never get this deal, see this price ~ well I think you get my point.
Be very careful with OTOs. Sometimes they are a great deal. But if you are paying a lower price for something you don’t even need or want it’s definitely NOT a good deal.
Going in with a plan can help you with this too. Make sure you are clear what you are looking for, what you need. AND if you have money to spend set yourself a limit of what you are willing to spend. You may have 37 bucks you can spend and the OTO is 97. You have set a limit for youself, make sure you honor that limit and let the OTO go by. I promise it won’t be the end of the world. 
(not sure if I’m telling you or me that one lol)
Be aware, if you go back more than once you will be faced with more than one OTO, they are offers the contributors have put up for the giveaway. Just be prepared to face it, and move on. If you know it’s not on your list or plan just scroll to the bottom and click the no thanks button. It will then take you to the members area.
The third element of giveaways is all the email you are going to get afterward.
Here’s my thought on that. Take a look at them for about a month. Get a feel for the person, their style and what they offer.
Are they providing you with any useful information? Are they providing you with knowledge that helps you move forward?
Are they only sending you affiliate link after affiliate link with nothing helpful thrown in?
Here’s what I do ~ if I am getting helpful information from someone I stay on the list. If I get some helpful information but it has nothing to do with the direction I’m moving my business I unsubscribe.
If I don’t get any real content and it’s only offer after offer, I unsubscribe. I know me, and I bet you are the same way. I get caught up in powerful sales pages. I buy ~ and especially when I probably shouldn’t. So if the person writes great emails I might stay on the list, just to get some tips on writing compelling emails, but most likely I will unsubscribe. My life is cluttered enough as it is, I don’t need to be sold on something I don’t want to buy just because now I feel like I’ll be missing out on something if I don’t get it.
This has turned into another book, surprise, surprise.
To wrap it up here’s what you need to remember to make the most out of free giveaways.
1. Go in with a plan
2. Know what you are looking for ~ product/topic or niche
3. Get what you need and get out.
4. If you get value from the emails you get stay on.
5. If you get no value ~ unsubscribe. The world won’t collapes, you won’t miss anything
Now with these valuable tips, and a plan head on over to the Rising Star giveaway and getcha some!!
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Topics: Uncategorized |
October 10th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Interesting information and something I’m going to look into more. Thanks for writing this!
October 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Thank you for the mention Jackie
October 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Free giveaways are great. I know I always try to give some business or loyalty to those that give me something.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:15 am
this giveaway thingy is a must… yet sometime I gave up to 5 ebook to generate 1 sale haha..