Build Your List With JV Giveaway Events

If you have been involved in internet marketing for any length of time you will have heard the well used phrase “the money is in the list”, meaning you make money by promoting either your own products or affiliate offers to subscribers on your email list.

Nothing out of the ordinary there but one of the problems a lot of marketers have, in whatever niche, is they don’t know where to begin in terms of building a list.

They sit at the PCs fantasising about having a list to envy that of somebody like Mike Filsaime or Reed Floren, both of whom have subscribers running into the hundreds of thousands.

While these numbers are exemplary, the key point to remember is that everybody starts on the same number when they embark on their list building campaign – zero.

You build a list one by one, subscriber by subscriber and I won’t lie to you – it is difficult in the beginning and can seem like an uphill battle.

It took me months to grow my list from zero to a few hundred but now I have several thousand and believe me when I say the more subscribers you have on your list, the easier it becomes to get even more!

But, I wasted a lot of time during the early phases of my own list building campaign and what I want to share with you in this post should take you from zero to a few hundred subscribers in a matter of weeks rather than months!

(photograph attributed to Kevin Steele)

Introducing the JV Giveaway Event

At their most basic a JV Giveaway Event is a free membership websites where hundreds, or even thousands of people are eager to join your mailing list in order to download a free product you have to offer, such as a PDF report, video or MP3 file.

There are numerous events taking place around the year and while they are commonly used in the internet marketing niche, their popularity is spreading to other niches such as self improvement and health among others.

Whether you are yet to start building your list, are in the very early stages or have a growing list but want another source of new subscribers, read on and soon you will be harnessing the full power of giveaway events!

(image attributed to teamstickergiant)

1. Set Up Your Mailing List

The whole purpose of participating in a JV Giveaway Event is to get people to join your mailing list, so you need a suitable mailing list (autoresponder) provider before you start.

The mailing list provider I use is Aweber. I have had an account with them for several years and have no complaints whatsoever. They are cost effective and have one of the best email deliverability rates in the business.

For the sake of $1 you can set up a trial account and then it’s a small monthly subscription to enable you to send out unlimited autoresponder messages, broadcasts and RSS newsletters – perfect for when your list begins to grow (and it soon will)!

2. Create Your Free Product

You need a product to give away to new subscribers at the event and this can be anything from a PDF report, video, audio file, software, script or sometimes a membership to another website.

It is better to offer your own product because that way you can guarantee it is unique and it also strengthens your personal brand.

I have blogged before on how to create products and this should give you some ideas.

However, you don’t necessarily have to create your own product to give away at these events – you can give away somebody elses as long as you have the appropriate giveaway / resell rights.

In fact, you can give away my Blog Not Slog Basics report at these events to build your own list!

Plus, you can even brand the report to include your own affiliate link and make back end commissions should anyone who downloads it go on to purchase my Blog Not Slog Breakthrough report!*

*this is coming very, very soon folks!

3. Create Your Squeeze Page

You should create a dedicated squeeze page for new prospects to opt into so they can download your free product.

My advice on creating a squeeze page is to keep it as simple as possible. Don’t give anyone who lands on that page more than two options – they can either opt-in or click their “back” button.

By keeping it super simple (take a look at my squeeze page example above) you can enjoy opt-in rates of 70% or above, although anything around the 45-60% mark can be deemed successful.

It is not advisable to merely create a new page on your blog with an opt in form because there are too many other distractions (i.e. links on your page) to click on rather than doing the business of giving you their email address.

If you are confident in doing a little HMTL tinkering using an editor such as Dreamweaver, these free squeeze page templates from Rich Schefren will get you going.

If you are not, there are squeeze page template options for WordPress but these will cost you.

You can either upload a squeeze page to the same domain as your blog, such as www.yourblog.com/squeeze/ or you can use a completely separate domain such as www.yoursqueezepage.com.

(photograph attributed to Johnny Grim)

4. Monetize the Opt In Process

Even though you are giving away a free gift that does not mean you cannot make money from the prospects opting into your list!

This is the default “thank you” page provided by Aweber.

A better option is to redirect your prospect to a sales page where you offer them one a closely related paid product you have created as soon as they opt-in.

If you don’t have such a product you should create your own “thank you” page (the page your prospect sees as soon as they opt-in) and download page and add affiliate banners, offering them as “extra free gifts” or “unadvertised bonuses”.

Ideally you should use affiliate programs which also give away a free gift but offer you commissions on any back end sales made. This way you are not trying to “sell” anything to your subscriber, it’s just there if they want it.

Believe me when I say a decent percentage of your subscribers will go on to take these additional free gifts and purchase backend products. I have added four figures per month to my business by promoting affiliate programs in this passive manner!

Two such programs I promote and recommend you do too are:

• Turbo Traffic System by Dean Holland and Adam Spiel. I have experienced a high retention rate with this program which means after a prospect has taken out a low-cost trial, they stick around month after month and pay full price!
• Membership Site Tactics by Jason Fladlien. The retention rate is not as high as the above but Jason has a lot of products in his sales funnel. As long as the prospect I send Jason remains on his list, I get paid a commission on any subsequent sales, even if they are months or even years down the line!

This is an example of a “thank you” page I use. As you can see it gives the same information as the default above, but also includes some money making bonuses:

5. Join a Giveaway

Finally, it’s time to join a giveaway and get new subscribers on your list.

At this stage you should now have in place a:

• Mailing list – I recommend Aweber
• Product to offer – either your own or someone else’s
• Squeeze page – you can use these templates
• Thank you and Download page offering affiliate program “extra free gifts”

Visit and bookmark my JV Giveaway Events page which I keep updated with all the events I am involved in myself.

There are several new events launched every month so make sure you submit your free gift to as many as you can. It only takes a few minutes to register with each one as a contributor.

Promote or Upgrade?

One stipulation of joining a giveaway event as a contributor is you are expected to promote it in order to drive traffic to the site when it launches.

If you don’t, you run the risk of having your free gift removed.

I know what you are thinking, if you don’t already have a list to promote to, how do you get around this?

You can either promote the giveaway via other means such as Twitter, Facebook, forum/email signatures etc. or you can simply pay to upgrade your membership.

I want you to grow your list using giveaways as fast as possible so I recommend paying to upgrade your membership on those identified on my page as a Hot Pick.

These are events hosted by well-known marketers and will receive a lot more traffic than your average giveaway, thus making the upgrade investment of a few dollars worthwhile.

I know some readers will baulk at the prospect at having to pay for anything but think of it this way – would you rather pay a few dollars and fast-track your list from zero to several hundred in a month or two?

Or, would you rather scrap around for six months or longer adding a new opt-in subscriber here and there and not really make any progress?

Further Training

I hope this has been a useful introduction to using JV Giveaway Events as a list building tool but I want to offer you even more free training!

Register your seat on my webinar where I will be joined by Paul Teague, an expert list builder who has successfully used and even hosted his own giveaway events!

List Building with David Walker & Paul Teague

Wednesday 17 March – 5pm EST / 10pm GMT

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR!

How have you found using JV Giveaway Events to build your list?

Let me know your experiences, good or bad, in the comments below!