Help Me Think Up A Good Giveaway Idea

58 | Posted In Marketing by David

OK, here’s the deal…

I’ve got a bunch of big-ticket internet marketing courses that I want to give away. Included are:

  • The 7-Figure Code (a Mike Filsaime product)
  • Membership Site Bootcamp (Ryan Lee)
  • NLP Copywriting (Harlan Kilstein)
  • Mass Control (Frank Kern)
  • Underground Online Seminar 6 (conference recordings, Yanik Silver)
  • Traffic Secrets 1.0 (John Reese)
  • Traffic Secrets 2.0 (John Reese)
  • Membership Sites Revealed (Chris Lockwood)
  • Product Launch Formula (I think the first version)
  • Butterfly Marketing (10-Disc set, Filsaime)
  • Masters of Copywriting, 5R version
  • Instant Traffic Stampede (Yanik Silver, Jim Edwards)

As you can see, its a bunch of stuff. Now, ALL of these are in physical form – not digital. In fact, that’s why I want to get rid of them… they’re taking up too much space in my office. :)

Needless to say, I forked over a big pile of moolah for all this stuff over the years. But, it gets to a point where stuff is just… well, stuff. I far prefer digital versions of things these days (less space) and I really don’t need this stuff around anymore.

So, I want to do a giveaway. I want it to be cool. And I’m asking for your ideas.

Please post a comment and let me know your thought for a good giveaway contest idea that I can run on this blog.

A few criteria of my own:

  1. I’m not giving all of this stuff to one person. Ideally, I’ll split this up so there will be multiple winners. I have no idea how I’ll decide who gets what.
  2. Obviously, the contest should be designed to drive people into this site. Obviously. :)
  3. Ideally, the contest won’t require a huge amount of overhead on the part of my assistant.

Obviously, I could think up something on my own. I’ve done giveaways before, but nothing with prizes this big. So, why I am asking you for ideas?

  1. More heads, the merrier. You guys can give me some ideas I might not think of on my own.
  2. This is a blog about blogging, so you guys can also learn some ideas from looking over the ideas I get. We all win.

OK, I look forward to some cool ideas. And, soon, I’ll get something going on this because I really want this stuff out of my office. This stuff has been sitting on my floor for a few months now. :)

 

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  • http://kikolani.com/ Kristi Hines

    You could go with the current guest blogger trends. Invite people to write about topics that your blog focuses upon and then whoever has the most popular post gets to decide which item they want, 2nd place gets to choose from what is left, and so on. Great way to get other people interested in driving traffic to their articles on your site!

  • James

    Have everyone write a 3 sentence statements why they “need/ want” the product.

  • Andrew

    I’d suggest a give away for people who share their personal AMAZING results when using an info product or course! And give prizes away for the best, most ‘liked’ results and insights.

    One key reason why people resist purchasing products like this is they don’t think they work – it would be good to hear some great testimonials for your and other people’s products – dispelling the myth that these products don’t make anyone richer but the person who creates them….but not just testimonials, some ‘knocking it out the park’ testimonials which PROVE that these products can work if people get up out of their sofas!

  • http://blogmarketingexperts.com Bruce

    You could hold a contest for the best method that your readers are using to make a living online. They would have to show the detail of the plan they used plus some of the results they got from it. It would help drive traffic to your blog site and your loyal readers will get great value in someone “spilling the beans” on what they’ve done to be successful.

  • Brent

    Search Twitter for people that are sharing your website or content and randomly offer them something. I search daily for people that are talking about my brands and I offer them product just for spreading the word.

  • http://sometimesithink-krissy.blogspot.com krissy knox

    I have seen so many blogs where the reader who gets the prize is picked randomly. They just post a comment to get a chance at being picked. They get extra chances for tweeting about your contest on twitter, etc.

    I have never liked this idea much, as it does not encourage creativity, nor does it show the skills or much of anything of the reader. So I don’t feel it’s a true “contest.” I feel a give-away, if it is to be valuable, should include an actual contest of sorts. While it would be hard for you to decide, I still would find it to be more valuable and satisfying for everyone involved.

    What i was thinking was you could give us a topic and we could each do a post on it. To give you more advertisement, we would be required to perhaps announce the contest in the post before we wrote our post. we would of course have to put a link to your contest post and to your blog. that way others would go read your blog, and i believe this WOULD drive readers to your site. i say this bc some of my friends are readers of yours but a lot are not. that’s bc they haven’t heard of you. if i posted regarding a topic you posted about, and left a link to your blog and the contest, i believe you’d gain visitors and new readers and subscribers.

    that’s my idea. you could even have people get an extra point for tweeting their post on twitter after they posted it, if you so chose. but if they kept tweeting 100 times to get 100 pts over 100 days, that wouldn’t quite make sense to me. of course — it’s your contest. anyway, i’d play either way.

    just wanted to say i’d be glad to introduce my readers to you. i’m looking forward to whatever you do, david! :)

  • http://twitter.com/JoToPR Karla Jo Helms

    If you want more people to subscribe to you blog and visit your site, I think you should test out your Inner Circle – have each member of your Inner Circle post to their blog and their database that you are giving away these materials for free in a drawing, IF they become a subscriber to your blog – have affiliate links for each Inner Circle member, so you know which inner circle member drove the most people to your site and then do 12 drawings (for the 12 different products) from ALL the NEW people that signed up. Then you should blog about your Inner Circle member that “killed it” with the most traffic to your site – and give them a shout out to your 14,000+ subscribers and 11,000 followers!

  • Anonymous

    There’s always the follow and retweet mantra. This is usually for generic contests to let people know that a company or product exists. For someone established such as yourself, I would think a scavenger hunt would be a good idea, across multiple blog sites. Get the people who’s stuff you’re giving away to participate, and that would be more traffic for everyone. When we, the contestants get to the last blog, we qualify for an entry with a simple click. I’ve participated in one of these before, and it did allow multiple winners, as I didn’t get the grand prize, but one of the 1st or 2nd prizes.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Interesting ideas. Only thing is that it would require people to sign up for the Inner Circle to enter. While the money-grubbing side of me would dig that, I don’t want to require a cash outlay for a giveaway. :-)

  • http://profiles.google.com/vaglover Voyle Glover

    Apparently, the Geohunt thing (forget what it is called) is pretty big around the country right now. Spring is here and lots of people are going to be out and about. So, find people you trust around the country who would be willing to do a hide and willing to tweet the clues, and you can repost those tweets here. Make sure you get signed up in the geo place (no idea where it is). Would have the effect of exposing you to a whole ‘nuther spectrum of people. A bit of work, but…as a marketing tool, I think it would be effective. (And I gotta pass as a volunteer “hider” – only thing I’m good at is hiding out in my office :)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Good idea, Krissy. Its spawning some ideas on my part. :-) Thanks.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    The thing is…. almost every IM product out there “works”…. the problem is the buyer usually sits on their ass and doesn’t do anything, then blames the product for not working.

    They’re right in the sense that the product doesn’t work. In other words, it doesn’t do the work for them. :-)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Thanks, Kristi. Some good ideas.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Just for others to learn from…

    This is a good idea if the product is one I’m selling. But, since I’m just giving away stuff other people made, its not quite as powerful as a marketing idea.

    Thanks for the idea, James. :-) Not ripping on it, but like I said in the post, we can all learn from each other through these ideas. So, thought I’d add my two cents.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Creative idea. Never seen anything like that before in the blogging space.

    BTW, its called “geocaching”. Like a scavenger hunt with your GPS. Pretty cool…. I’ve done it a few times. :-)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Thanks. :-) Only problem with this is that I don’t have the participation of the creators of these courses. I bought their stuff… now I just want to offload it on somebody else who can use it.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Like this. Gets people to help each other rather than just “gimme gimme”. :-)

  • Bryan

    Refer-a friend contest would bring more traffic at zero cost to you,little hassle to your assistant,and be fairer to the subscribers.

  • Mark Valley

    Dave,

    A contest to get rid of a bunch of obsolete IM crap? Really??

    Just dump it and let it die a quiet death!

  • http://twitter.com/iLukeMatthews Luke Matthews

    If you could set up the tracking or some way to measure it, I’d run a contest to see who can drive the most legitimate traffic to your website from their own site/blog/email list. Each prize will be given in Tiers. First place, your most valuable of the products, second place, the 2nd most valuable, and so on. :)

  • http://twitter.com/iLukeMatthews Luke Matthews

    HAHAH!!! THANK YOU!

  • http://www.awakencreativity.com Marianne

    I like Voyle’s scavenger/ geocaching hunt idea. That sounds fun. Seems like if the hunt all took place on this site, people would become really engaged on your site, get to know your content and how you think. Not sure if I would tweet the clues or FB them or have them here on your site (with tweets to direct people here). To really engage people (beyond the prizes) it would have to be really creative and something that in the action of the hunt the readers would benefit from. I guess depending on your audience and who you want to attract, you could create the hunt in 12 different ways (for each prize). That seems time consuming but it could be worth the ROI in the long run. Then perhaps you could combine it with Krissy’s ideas or the ones you are creating…it could be just the novel idea that drives readers and subscriptions.

    Looking forward to other great, creative ideas!

  • http://aremorch.com Are Morch

    Agree with Krissy and Kristy. Provide a action based engagement form with either video blog or blog post focusing on biggest blog challenge or topic that is related to the info we love to read here.

    Cheers.. Are

  • Affitfather

    An info scavenger hunt thoughout different website. There was a recent one online throughout cloth diapering companies. It ook a great deal of time and was a lot of fun for those that participated.

  • Anonymous

    You just blogged with the best question to draw comments – “why do you blog?”

    Some other ideas;
    What’s the most disappointing marketing product you’ve ever bought?
    What are five ways you can improve your site/blog/business this year?
    Create a name for an internet marketing product that sounds like it’s worth buying.
    List three reasons you marketing plan sucks.
    Name Ty Cobb’s ERA.

  • Anonymous

    Run a 30 day competition to see whose content can go viral. Reward outstanding examples.

  • http://www.adsensegurublueprint.com Neal Mcartney

    You got us here via email. See who can create the best subject link and text creative for your next major announcement. Reveal results. Use the best one for your next one. Anyone can try, everyone will learn. And I will win:) ( eh em..maybe.. I really would like a good Crack at the mass control -personally). Whadda ya think?

  • Virginia

    Maybe people can vote for only one give away from the above list that they want the most and the winner is picked at random from the voters, that way everyone can have a chance at winning something they really, really want! Each day one item is given away and people can only vote once.

  • Lana Vaughan

    The people who post here are already here. If you’re looking to generate new interest from those who are already interested I would suggest a “Vote for me to win” type contest. It’s not my reading the blogs you’re trying to increase but actually accessing my readers/supporters, right? Those who want to be considered submit to the site and over the period of a week their friends/supporters post comments on which resource they think the entrant would benefit the most from. My readers get to tell you what they think I need to improve. You get their input and so do I.

  • http://www.mondaymorningva.com/ Dawn Martinello

    a best entrepreneur award. everyone is nominated once they make a post (give some boundaries about the types of things people say) then the winners are the ones with the most comment likes. Encourage everyone to tweet, facebook and email about their entry to gain more traffic.

    …something that involves video. if you want something off the wall, you can have people do some karaoke or something crazy like that. or it could be as simple as putting one of the ideas mentioned in your comments in action by requiring them to use video.

    if you want to help people build their businesses too, then get everyone to obtain one testimonial from a client. Best (whatever best is) testimonial wins.

    host an adventure where people need to find clues based on things in your archives.

    come up with an extraordinary title (or two or three). everyone has to blog about it on their site and link back to your site. comments are required here.

    ask people to come up with a tagline, slogan or the name for your next program

    get people to take pictures of themselves with the printout of your ebook then post them on here

  • Sherryl

    You could run a contest for the Best Burning Question I Need Answered about Pro Blogging. You should get lots! And that would also provide you with a whole bunch of topics to blog about for the next few weeks or months.
    All you’d have to do would be read the questions and decide on the best 12. You win (lots of topic ideas) and we win (well, 12 of us would with the products, but we’d all win with your answers to the questions!).

  • http://twitter.com/affiliateTT Lynn C.

    It’ll be a good time to reward your readers, reward those …..

    … who are the most active
    … who are the most creative
    … who are the most constructive
    … who are the most helpful
    … who are the most loyal

    I believe you can pick up them up from your comments.

  • http://twitter.com/affiliateTT Lynn C.

    It’ll be a good time to reward your readers, reward those …..

    … who are the most active
    … who are the most creative
    … who are the most constructive
    … who are the most helpful
    … who are the most loyal

    I believe you can pick up them up from your comments.

  • http://www.theredheadriter.com The Redhead Riter

    Have a giveaway only for redheads! (wicked evil grin)

    Do something outlandishly silly to bring out the child in everyone for a change like best 4 line poem or first 4 lines of a song to “Mary Had A Little Lamb”

    Of course, you could be all serious and the winner of each giveaway will also win a 15 minute blog critique or blogging assistance/questions-answers with you.

    Good luck with whatever you choose!

  • eandtsmom

    Joel Comm sold all of his stuff on eBay as one large package late last year. As I recall, the proceeds went to charity, but I could be wrong on that. It seemed to generate a lot of traffic both to his site, and awareness about the extent of his knowledge and experience. People were interested on trying to get all this stuff, so it generated quite the buzz. Promotion was basically a video with Joel explaining what he was doing, and why, and then a lot of social media promotion by himself and his fans.

  • Anonymous

    Well, then find some bloggers willing to participate in the scavenger hunt. It doesn’t have to be those that you bought material from. You have friends, and friends of friends….

  • http://twitter.com/CrystalsQuest Crystal Woods

    2 possible ideas, or you could mix and match:

    * First, what about having people post their goals and how the product they want to win would help them achieve it? I’ve seen that done before and the commenters often networked among each other where they found common areas they were both chasing, as an added bonus. Where you have both 1.0 and 2.0, the runner up could get v1. You could always weight different aspects – eg 40% originality, 40% popularity, 20% creativity and best total score wins. An idea that could make it REALLY interesting is that the winner has to post what they did with it and the results they got within 90 days, or forfeit it and send it on to the runner up.
    * Alternatively, Readers Digest recently did an ‘around the world’ competition where a clue was posted each day, and you had to find the answer somewhere on their website. The page with the answer had an icon on it for you to click on and collect. You could have a ‘buy now’ hyperlink (without the blue text and underline) on the correct answer that linked through to ‘buy’ the prize with a $0 tag (plus shipping) and the first to find it gets it (inventory control). To be fair you could either post the clues to your list, or post them to the blog at different times of the day to give different timezones a chance, but maybe have the schedule of what gets given away up in advance so people can chase it up for the prizes they want. (You could consider sending advance extra clues to your list to encourage subscribes)

    PS Product Launch Formula would be version 1 – it went digital from v2 onwards.

  • http://sometimesithink-krissy.blogspot.com krissy knox

    @David You’re welcome. Hope I helped. :)

  • http://sometimesithink-krissy.blogspot.com krissy knox

    @Mark I’m interested in the prizes! If you don’t like them, don’t enter! :)

  • http://sometimesithink-krissy.blogspot.com krissy knox

    @Dawn You are quite creative w lots of ideas! :)

  • http://3monththesis.com Ja Hayton

    Guest post contest. Get people to submit original posts on internet marketing…extra work reading them, but it saves you work writing a post or two, and it gives the prizes to people with talent and the will to take action.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Obsolete? You have no idea what you’re talking about, dude.

    It might not be brand new, but the info is as applicable as its always been.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Ah, yeah, I remember that. Definitely another way to go, possibly. I like the charity component, too.

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    This one would get me to write a lot of repeat questions, cuz honestly, most of the “burning questions” I get have been covered so many times… people just don’t want to take it to heart and do anything with it. :-/

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Interesting idea. Have to think about that. :-)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Problem is that the only real way to determine best subject line is to test them all by sending out emails. Takes time, and… will take a lot of emails. :-)

  • http://davidrisley.com David Risley

    Like it. Not so much for a giveaway, but for future posts. :-)

  • Mark Valley

    “Dude”,

    Your characterization that I “don’t know what I am talking about” is both closed minded and unfortunate. Let’s not play dumb and dumber. Your cast-offs are old info in an industry that is moving forward at light speed. Portraying these items as perennial “golden oldies” makes as much sense as claiming that a manual on DOS is still a repository of useful basic insight for the Windows 7 operating system.

    For example, Profit Launch Formula has evolved massively into the latest version of 3.1 — a truly awesome course that presents the latest needed twists for working a jaded market.

    Next you’ll be telling us that a direct marketing manual from the 1950s is full of useful insights, or that perhaps continuing to use bloodsucking parasites in medicine is still OK too!

    Get a grip, Dave, and stop being so patronizing. Trying to pass off your IM Guru trash as a “gift” to the rest of us insults everyone’s intelligence.

  • Mark Valley

    @krissy You miss my point. Obviously, I am not entering … and I am expressing a viewpoint. I fully respect that you may be interested in the “prizes” (interesting reframe, BTW) but I am simply pointing out that you will be getting information that is obsolete, much like getting a physics text book that ends with Newtonian mechanics.

  • Burt Dreyfus

    David,

    Have you spoken with your attorney about your “give away”?

    I hope you have at the very least removed all trace of these products from your hard drive (or any other recording device – digital or analog e.g. photocopy of written materials) since the Terms of Service (TOS) in all likelihood gave you one license to use for your own personal use and did not bestow upon you the right to transfer this license to any other party.

    I raise this seemingly fine point because the original authors (all of whom appear to be savvy IM gurus and, no doubt, well informed by their lawyers about intellectual property rights) do not want to sell one copy of a program and have buyers endlessly “pass it on” for free.

    Think if one of these items was one of your programs. Do a buyer have the right under your TOS to give away your programs after they purchase them? What’s to stop the unscrupulous from simply copying everything and then passing the item on ad infinitum. I believe the fine print in TOS is written exactly to avoid such a runaway situation.

    Be sure to protect your family … and your reputation as a public figure in the blogging community.

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