The entire Web is flooded with new giveaways every few minutes. They seem to clone themselves faster than ants at a summer picnic. Every email you open up will probably have a list of 8 or 10 giveaways that are open “right now!” or will be launching in a day or two. Most giveaways will have 20-30 pages of 5-10 offers on each page.

That’s a lot of products you can freely download after providing your email address and double opting-in. All those products being offered to you by hundreds of marketers can be found on more than one giveaway and have exactly one purpose…list building.

Giveaways have become one of the most productive mainstays of the quick list-building techniques. Marketers don’t have to wait for an article to circulate or for a blog to provide enough content to stimulate subscriptions. The opt-in process is immediate and can explode subscriptions overnight by the hundreds.

One of the problems with this technique is that a lot of subscribers will

opt-in, download the product and then unsubscribe. Marketers know this and still participate because a large number of those new subscribers will stay subscribed for at least a few weeks. That gives the marketers time to send a few emails, hoping to keep their new members interested in their products or information. It is a numbers game and a very successful one.

Here’s how it works. If you are on anyone’s list, a couple of weeks before any new giveaway launch you will be flooded with three or four email announcements every day inviting you to provide a free product or service for the launch, or for multiple launches. There’s usually several launched for every holiday or change of season. They won’t be hard to find.

Most of those invitations will be from marketers who have already sent a product to the giveaway. Their invitation to you, while it might seem like a personal invitation, is part of their list-building strategy. The more products provided for free download, the more opportunities each marketer will have for mega opt-ins. It’s all a numbers game.

If you decide to make this technique part of your marketing plan, put together an ebook on your niche or create a Web 2.0 graphic set or dust the cobwebs off a service you can offer to the thousands of possible new members to your list. Every download requires a double opt-in, which your autoresponder should easily handle for you.

If you like the giveaway scenario, start a file of PLR ebooks, articles or graphic collections on subjects that interest you and are related to your

niche. In your spare time, rewrite or reformat and brand them with your link. Put a new cover on them and change the title. Add new content. It would be useful to create a short description of what each of your products will do for those who download it and keep it in the same file with each product. Sell the benefits! Remember WIIFM?

Don’t have any spare time? You can probably find some when you realize that your current list could expand to 3 or 4 or 10 times its size, or more, in a few days. Once you launch your own blog, newsletter or sales page, your entire focus will become building that list so you can market your products to interested list members. Giveaways can do that for you in a matter of days.

Just keep at it and you will soon have a stack of products to quickly upload when the invitations come. And they surely will.

If you hear of a giveaway launching and have a product ready to upload, email the launch owner and ask to be included in the launch. You should get an email back quickly with submission details. The launch owner is also increasing the size of his list. That’s why you have to provide your email address and first name just to browse the offerings and download what you want, which requires another double opt-in for each product you download. Numbers game.

Don’t just throw together some old PLR products and expect to keep your new list interested in your products. It might work for the initial download, but will get you an unsubscribe click in a flat minute after your user realizes that your download is rehashed rubbish. Getting the list expansion from the giveaway is easy, but your content has to keep the customer happy and subscribed if you want to market to them.

Every Internet Marketer knows that a certain number of subscribers will

opt-out of your list in a day or two. Expect it and have your arsenal of enticements ready to keep them subscribed.

Here’s where your autoresponder will automatically market for you. Before the giveaway launches and before you upload your product, set up a series of emails and download links in your autoresponder:

• The opt-in email with a link to click on that verifies that your new customer wants to receive messages from you and is using a real email address. Invalid or fake email address = no download.

• A welcoming message that uses the new member’s name and mentions the benefits of joining your list

• Maybe offering another valuable free download from your list of benefits will keep them on your list long enough to become loyal members

• A lot of marketers offer several surprise bonuses for opting-in to their list. Here’s where your folder of giveaway products will help your marketing efforts.

• A friendly, conversational message sent a few days later that discusses what they can find of interest on your site. Do not do a hard sell for any of your products or memberships. Every product they downloaded on the giveaway will have a frenetic marketer doing that. Be different.

• An email series sent out automatically on whatever schedule you want. Some can be informational sales pitches, stressing the benefits of buying the product and others just informational with a related free gift for download.

Once you create your sales page and stable of products to either sell or give away, your real work begins. Marketing is a fulltime job and requires salesmanship, focus and great customer service. Pay attention to those marketing emails you get from the owners of the lists you belong to and copy success.

Notice things, like frequency, contents and tone of those emails filling up your inbox. There’s no reason to recreate the wheel here. Learn from what’s being sent to you and put your own spin on it.

Why Do You Have To Set Up A Double Opt-In Process?

When Internet Marketing, as we know it today, was in its infancy, marketers sent unsolicited emails to every email address they could find. Soon, major complaints started being aired and stimulated the Can Spam Act from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

That’s why you have to have a double opt-in link on your initial email message to your giveaway recipients. Your autoresponder will take care of this for you if you set it up correctly and keep a copy of the opt-in for you.

Even if you are not a U.S. based marketer, you have to include the double opt-in email and process if your marketing scope includes U.S. targets. It’s a double protection for you and your clients.

Download the ebook for FREE now.