I'm Done with the Self Improvement Gifts Giveaway

[Rick Smith]

I just deleted my gift and my account from the self improvement gifts giveaway. I just got the email about downgraded to “regular member” in 24 hours if I don’t promote. I told them before I didn’t yet know where to pLromote. I’m just tired of it. The only thing I got for my $27 was the right to enter two gifts and have a text ad.

So in theory, someone who didn’t pay for the upgrade (no harm intended to those who didn’t pay for the upgrade) but who promoted more than I did could have their gifts on a page higher than mine. I just don’t see why I should be downgraded. So I deleted everything. Life is too short to deal with this kind of nonsense. I’ve invested waaaaay too much and energy in this so far. And I’ve had 13 clicks in six days? Not a very good return on my time or money.

Lessons learned.

1. Giveaways, especially this one, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
2. Do my due diligence before entering a giveaway. I clearly didn’t understand how this one worked even though I thought I did.
3. Be prepared before entering a giveaway. I thought I was ready to enter this one. I wasn’t. I was rushing to get everything done after completing the site to the extent that it was ready to promote. And here it is a week after the giveaway launched and I still don’t have my second gift ready.

Update:

I just got an email from Kathy. I was pretty hard on her in my reply. I apologized for coming across like I was attacking her personally. Anyway, she offered to give me a free upgrade (well, it’s not free – I already paid the $27 for the current giveaway) to the same level in their giveaway coming up in May/June. That might be better. I’ll have time to get the second gift finished, create the squeeze page, and create thank you pages for both gifts. I’m not 100% sure I’m going to do it. I want to think about it some more but I’m thinking about doing it. I told her I appreciated her being wiling to do that.

[Cynthia Leighton]

Rick,

Sorry it did not work for you. I encourage you to take whatever squeeze pages you have in May/June and use those (as in duplicate page in Optimize Press and put in the HTML code to track the email/name entry for the giveaway). That way with minimal effort you can enter gifts.

I’ve only gotten 58 clicks and 34 subscribers myself, so I’m disappointed myself.

A older friend who signed in for the purpose of finding my gift and telling me about the experience says she gave up after scrolling page after page because of all the offers she had to go through. I’m on page 16 and she just could not find me.

Another person did sign in and apparently download at least something because I did qualify and not get the about to be downgraded message.

blessings,
Cynthia

[Trevor Dumbleton]

Sorry to hear that Rick – and not setting the earth on fire for Cynthia or myself either, although my “investment” was just a bit of time.

Not all adverts work and, essentially, this is an advert albeit one with twists and turns.

You could have spent $27 on Google or YouTube or Facebook ads and got zero results. The trick is to adjust in future which it sounds like you’ve done.

[Rick Smith]

It’s definitely been a learning experience. I just checked my stats. I originally had 11 subscribers. Only two have unsubscribed. I still have a 75% open rate. I know I’ll have to test much more but I’ve found this to be an interesting learning experience.

Cynthia –

I’ll definitely be re-using my squeeze page in May/June. But I’ll also be creating thank you pages specific to the giveaway. I think I’m probably gonna go ahead and take Kathy up on her offer.

Trevor –

You’re correct. I could have gotten 0 results with other media.

[Bob Thibodeau]

I agree, the results are not optimal for profitability (as of now). I’ve had 17 subscribers and 2 un-subscribed…so I’m left with 15 still receiving emails…but no sales…I don’t even have any of the taking the upgrade to the FREE 30 day membership. I’m refocusing my efforts into the membership training program for podcasting and online Christian radio. SO if you don’t “hear from me” every day, it’s because I’m devoting time to building the website and building the training program…

I am still sending out emails to my Info marketing lists…who knows if anything will ever happen…I’m trying though. I’m not writing off all of the work I did in 2016 to build the business website and products for that niche. I’ll continue to create products and try different promotional campaigns, etc. I would LOVE to be able to create an income stream from this niche. So I still going…but 80% of my efforts (I’m estimating here) is in building out the new niche.

Talk Soon!

Bob

[Author]

Posts