The huge advantage you as a photographer or videographer have is that you are constantly creating content. And not just any content, you are truly creating works of art that you can share with your audience. When it comes to deciding what you need to create to giveaway in return for your leads email it can be a bit more tricky You might have a lot to offer but you don’t just want to collect email addresses. You ultimately need to give something that is going to put the lead on the correct path to end up buying from you. So before you decide what you want to offer you need to determine two things.

Firstly who is your ideal client? Who do you want to work with? Is it a bride, a Mom an Entrepreneur – each of them will be attracted by different things. So it will be easy for you to attract your ideal client when you plan your freebie accordingly. You can of course also attract a more general client by offering a general freebie like a discount voucher. This is the beauty of it all. You are in charge, you decide who you want to attract.

The second thing you need to decide on is what do you want them to ultimately do. Do you want them to book a studio photo shoot, Hire you as videographer or photographer for there wedding or Hire you to take their corporate head shots? Again you can guide them towards this by the freebie you want to offer. Eg If you offer an eBook on how to look absolutely great on you wedding photos you will attract would be brides, if you offer a free sample testimonial video you will attract corporate clients wanting to create video.

With these two questions answered you can start working backwards, you know who you want and what you want them to do, so start brainstorming different things that you can offer them. Make a list of 10 things that you can think of straight away. Depending on your answers these things can include anything from:

• EBooks or Special Reports
• A Video showing something specific
• Email Video series
• Checklist
• Photos
• Live Webinar and Automated or recording
• Cheat-sheet
• Template
• Workbook
• Blueprint
• Infographic
• Case study or Your own story
• Email Tips
• Video Tips
• Chapter from your book
• Your Full Book
• Assessments and Quizzes
• Physical Products like DVD or Printed Photo
• Tool Kit or Success Bundle
• Run a Challenge on Facebook or via Email

Once you have come up with different ideas, mark those you feel excited about or that you feel you can do quickly. Also think of what you already have that you can use. You might use it as a basis to build something from or you might use it as is. You might also be able to bundle up a few different things to create something new.
You are now ready to create your Freebie. Remember that even though it is free it needs to look really professional. It’s a taster of your work even though it might not be related to your work. Therefor get help with all the things not in your zone of genius. You might be a pro in Photo Shop but In Design might not be your forte. You can use Freelance sites like Upwork or Freelancer You can even use Fiverr if you have a good referral . Once you’ve created your Freebie you will be ready for your next step.

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It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of giveaway events.  Working with others in your niche and JV-ing in general can be one of the best marketing strategies around. So when people with the same target audience come together to showcase their offering in one place, it can have enormous benefits for all involved.  Hosting such an event, although hard work can have numerous advantages. Besides building relationships with fellow entrepreneurs in you niche, you also have the access to all the opt-ins coming to the giveaways. This will multiply and grow your list exponentially.  There are however certain aspects to keep in mind when hosting an event like this.

Planning your giveaways

Hosting an event of this magnitude take some planning.  The best is to start planning your event at least a month to 2 months before the actual date.  Decide on the best dates. You might want to keep the event around certain holidays and that would dictate your theme. Otherwise you are free to choose whatever theme that will resonate with your ideal clients.

With your dates and theme in place you can start promoting your event to potential participants. The best places to find participants are Facebook Groups or communities within your niche. You can also send out an email to your list, if you list contain potential JV Partners.

Tools

There are hundreds of different ways to run a giveaway event. As long as you have a page displaying links the individual participants landing pages and some way of tracking your affiliate links, you are good to go. I however have found that using a giveaway plugin for WordPress just simplify things immensely.

My favorites are WPGiveaway and JV Giveaway.  They are both low cost and easy to install and manage.  There are some technical aspects of setting them up but for the most part it is straight forwardyou’re your VA or online manager should be able to help you if you get stuck.

You can use built in themes or get banners and headers from your graphic designer or Fiverr.

You can use the built in opt-in boxes or use a gateway page like Welcome Gate from Leadpages to get email addresses from visitors.

How to organize a high value giveaway

With the increase in these giveaway events it is very important that the event you host is of high value to visitors. The best ways to do this is by

Limiting participants. Too many gifts on one page is just overwhelming. You want your visitor to be impresses but not overwhelmed. I have found the ideal number to be between 10 and 20.

Everyone needs to participate in promoting. It is very important that everyone participates in promoting the page. The whole idea of the JV is to have access to the audiences of all participants. You can have rules like they need to get 50 clicks in the first 24 hours and 200 clicks in the overall period. Having prizes and a leaderboard also encourages participants to promote.  It is also important that participants are not allowed to “buy” clicks.

Provide participants with quality swipe copy.  This will also help them to promote more easily

Gifts need to be of high value. You have to ensure that the gifts offered are of a high value. Because the market are a bit flooded with free items at the moment it is important to offer something that will impress visitor.

Limit the amount of time the event will run. A giveaway should ideally be between a week and two weeks. This adds a bit of scarcity to the gifts and also helps with promotion not getting too overwhelming for participants.

Make it easy for participants to enroll. You can have a video or a webinar explaining in detail how to enroll and what to do to upload their gifts. Also make sure to explain the rules of the giveaway.

Running your giveaway

While the giveaway is running make sure that you keep the participants motivated by following up with them. Ask them how it’s going. Release the leaderboards for everyone to see and remind them of the prizes. If there are people not promoting at all email them and confirm that they are using their correct affiliate link and encourage them by sending them Facebook Ad templates.  Be sure to thank all participants at the end and to deliver the prizes to the winners!

Hopefully this will help you in planning your own giveaway event. This can be a very rewarding experience. Especially if you can grow your list quite significantly.   To receive the Blueprint/Checklist in pdf format enter your name in the opt-in box. You are also welcome to add your comments to the bottom of the page. Do you have any experience with hosting giveaway events, what is your opinions? Also any good tools that you’ve used?

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