Email Marketing: How to Set Up A Successful Product Giveaway

Learning how to set up a successful product giveaway isn't rocket science, but it does take some planning and at least initially, a little bit of effort.

Giveaway events are a great way to quickly build your mailing list. They will also get your product name and business brand in front of a ton of people very quickly.

Savvy marketers have discovered that putting viral versions of their ebooks into a product giveaway, will increase targeted traffic to their websites and introduce their products to thousands of people at almost no cost.

This article will give people who are thinking about getting involved in a giveaway event, an idea of how to "put it all together" without being totally overwhelmed setting up the process.

Before you even bother searching for a product giveaway to involve yourself in, you will need the following:

• a domain main and website hosting for your giveaway folder
• a product or multiple products to give away
• a short description of your product or products
• a "one time offer" product to promote as a purchase incentive
• an Upsell product is not necessary, but is recommended
• an clear image of your product
• an autoresponder service, so you can set up a new list.
• an opt-in squeeze page
• a “Thank You" and "OTO” landing page for your visitors to land on after they click “submit” button
• a “Download" and/or "Upsell” page for your visitors to land on after they click link on the confirmation email
• a welcome email
• a series of follow-up emails to promote other products.

Most product giveaway events, in order for your product giveaway to show up in their listing, will require you send traffic to their event pages to promote their event.

Points are awarded for every referral you send to the event and the more points you acquire, the higher up your gift will appear on the gifts page. (Something like SEO affecting your site ranking in the search engine results page of Google.)

Like Google's PPC; most product giveaways will offer you an upgrade option where you receive bonus points and have your gift listed, regardless of how much traffic you contribute to the giveaway.

This is particularly advantageous to newcomers to email marketing who haven't already built a substantial list. Most newcomers will want to pay for the upgrade which usually runs only about $10 to $20 dollars.

First pick a product to give away in the event and write a brief description for it. Using PLR products with "giveaway" rights is probably the best way to go, unless you have already developed your own unique product.

Because PLR products can be totally edited; you can modify it, create a new product image cover for it, and make sure it doesn't conflict with any other product being given away on the event.

With PLR products, you can rewrite a condensed version, put it in a "Special Report" to give away at the event, and use the full version as an upgrade for your One Time Only offer.

If you decide on using a one time offer with an upsell product, be sure it that relates to your giveaway product. You can include an advertisement in your giveaway product to your OTO product and an ad for your upsell product. Put one ad in the front of the book and another ad on the last page; or just place both ads on the very last page.

To make things easy, use your giveaway product sales page as a template for your opt in and all your other pages.

Use the most compelling headlines and bullet points, and replace the "buy now" button with your opt in form.

Get rid of all the superfluous BS and remember that even though this is a giveaway event; in order to get people to give you their email address, you still have to promote the benefits of your product.

Set up the landing page, which is what people first see when they click the "submit" button on your opt in form.

This page tells your visitors to check their inbox for a confirmation email and to click the link in order to receive their download.

Use the sales page template to create this page, so that all your pages have the same basic look.

The "Thank You" landing page is where you can promote your OTO product if you decide to have one.

For instance; if you are giving away a free ebook as your product, you can offer a "video training course" or a "software product" as an upgrade to the ebook, at a one time only low price on the "Thank You" page.

You need to set up your product Download page along with your Upsell, if you are using one.

This is the page where your visitors land when they click on the confirmation link in their emails.
You can use either this page or the sales page for your upsell. As long as you prominently display the "DOWNLOAD" link when using the download page for your upsell, it really doesn't matter.

Upload a folder to your domain for the giveaway event that contains the four pages you set up. The Opt In or Squeeze Page, the Thank You and OTO page, the Download or Upsell page, and your product download URL.

Next you need to create your autoresponder list for the giveaway event. Make sure you add your Thank You URL when you set up the opt in form, the URL for your Download Page when you set up the verification email, and then copy the opt in form code and paste it into the opt in Squeeze Page you created.

Entering the correct URLs in the correct sequence is important, so TEST your Squeeze Page when you're finished to make sure your visitor traffic is being directed to the right pages.

• When you click the Submit button on your Squeeze Page, you should be directed to the Thank You page.
• When you check your inbox, you should have received the verification email.
• When you click on the verification link, you should be directed to the Download Page.
• When you click on the Download, you should receive your product giveaway.

If everything is working correctly, you can add your Welcome message to your new subscriber and include another link to your Download and/or Upsell page.

This will give you a second shot at capturing a sale, while offering your visitor a second chance to download your offer, just in case they missed it the first time around.

When you sign into the giveaway event dashboard to add your free gift, you will need to provide everything you did in the above steps, so be prepared to furnish it.

Once you have your product set up for one giveaway event; you can easily duplicate it for future giveaway events that you might be interested in joining. Even if you change your product, most of the work will already be done by you.

Setting up a successful product giveaway takes time and effort but for the work involved, there is no better way to grow your list and improve your bottom line.

Here are some giveaway ideas that will quickly grow your list.