The Dark Side of Giveaways And Why You May Want To Opt Out

The Dark Side of Giveaways And Why You May Want To Opt Out

There is a dark and disturbing side of giveaways today and you may prefer just to opt out, or pay the price by seeing your in-box flooded with spam your hard drive flood with junk.

An Online Business Owner wants to sell their own products and services. An Affiliate Marketer wants to promote other people's quality products. A bottom-feeding scammy-scummy-spammy email harvester just wants to haphazardly sell you anything and everything that will make them a dime. All three of these worlds collide in the Giveaway Universe.

Giveaways are generally not put on for altruistic purposes. They are put on to build mailing lists, make money, and to allow people to advertise their products by giving out what amounts to "free
samples". When I first started using giveaways two years ago they were great deal for everyone involved. I built a large list from them and found many loyal customers for my products. For nearly two years I happily joined and promoted every giveaway out there, but to be honest I very seldom ever download anything from them anymore. So many of the gifts are either old and outdated, rehashed and outdated, or just plain junk. I always scan them to see if there is anything new or interesting that a veteran Online Business Owner can use, but usually there is not.

Having said that, let me also say this, there are sometimes jewels among the chaff. I discovered a giveaway the other day that was a pleasant surprise. It was quite frankly, woman owned and operated and there were dozens of new and exciting products on display there. In fact, I was so impressed that I did something I do not usually do, I sent a special dedicated email out to my list specifically to tell them about this giveaway. It was called the Wonderful World Giveaway.

For more details on knowing the wheat from the chaff see my article "Build or Enhance your Business Online with Giveaways and Free Products."

Greed, competition, and scammy-scummy-spammy email-harvesting behavior have entered the giveaway arena, and of course negatively impacted the way giveaways work and the overall benefits received to the people who make them possible in the first place by contributing gifts. There are still some good giveaways out there, but times, along with the foundation and scope of giveaways are changing, and I have am about to the point that I have stopped joining and promoting most of them, and I'm very careful these days about the ones I promote.

#1 Some time ago many of the giveaways started selling updated status, so that people could join the giveaway, pay a fee and then download the products without having to join your list to get your downloaded product. Therefore the benefit that the contributor has in joining the giveaway is greatly lessened because 90% of people who download products at giveaways never get around to opening the gifts. Hard drives around the world are literally filled with dusty downloads, which means, that if a person receives your gift without joining your list, you have lost any opportunity you might have to remind them of your existence and promote your business which is the only reason an Online Business Owner would want to have a list in the first place. The one saving grace to this method is the fact that most giveaway visitors do not buy ugraded status.

#2 Referring to giveaways has turned into a contest with cash prizes, which unfortunately is bad on several levels, especially for the beginning affiliate marketer and Online Business Owner.

The email harvesters and spam purveyors--who already flood your email box with numerous emails everyday--break out hot and heavy with duplicated word-for-word emails trying to hurriedly get the most referrals and win the $50.00 or whatever prize. This can easily result in dozens of emails in everyone's box making the giveaway itself look unattractive and unprofessional.

Those Online Business Owners who are trying to build a list to promote their business, and who therefore do not want to offend their list by bombarding them with a constant flood of annoying "me
too" "buy this" "join this" emails, cannot, and do not want, to compete for referrals. That kind of behavior does not look professional and thus it hurts the very business image they are trying to build. Sending out one email to announce a giveaway, or even several giveaways is acceptable and reasonable, over-promoting by sending out a rash of unnecessary emails is not acceptable to most Online Business Owners or their list.

It used to be that if you chose not over-promote the giveaway your gift simply appeared further down in the listings. This, to me, was perfectly fair and reasonable. I made the decision not to bother my list by over-promoting, and therefore my ranking was negatively affected. I was not in competition for the prize money and could quite frankly care less who won it.

Apparently though, that solution was not acceptable to many promoters so they decided to solve the very problem they created. The giveaway promoters, in order--they say--to protect themselves from freeloaders who do not, (they say) promote, (I say over-promote), have now decided to charge contributors for updated status so people with small lists and those who choose not to over-promote do not have to compete with the overeager, hurry-and-send-out-a-dozen-emails-a-day-spammers for referrals.

According to the new giveaway paradigm if you do buy upgraded status and do not have a certain number of referrals by the day the giveaway opens your gift will be suspended or deleted. On top of that some of them even extend that to say that you have to have even more referrals by day 2, and 3, and 4, and 5. So in essence, in order to participate in their giveaway and giveaway your product without annoying the list that you have built to promote your business you have to pay the giveaway promoter. If you choose not to pay, you end up promoting the giveaway to a fair but "non-competitive" non-over-promotional reasonable degree and then having your gift deleted or suspended, which means you have wasted your time and your list's time and goodwill for no benefit to you at all!

It is just not worth it anymore. Let me tell you a little secret. I have been contributing to, and promoting giveaways for two years, and I have never made the first dime on any of their OTO or "One Time Only" offers. This change in the giveaway structure all relates back to the giveaway promoter wanting to make more money off of the giveaway, and that is their right, of course, just as it is my right to decide not to join them or promote their giveaways.

Giveaways are generally referred to as joint ventures, but in this new giveaway paradigm that appears to have taken sheer greed to new heights, the only one who is winning is the giveaway promoter and the email harvesters. The Online Business Owners lose because they are donating their product for little or no return. The Affiliate Marketers lose because the email harvesters are ruining the reputation of Internet Marketers everywhere. The freebie hunters and newbies lose because the quality of the donated products goes down as the quality marketers give up on the giveaways as a marketing method.

If you are uncertain of the quality of a giveaway and its promoter, it is easy to tell...just try to unsubscribe from their so-called list, and have it stick! Legitimate business owners and online
marketers follow the anti-spam rules religiously. They make sure you can quickly, easily and effectively unsubscribe from their giveaway list and all other lists belonging to them, including their "master-list", scammy-scummy-spammy email-harvesters do not care about the rules.

The good news is that some Online Business Owners are starting to fight back. The giveaway that I mentioned above is one clue. It is filled with what appears to be, new, quality, and unique items.
Another new giveaway was announced yesterday, again by a woman. She states that she is not going to play the upgrade game, and she expects people to play by the rules. I will also be promoting her giveaway in a special email to my list.

Am I saying that women entrepreneurs are better? No; but I am proud to say that two of the best new giveaways out there were conceived of, and are operated by women.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

The Dark Side of Giveaways And Why You May Want To Opt Out - To learn more about this author, visit Teresa Bohannon's Website.

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