Thursday, November 09, 2006
The value of JV Giveaways
JV Giveaways are a popular way of list building. By offering visitors a gift in exchange for their Contact Details you're able to build your list of leads. By staying in touch with your leads you'll hopefully be able to convert them into customers down the line. On the basis of getting something for nothing (and not being sold to) visitors to Giveaways seem to be more willing to give up their contact details.
I started building my lists on a Giveaway and ever since then I've tried to participate in as many as I can.
You should remember 2 things - not all Giveaways are created equal, and disregard the promises of thousands of subscribers (hundreds, yes). The owner of the Giveaway can get the thousands because everyone has to sign up to join but once inside the effects are dissipated.
How Giveaways work - Typically someone will start a Giveaway around a Theme (Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Halloween.. ) and then recruit JV partners to take part. The partners provide Gifts (and a bit of a write up) which are then listed for the visitors to download after they've parted with their contact details. Most Giveaways last for a couple of weeks to a month but some are continuous.
What do you need - A Gift (of course) - Sometimes the Giveaway owner specifies a Value range of the Gifts but normally try to find something in the $35 to $55 range. (How you work out the value is a guess unless you actually paid for the gift).
You'll also need an autoresponder service to handle your (hundreds of) signups. Its important that you set these subscriptions up as DOUBLE Opt In to prevent accusations of spamming. If you don't have an autoresponder service already then Freeauatobot.com offers a "Free" autoresponder (a small advert is the price you pay). I've been using Freeautobot and have been happy with their service.
It's not necessary for you to have a website set up but it does make it easier to handle your gift downloads. Part of what we offer here at The e-Biz Forum is server space where you can store your Gifts in our download area. If you'd like to know more just ask.
Cheers
Hugh
