Hey Fastlaners
I've never managed to be too consistent in posting here - but I am very grateful for this space and the people I've learned from and continue learning from. Particular shout out to @Lex DeVille for his Upwork content and @Andy Black for being continually supportive and inspiring.
For a number of years, as part of my social media services to clients, I've been using giveaways (which I've set up in a precise way to go "viral") to grow clients' social media accounts.
I operate in a specific niche, so I have built up a decent list of emails within this niche (at one point 25k+ emails) which I can email whenever I do a new giveaway. This is great for the clients because they get real social media followers that are loosely interested in the niche, and it's great for the email users as they always get relevant giveaways that they're going to be excited about in their inboxes.
We've pruned the list down to about 5k users - firstly because of email marketing software costs, and secondly because it's just good practice. You don't want to be continually emailing people who aren't interested.
Anyway - now you have the background, I've got to tell you that, this is something I have knowingly not been making the most of these past years, other things have just taken priority.
I've known that there is something much bigger in this - and now is the time to execute.
Why now?
I'll be completely honest.
1) Times are hard for my current agency clients. Due to the current economic situation in the world costs have gone through the roof. This is a vulnerability for us as a primary income stream.
2) I want to build a more diverse "portfolio" of income streams anyway. This seems like a great opportunity for that.
3) I'd like to move more into the B2C space. The giveaways business actually offers me that opportunity in a number of ways.
What's the opportunity?
From a high level (we can get into the nitty-gritty later) - I see there being a number of opportunities in taking the giveaways to the next level.
1) More B2B business
This is the most obvious one. Doing what I have been doing and charging brands to run a giveaway to our audience for them. We know that this works, we know that clients are happy with it, we do more of it, we make more money.
Obviously, I would like to streamline the process of actually *selling* this - but, this is something I can work on in time and perhaps even get some insight on from you guys here in the forum.
Just so you understand the scale of the opportunity - right now doing this relatively small scale I charge around $500 per giveaway. I know for a fact that larger operators in my niche are offering a similar (and objectively lower quality) service for upwards of $10k per giveaway.
2) Building an email list
We ALL know that there is huge value in having an email list. In my mind, the game is data and information.
For context, the last giveaway I set up (one week ago) has already added 1.2k people to my email list. The top-of-the-funnel opportunity here is absolutely HUGE. Yes, there are going to be some dud email addresses, and yes there are going to be a lot of freebie hunters. However, there is an opportunity to continually warm up this email list, to gather data about which giveaways they participate in (therefore gathering data on their interests), whether they click offers I might send their way, and whether they buy products that I put in front of them.
Building a good segmented email list that is growing at a large rate is going to give me a number of revenue opportunities:
- Selling my own digital and physical products
- Selling other people’s digital and physical products (affiliate marketing)
- Selling sponsored emails (solo ads)
It’s also worth adding that as the email list builds, the VALUE of #1 increases too - as the giveaways will be larger and have bigger impact.
What's the plan?
The plan, in many ways, is very simple.
Launch giveaways...daily.
Up until now, we've only been running giveaways once or twice a month. By doing giveaways on a daily basis we'll get several benefits:
1) Faster growth of our email list and user base.
2) More momentum - by having multiple giveaways live at once, there will be more opportunity for cross-promoting giveaways, giving B2B customers access to a higher amount of users, and giving us the chance to get in front of more people via the viral elements of our setup.
3) A really great way to frame what we have to offer to B2B clients. We're a daily giveaways site, giving brands the opportunity to grow their social media following by sponsoring giveaways.
4) Gives us a great excuse to stay in front of our email subscribers daily. We're promoting something that is of value to them - even if it's alongside some other kind of ad or offer.
Where now?
The website is currently being worked on. I plan to start launching daily giveaways from Monday.
There's an issue in that, right now not all of the giveaways are sponsored, and so, I've got to source prizes.
For now, I've reached out to a load of contacts who I know would benefit from this and offered them a free giveaway on two conditions. Firstly that they provide a prize with a value of at least $200. Secondly that they provide a testimonial I can use for selling this service in the future.
I'd also like to extend the above offer to anyone on this forum - if you're interested just DM me.
OK - so - I think that's everything. I really welcome any questions or clarification on what I am doing. I will give some more detailed info as we go along and offer you guys as much actionable value as I can.
I'm excited to be starting on this journey - and I am excited to be documenting it here.
I've never managed to be too consistent in posting here - but I am very grateful for this space and the people I've learned from and continue learning from. Particular shout out to @Lex DeVille for his Upwork content and @Andy Black for being continually supportive and inspiring.
For a number of years, as part of my social media services to clients, I've been using giveaways (which I've set up in a precise way to go "viral") to grow clients' social media accounts.
I operate in a specific niche, so I have built up a decent list of emails within this niche (at one point 25k+ emails) which I can email whenever I do a new giveaway. This is great for the clients because they get real social media followers that are loosely interested in the niche, and it's great for the email users as they always get relevant giveaways that they're going to be excited about in their inboxes.
We've pruned the list down to about 5k users - firstly because of email marketing software costs, and secondly because it's just good practice. You don't want to be continually emailing people who aren't interested.
Anyway - now you have the background, I've got to tell you that, this is something I have knowingly not been making the most of these past years, other things have just taken priority.
I've known that there is something much bigger in this - and now is the time to execute.
Why now?
I'll be completely honest.
1) Times are hard for my current agency clients. Due to the current economic situation in the world costs have gone through the roof. This is a vulnerability for us as a primary income stream.
2) I want to build a more diverse "portfolio" of income streams anyway. This seems like a great opportunity for that.
3) I'd like to move more into the B2C space. The giveaways business actually offers me that opportunity in a number of ways.
What's the opportunity?
From a high level (we can get into the nitty-gritty later) - I see there being a number of opportunities in taking the giveaways to the next level.
1) More B2B business
This is the most obvious one. Doing what I have been doing and charging brands to run a giveaway to our audience for them. We know that this works, we know that clients are happy with it, we do more of it, we make more money.
Obviously, I would like to streamline the process of actually *selling* this - but, this is something I can work on in time and perhaps even get some insight on from you guys here in the forum.
Just so you understand the scale of the opportunity - right now doing this relatively small scale I charge around $500 per giveaway. I know for a fact that larger operators in my niche are offering a similar (and objectively lower quality) service for upwards of $10k per giveaway.
2) Building an email list
We ALL know that there is huge value in having an email list. In my mind, the game is data and information.
For context, the last giveaway I set up (one week ago) has already added 1.2k people to my email list. The top-of-the-funnel opportunity here is absolutely HUGE. Yes, there are going to be some dud email addresses, and yes there are going to be a lot of freebie hunters. However, there is an opportunity to continually warm up this email list, to gather data about which giveaways they participate in (therefore gathering data on their interests), whether they click offers I might send their way, and whether they buy products that I put in front of them.
Building a good segmented email list that is growing at a large rate is going to give me a number of revenue opportunities:
- Selling my own digital and physical products
- Selling other people’s digital and physical products (affiliate marketing)
- Selling sponsored emails (solo ads)
It’s also worth adding that as the email list builds, the VALUE of #1 increases too - as the giveaways will be larger and have bigger impact.
What's the plan?
The plan, in many ways, is very simple.
Launch giveaways...daily.
Up until now, we've only been running giveaways once or twice a month. By doing giveaways on a daily basis we'll get several benefits:
1) Faster growth of our email list and user base.
2) More momentum - by having multiple giveaways live at once, there will be more opportunity for cross-promoting giveaways, giving B2B customers access to a higher amount of users, and giving us the chance to get in front of more people via the viral elements of our setup.
3) A really great way to frame what we have to offer to B2B clients. We're a daily giveaways site, giving brands the opportunity to grow their social media following by sponsoring giveaways.
4) Gives us a great excuse to stay in front of our email subscribers daily. We're promoting something that is of value to them - even if it's alongside some other kind of ad or offer.
Where now?
The website is currently being worked on. I plan to start launching daily giveaways from Monday.
There's an issue in that, right now not all of the giveaways are sponsored, and so, I've got to source prizes.
For now, I've reached out to a load of contacts who I know would benefit from this and offered them a free giveaway on two conditions. Firstly that they provide a prize with a value of at least $200. Secondly that they provide a testimonial I can use for selling this service in the future.
I'd also like to extend the above offer to anyone on this forum - if you're interested just DM me.
OK - so - I think that's everything. I really welcome any questions or clarification on what I am doing. I will give some more detailed info as we go along and offer you guys as much actionable value as I can.
I'm excited to be starting on this journey - and I am excited to be documenting it here.
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