Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Can Giveaways Do More Harm Than Good?

Posted by Justin Premick

Raffle TicketsAs we discussed in a recent case study, many businesses use giveaways like free ebooks to get opt-in subscribers.

Bonuses and freebies sweeten the deal for would-be subscribers, and can help you reach people who might not have signed up otherwise.

But like any other sweetener, carelessly-used giveaways ruin your campaign’s flavor and your subscribers’ appetites.

Focus, Focus, Focus

Using a download with your opt-in email campaign involves a simple enough formula:

Create something of value
Give it away
Get email addresses from the people you give it to
Follow up with them and make a sale to a certain percentage.

So it would seem to make sense that the more people you give something away to, the more your sales grow… and if you could give away something everyone wants, well…

The temptation and risk here is to try and appeal to everyone, and forget who exactly your target audience is. Sure, if you have a giveaway that everyone wants, chances are more people are going to fill out a form to get it.

But How Related is That Freebie to Your Email Campaign?

Loosening that link results in lower response rates and more spam complaints (as Email Insider’s Melinda Krueger illustrates nicely). Her points there about poorly-run giveaways strikes me as something that happens a lot, particularly when trying to collect subscribers offline.

Permission Isn’t Taken, It’s Given

There are many possible reasons to get an email address, and you have to make sure the person behind that address is actually opting-in. After all, people provide email addresses for a lot of reasons, not all of which are to subscribe to a mailing list.

Two classic examples of this:

Fishbowls - giving a business card for a chance at a free lunch/gift certificate/etc
Trade Shows - giving a business card/email address for T-Shirts, pens, flashlights, etc
Don’t assume permission to email someone — ask for it explicitly.

The problem with situations like these is that people aren’t giving you their contact information because they want to receive emails from you — they just want what you’re giving away!

“But,” one might say, “we told them when they stopped by that they’d also get our newsletter!” Or “they should know when they give their business card that we’re going to contact them…”

I get where people who say that are coming from. Sure, some senders might try to avoid being up-front with people and just treat the implied opt-in as permission, but a lot of senders do the right thing, and make it clear up-front that people are signing up to get information by email.

But What Do Subscribers Think?

Subscribers want the freebie. Chances are, the more they want it, the more they’re going to nod their head and play along to get it.

But once they have it, if they don’t want your email, who’s going to stop them from crying “SPAM?” Enough of them doing it can lead to deliverability issues (filtering of messages with your URL/s in them, for example).

So What’s The Solution?

There are a couple keys to keep in mind when offering extra opt-in incentives (online or offline):

Keep your incentives relevant to your email content. Giveaways unrelated to your email content just fill your list with deadweight and raise your complaint rate.
A good giveaway seals the deal for a targeted visitor — it’s not the whole reason for opting-in. Sell would-be subscribers on the value of your email content, too.

More on Giveaways:

Email Insider - Incentives For Opting In: Proceed With Caution





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7 Responses

  1. Dirk
    June 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    Dear Justin,
    another good article of yours and straight to the point of a common problem. One thing is true: Focus, Focus, Focus… What I do for example is, that I give away free ebooks, but they are absolutely focused on the target market (internet marketing in this case). Also I tell subscribers right away in the opt in form that they also subscribe to my (aweber based) newsletter service. Plus I place links to my products into the ebooks. This way, even if someone unsubscribes immediately after receiving the freebees he still has got my PDF ebooks with my links embedded. Another chance for another sale - one day, maybe.

  2. Brad Isaac
    June 19th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    I’ve tested both ways and overall the best response and retention has come from just a straight up "subscribe to my goal setting strategies newsletter" link embedded in each post.

    Since my blog is tightly focused on setting and achieving personal goals people who want more end up subscribing and staying.

    I’ve tried giving away goal setting ebooks and an ecourse on getting started with goal setting. Overall, the straight up "get the newsletter" link has the most staying power and response rate.

  3. Doug D'Anna
    June 21st, 2007 at 8:00 am

    Justin, I don’t think the question is whether giveaways do more harm than good. Giveaways–premiums, if you will–are not only good, they are simply direct marketing 101.

    I’m of the mindset that the only bad giveaway is the one that doesn’t improve your opt-ins.

    However, not giving a bonus for signing up doesn’t necessarily hurt you. What you lose in opt-ins may be more than made up by signing up prospects who may be more likely to buy from you in the long run.

    REASON: They weren’t simply enticed by a free offer. They found value in your sign-up page message and wanted to continue the relationship by signing up to your ezine.

    When it comes to the giveaways, I think a better question might be, "How do you make your FREE give-away stand out in a sea of Internet FREEBIES?"

    In today’s over-marketed Internet, everybody and their brother is giving away a freebie report to get you to sign up for the list.

    So if it were just about getting a freebie—no matter what it is—then everyone who clicked would opt-in to your list.

    Since nobody gets 100% conversion, we know that free giveaway in and of itself is no guarantee of getting people to opt-in to your list.

    To me, the master key to getting more opt-ins is making sure that your sign-up page exudes value for simply reading it.

    I’m of the belief that the more valuable you can make your sign-up page content (by giving a way great actionable ideas) the more likely your efforts will result in a new readers.

    Your free report should add value on top of what they are reading. Those who sign up are simply signing on to continue to receive this value—and not just trying to grab another freebie.

    In the end, it’s not really about giveaways and or building a marketing lists. It’s about building valuable relationships.

  4. Justin Premick
    June 21st, 2007 at 8:41 am

    Hi Doug,

    "Giveaways-premiums, if you will-are not only good, they are simply direct marketing 101."

    I agree, they’re a key to countless marketing campaigns. I don’t take issue with the idea of a giveaway, but rather with the poor targeting that’s often used when designing/implementing them.

    You bring up a great question for all small businesses:

    How do we differentiate our whitepapers, ebooks, free reports, etc. from everyone else’s?

    For me it starts with targeting. The more qualified people are when they arrive at your landing page, the more effective your offer is going to be for them. Getting a lot of people to our websites may boost our egos, but that traffic has to be targeted to be of any real use to us.

    Once you’ve identified your target audience and how to get them to your landing page, you tailor your content to their needs - like you say, your giveaway "should add value on top of what they are reading."

    Mutually beneficial relationships are what we’re after, and any giveaway designed as a placebo for that aren’t going to yield the same results as a well-run email campaign that also happens to offer a free download to subscribers.

  5. Jennifer Hofmann
    June 21st, 2007 at 7:18 pm

    I, like just about everyone else, offer a freebie when people sign up for my newsletter. It’s important to me to be as clear as possible that the freebie is a little perk that will help them out - and comes with a subscription (which will help them further).

    The thing I like about the newsletter is that it allows me to assist potential customers, building trust and rapport with them, without depleting myself time-wise.

    Yup.

  6. Alan Marks
    June 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am

    One of the uses for this system is to take online quotes, I realise that not all people who sign up for a quote want to be part of the mailling list.

    It has to be made clear that this is what they are signing up for.

    That is the essence of what you are saying.

  7. Glen Barnhardt
    July 6th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

    Great Article..

    Yes Giveaways when done properly is a wonderful way to get good quality opt-ins.

    Just like in standard list building it is very important that you target your give away to a niche. This way you can continue to give your customers good content on an on going basis.

    Another important factor in GiveAways just the Same as Email Marketing you need a great software or service like Aweber.

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