One of the ways to build your opt-in list in internet marketing is to give away a free gift in exchange for the prospect’s email address.

If you have been trying to build list by giving away free gift but you are not getting the desired result, this article may help.

In this article, I’m going to share with you what kind of free gift will make people bite!

“Kenneth, what makes you qualified to write this article?”

Fair enough. I’ve not given away 100s of different types of free gift to test what kind of free gift will yield the best response. Who will have such experience anyway?

But recently, there is a mega giveaway event called Easter JV Giveaway 2. If you are on a few lists, you probably saw this offer.

In a giveaway event, several marketers, called the Contributors, come together to contribute a free product. They will then invite other people to download the free products. The trick is, in order to download a free product, you will have to opt-in to the Contributor’s list. Can you see how the Contributors build list using this approach?

I am one of the contributors in Easter JV Giveaway 2 and I have access to the signup statistics for different products. By analyzing the stats, you can tell what kind of free gift results in more signups.

Interested to see the stats?

These are the top 20 products (at the time I last checked) with the most signups:

The first column shows you the position of the gift. Page 1 means the gift is found on page 1.

For your info, each page has 10 gifts. Interestingly, only 5 gifts in page 1 make it to the top 20 downloads. This says something……

Ok, let’s look at the top 2 gifts. Both of them receives more than 1000 signups. One is on page 1 and the other one is on page 2. There is no surprise that gifts on page 1 and 2 receive more signups. But these two gifts receive double the signups compared to other gifts on the same page!

So, what’s common in these two gifts?

The answer is they are both software. One helps you to manage and organize projects and the other one helps you to create ebook covers.

Do you get the hint? Software is a good product to give away to build your list!

The 3rd gift with the most signup also outperforms the rest with close to 1000 signups. The 4th position is 300 signups away! So it’s worthwhile to look at what this gift is all about.

The 3rd gift is a video tutorial teaching you how to set up your own wordpress blog. This means video is another good product to give away. But there is more……

There are many other video products in this giveaway. But this video product attracts more attention because it teaches people how to set up money making blogs. This implies that making money from blogs is a hot topic that many people are interested to know.

The last interesting thing I want to share with you is the 17th and 19th best-performing gifts (I’ve highlighted them in yellow). One is found on page 23 and the other one is found on page 30. If gifts on page 23 and 30 can make it to the top 20, there must be a reason.

Just look at the title of these 2 gifts and you should know the answer. That’s right. Both of them are PLR or MRR products. Not just that. They are PLR and MRR products with high perceived value. One gives away 20+ PLR products whereas the other one gives away 50 MRR products.

This is another lesson you can learn. If you are currently giving away one PLR product to build your list, why not give away 20? You can probably double or triple your current response!

Let’s do a quick summary of what we’ve learnt from this:

1) Software is always a good giveaway product due to its high perceived value.

2) Video is also another good giveaway product with high perceived value.

3) How to make money from blog is a hot topic with huge demand!

4) Don’t just give away 1 or 2 PLR or MRR products. To dramatically improve the response, give away 20 - 50 PLR and/or MRR products.

These are just some of my observation. If you manage to discover any other interesting trends, feel free to discuss it in the comments section below.

One of the hardest things in online marketing is probably to get your online business of the ground and let it run on autopilot.

Although I’ve done it before, it is still a big challenge for me whenever I start a new website.

Today, I’m going to show you how a new website put a simple twist to an old concept and achieve extraordinary results in less than 3 months.

The website that I’m talking about is Qassia.com.

Qassia is a new website started in January 2008. But today, it ranks 4,762 in Alexa ranking and has more than 4000 webpages listed in Google.

So what is Qassia?

Why are people crazy about it?

More importantly, what are the marketing mechanisms that are making people crazy about it?

Let’s see……

If I were to break down Qassia into its simplest form, Qassia is nothing more than a combination of an article directory and a link directory. (For newbies, some examples of article directories are ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com, and some examples of link directories are DMOZ and Yahoo!Directory.)

If you were to start another article directory or link directory, chances are you are going to fail because the idea is no longer novel and there are thousands of them out there.

Think about this: If you were to start an article directory, how are you going to find thousands of people to submit articles to your directory, especially when you are just starting.

But Qassia has done it. Qassia is hardly 3 months old, yet thousands of people are happily sending their unique articles to Qassia and eagerly promoting it to other online marketers.

The secret lies in its credit system.

Qassia positions itself as a free link directory that gives you unlimited one-way backlinks to your website for free. Why do webmasters like one-way backlinks? Well, backlinks are good for two reasons: 1) for direct traffic, and 2) for better search engine ranking.

The catch is in order to achieve better ranking for your backlinks, you will have to earn credits.

The more credits you earn, the higher your website ranks in their link directory, which translates to more web traffic to you (both direct traffic and search engine traffic).

See the twist in the system? That’s why people are working hard to submit articles to Qassia.

Similar to all other successful websites, Qassia also has a referral system. It’s the same old story. The more referrals you have, the more credits you earn and the higher your website ranks.

Does this concept work?

Check out its Alexa ranking. It’s moving up superbly fast. This means the website is receiving lots of traffic.

If you do a search on Google.com by typing in site:www.qassia.com, you can see that it already has more than 4000 pages ranked in the search engines. Most of these are articles submitted by its members.

Whether this system is sustainable or not is too early to conclude. But it is set for a great start and I believe there is a great deal we can learn from this website, especially its marketing strategies.

This website is currently in closed beta and everything is kept secret to the public (I’m not sure if it’s another well-planned marketing strategy). There is no way you can signup Qassia unless you are referred by an existing member.

If you want to signup this website and see for yourself some other brilliant marketing strategies they’ve used, you can sign up through this invite-only link: http://kohym.qassia.com/.

Recently I received an email from a member asking the question below:

“I need to advertise the book that I had written. I really need to promote it in a very big way. How do I do it.” - Mustapha

Find out my answer to his question below……

Before I reply to his question, here are some assumptions I have made:

1) He is promoting an ebook, not a physical book

2) He is writing something related to internet marketing

First thing first……

If you want to promote your ebook in a big way, I mean really a big way, you must make sure that your ebook has some viral elements built in. For example, your ebook should come with an affiliate program so that the readers of your ebook can promote your ebook to other people.

That is the basic element your ebook must have. Or else it’s almost impossible to make it big!

Next……

You need to have lots of traffic to your website that sells the ebook.

Let’s skip all the standard textbook answers and jump directly to the only 2 traffic generation methods that will give you 80% of the results you want.

If you want LOTS of traffic FAST, there are only 2 methods. Either you advertise heavily or you find lots of JV partners. I can’t think of the 3rd method frankly.

Notes on advertising……

Advertising is expensive and in many cases, you may not be able to sell enough ebooks to earn back your advertising cost.

If so, why do I still ask you to advertise?

This is because if you have no resources at all, where else can you start?

I spent more than 10k in advertising to get myself off the ground in internet marketing several years back. I practice what I preach.

But before throwing all your hard earn cash into advertising, you must have the viral element in place. That’s why I said it is the first thing you must have right at the beginning of this article.

Even if you only make 20 sales through your own advertising effort, if your viral elements are in place, these 20 sales will grow into 100 sales and then 1000 sales and so on.

Notes on finding JV partners……

The second method to get lots of traffic fast is through JV partners.

Finding JV partners is usually free but it takes a lot of persistence and hard work.

If you are a newbie, you can forget about finding those top gurus to JV with you. They are not likely to reply your email unless you happen to attend their seminars and manage to rub shoulders with them during the seminars. Or you happen to know someone they trust and that someone is willing to introduce you to them. Or else, your chance of JVing with them is near zero.

But if you’ve purchased any work from an average marketer, you can try writing to them and asking them if they would be keen to do a joint promotion, i.e. you promote their work and they promote yours. Please don’t write to them and say “Hey, I wrote a new ebook. Would you like to promote it.” Most people wouldn’t until you do them a favor first.

Think of finding JV partners similar to digging a well. It takes time to build relationships before asking people to promote your product. Building relationship doesn’t has to be costly. It can be simple things like helping the marketer to write a sales letter for free or do some graphic design for free, depending on what skills you have. If you are starting from nothing, a wise thing to do now is to start offering your service free to some of the marketers out there to build relationship. What I’m saying is you should start digging your well. One day, when you need their help, they are more likely to remember you.

If you have not attended any seminar, purchased any product from anyone or helped any marketers in any way, the only thing you can do now is write to as many marketers as possible and hopefully a few of them are willing to help you. The chance is very slim but try. You are like begging people for water, since you do not have a well. But if you are thirsty and have no money to buy water (advertising in this case), what else can you do?

Similar to advertising, all you need is 10-20 JV partners who are willing to promote your ebook and with the viral elements in place, you will be able to multiply the initial traffic many times over.