Mind you, NOT everyone can join a Giveaway event. As said many a times throughout this guide, not all events are created equal.

So the real secret to jumping in on the next hard-hitting event is to really have close contacts with would-be hosts of the coming Giveaway events.

Here are also some more viable ways you can use to find out when the next Giveaway event is:

Subscribe to Other People’s E-zines

This is generally applicable in the Internet Marketing niche itself. Now and then, some marketers announce an upcoming Giveaway event and are looking to recruit new partners.

Often the case, you will be joining a Massive Giveaway event. However, as long as there’s a chance to build your list at zero cost, why pass it up? 

You should subscribe to marketers whom you know are real Give Away event junkies (and are in the know). I know of one at http://www.thekeys2internetmarketing/.

Join a Giveaway Event in Action!

If you detect any Giveaway events that are already in progress and it’s still not too late for you to join in, you can still try your luck at coming in by emailing or contacting the host of the event.

Even if you can’t make it on the current one, you will do well to ask him or her to include you in the next launch or so.

Check out http://arvoreentreasures.com/jvs.php

Participate in Forums

Some popular marketing forums like http://www.warriorforum.com/forum have discussions on Giveaway events every now and then. While you don’t have to really participate, you can lurk in every now and then to check out the latest Giveaway event in the pipeline.

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Having said that, some Giveaway events are great, some good and the others… real bad. 

In fact recently, a number of marketers believe that Giveaway events are beginning to become “wash outs” or diluted in their quality, and that they won’t work like a charm as they used to.

Now for the great news: Giveaway events are still workable and viable list building models – as long as they are done right!

It’s really only a matter of joining the right Giveaway event. So what makes a good Giveaway event… good? Some important criteria you will want to look out for are listed below:

Giveaway Event Factor #1:
The Partners are Cooperative

In short, are the partners in the same event as you are willing to endorse the event to their mailing lists as required? While it’s hard to tell if this is going to be your first few times giving a try at building your list through such events, you can usually tell whether the partners are cooperative or not if the partners are somewhat closely related or working together with the host.

This substantial difference can be seen in both of what I call “Massive” Giveaway Events and “Mini” Giveaway events.

Massive Giveaway events are usually participated by more than 20-30 marketers in the same event, and its growth is often encouraged by the use of affiliate programs.

Mini Giveaway events, on the other hand, are somewhat more “closed door” whereby the host is more selective of the partners he or she chose to work with.

While I cannot say which type of event is better than the other, from my experience, Mini events have most cooperative partners due to bias choosing and “closed door” invitation. Incidentally, it’s harder to enter a Mini Giveaway event as an outsider.

Massive ones may or may not produce good signup results depending on the partners who join in. If the event is full of unknown marketers or free riders, you probably can tell that it might not be executed well.

Giveaway Event Factor #2:
There Are Some Hard-Hitting Partners in the Same Event

If there are a couple of reputable partners joining in the same event, it would be a good chance to hitch a ride.

Important tip: In many cases, I learned that some top marketers usually just join in without putting in any effort in endorsing (which makes him or her a free rider, too). So if you learn that the specific marketer is that kind of person in nature, it’s probably not wise to join in that Giveaway event… because the biggest free rider is there.

Not all top marketers are like this, fortunately.

Giveaway Event Factor #3:
The Event Host is Trusted & Responsible

You can tell this if the event host regularly updates his or her partners on the event – before, during and after.

The event host is considered responsible if he or she monitors the event carefully on a regular basis, and that he or she DOES indeed remove the free riders from the event promptly, justifying other active partners’ efforts.

Giveaway Event Factor #4:
The Event Has A Reputation

If the event has been heard of or recognized by many, this would be another attractive reason why you should join that Giveaway event!

Giveaway Event Factor #5:
You & The Partners Are All From The Same Niche

This way, the event would work successfully with everyone sharing subscribers of an almost same nature.

It would hardly work if all the partners come from a different background or niche. I mean, imagine pooling a gift to have people sign up for your “relationship dating” e-zine when all the other partners are referring subscribers from the Internet Marketing niche!

Giveaway Event Factor #6:
The Giveaway Event Is Hosted For A Limited Time Only

Giveaway events should be running for a limited time only, and the model is at its best that way. It increases the urgency of people to sign up for your gift while protecting the value of your gift (assuming it’s used specially on for this occasion).

My idea of limited time events are in the range of 5 to 7 days but fewer than 14 that’s for sure. When you hear of events running for ridiculous time length like 21-30 days, or even forever… you will do well NOT to join them because the above 2 success factors are ripped away owing to the long time length.

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I had a fantastic discussion with Brad Smith about his background and what led to his developing the great Giveaway Manager 1 software and then improving on that for the Giveaway Manager 2 software (which was released in May 2008).

In this discussion, Brad not only shares some of the challenges he has experienced in running Giveaways but also shares some of the techniques that he has learnt.

Brad was originally introduced to Giveaway Marketing when he was invited to be a Member of the 12 Days of Christmas event in 2004 and then a contributor in 2005. What really amazed me, when speaking with Brad is the forward thinking that he exhibited when planning his EasterJV 2006 event - listen to the interview and you’ll understand what I mean.

The one message that Brad really wanted to get across about Giveaway Marketing is that it is give and take on both sides of the event. The promoters organise the event, run it and do the initial marketing and in return the contributors are able to build their lists and earn commissions. However, for the event to be successful for all contributors, all contributors need to promote the event and introduce members. This is one point that Brad is emphatic and passionate about and speaks very strongly on.

Later in the discussion, Brad shares great techniques for converting Giveaway members to your list, converting OTO’s and promoting Giveaway events for contributors.

In this interview, Brad mentions the following sites:

Giveaway Manager 2 - a fantastic piece of code to run a Giveaway event with

Giveaway Code - How to make the most of your Giveaway events.

Enjoy listening to this interview.

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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 not shared publicly and used specially for Giveaway events and incidentally, you also include the opt-in form at the bottom of the page.

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

• The benefits of your gift,
• Remind your visitor that he or she is required to sign up to your mailing list in order to download the gift,
• You will NOT rent, share or sell his or her details away,
• And that he or she can cancel her subscription at any time!

Support/Email Address

Be sure to include a way your visitors or subscribers can contact you on your landing page and thank you page!

You wouldn’t want to trouble the Giveaway event host into handling yours. Besides, where your gift and signup are concerned, it’s your domain and territory to take care of.

It’s advisable to include a link to your support helpdesk on these pages over your email address, if you have a support helpdesk. Otherwise, email would work, too.

Miscellaneous

These are some other important things you may want to include in your Giveaway event preparation as a partner and contributor:

Photo & Signature – it would make your landing page more professional looking, and might just help with your signup rate boosting. Also, some events might require your photo so be prepared to have your best photo available!

Gift Image – people DO judge a book by its cover especially online. Be sure to prepare you gift image at various sizes (large, medium and small) because chances are that the Give Away event host will need one from you to display on the gifts page.

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 Giveaway event” and “how many people are clicking through your landing page to see your gift” so you can monitor the signup conversion rate.

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Firstly, be sure to require a double opt-in for your visitors. This is in effort to prevent phoney details being keyed into your signup form by freebie seekers… who also want to take a step further in putting you into trouble such as spam issues. By requiring visitors to confirm their subscription from valid email addresses, you can cut more than a bunch of spam risks at stake.

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!

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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.

In short, prepare a digital product you are ready to part with.

Tip: notice I said “your own gift” in the headline? I personally don’t advice giving away other people’s products you own the (Master) Resell Rights to. For starters, NOT all products with Resell Rights can be given away freely. Doing so, you’re probably asking for legal action being taken against you.

Secondly, you’re better off creating your own gift so you can give it away in your name and brand it in the process. You don’t want your visitors remembering other people while you’re going a great length giving them away to build your list!

Creating your own gift doesn’t have to be hard, however. You can, for example, write a 4-8 page report (easy feat, really) on a topic you know well. If you own a membership site, you can give a trial pass away or even offer a “lite” version. Pretty much the same can be done for software and scripts whereby you offer a limited time trial.

Important Tip 2: 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… because people will be downloading it by the masses!

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But before you start plunging into one, be sure to have the following essentials checked!

Your Own Mailing List!

That’s right. I’ve mentioned previously that Giveaway events are pretty similar to ad swaps in one thing common: it’s using subscribers to make subscribers.

Bear in mind, though, that having your own mailing list just isn’t enough; you need to have a substantial one!

Nobody likes a free rider in any Giveaway event. Period. And don’t let that person be YOU! Unless you can contribute subscribers almost up to par with other partners, you’re better off not joining a Giveaway event in the first place.

As a matter of fact, most (if not all) Giveaway event hosts are strict about partners having a minimum mailing list size before participating in their event. 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 Giveaway events are equal in their system, quality and results, you can qualify for a big number of Giveaway events as long as you have over 1,000 opt-in subscribers, from my experience.

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I also suspect that it has probably been carried out in offline businesses, in a similar way, to get hot prospects and leads, though I cannot vouch for this truth. It’s a subject fit for another book, nonetheless.

So how do Giveaway events really work – and how does it help YOU build your mailing list?

Well it works like this: think of a GIANT ad swap.

How Ad Swaps Work

In a regular ad swap deal, you and another list owner (who probably has a similar mailing list size as yours) do an ad exchange.

You send the partner’s advertisement to your mailing list.

Your partner sends YOUR advertisement to his or her mailing list.

Usually, you will want to send an ad that encourages the reader to subscribe to your mailing list (we’ve been talking about it until now so you know the drill!).

You can call this “legally stealing subscribers” if you want to. After all, the average subscriber is subscribed to more than 10-20 mailing lists, possibly more, which is a perfect norm these days.

While ad swapping is a perfect way to build your mailing list by playing the game of “using subscribers to make subscribers”, the leverage effect is often 1:1 in a real sense.

You can only carry out one ad swap at a time, for starters. And even if you do swap ads with more than one list owner or e-zine publisher, the leverage effect remains 1:1 because you have to send that many advertisements to your list, too, in proportionate to how many list owners you agreed to swap ads with.

This doesn’t mean I’m discounting the power of swapping ads; it’s a good and essential marketing method you can do now and then.

But if you want to discover how you can build your mailing list at warp speed, read on:

How Giveaway Events Work

As said earlier, Giveaway events are almost similar to what I call a BIG version of an ad swap.

The host of the Giveaway event invites partners, who are primarily list owners in the same niche, to contribute a gift.

The gifts are usually digital products, like:

• E-Book,
• Report,
• Audio/Video product,
• Membership pass, and/or
• Software/Script

The host of the event then pools all the gifts contributed collectively by the partners in one page or member’s area. 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 signup page.

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

While the gifts are given away at zero-cost, the only requirement is that the visitors must sign up for your mailing list to receive them.

Your visitors-turned-subscribers has the option to cancel their subscription to your mailing list at any time, of course, but this is a good opportunity you should be taking to build your relationship with the newcomers to your mailing list or e-zine or membership site.

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

Like ad swaps, Giveaway events are really using subscribers to make subscribers.

On the launch day and during the limited time event, you and other partners are required by the host to endorse the Giveaway event to your individual mailing lists.

In other words, you are going to tell YOUR subscribers to go to the Giveaway 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 Giveaway event on a website where all the gifts are pooled together. With the host and other partners are doing the same, it will be a massive gathering of traffic at the website where all the gifts are being pooled.

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

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Blogging Software Programs

Blogging software programs are some of the most obvious programs which make blogging easier. These programs are readily available and many of them are free to use. Blogging software programs can greatly simplify the process of publishing a blog especially if the blogger employs the templates included in these programs. In some cases the act of publishing a blog once the blog has been set up may be as simple as typing the text of the blog into a text editor and pressing a button to publish the blog. However, there will be some work required of the blogger upfront to set up the layout of the blog.

Even the design process is greatly simplified by these programs especially if the blogger opts to use the templates in the program. The blogger may only have to scroll through a list of options and select those which he finds most appealing. Based on these selections the software will generate the blog with the appropriate layout, colors, fonts and even advertising options. More ambitious bloggers may opt to utilize their programming skills to customize these templates but this is not necessary and the blog will function sufficiently without any additional customization.

Website Design Software

Website design software can also be a useful tool for new bloggers who want to create a blog which is aesthetically appealing and also functional. These software programs make it possible for bloggers who do not have any design experience to create a blog with a unique appearance. When using this type of software the blogger can scroll through options, make changes on the fly, preview changes and even upload photos for use in the blog. As these changes are made in the software design program the code for these design options is automatically generated, updated and stored as necessary.

Keyword Generators

Bloggers who are trying to attract a great deal of web traffic to a website should also consider the use of keyword generator to assist them in determining which keywords they should be using in their blog. The blogger may want to make the blog interesting and informative as a priority but the judicious use of keywords throughout the blog and in the code of the blog can contribute to higher search engine rankings for the blog. This is important because high search engine rankings often translate to high blog traffic. This is because Internet users heavily rely on search engines to assist them in finding the best websites which pertain to certain keywords which are used during searches. These high search engine rankings essentially act as free advertising for the blog owner because Internet users expect the highest ranking websites to be the most informative websites so they are likely to visit blogs which rank well with search engines as opposed to blogs which are buried on later pages of search results.

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Lastly, make sure you are always honest and sincere in all your business doings, and you will always make a good impression with customers.

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