Why I No Longer Do Giveaways in My Business

The process sounds so reasonable and brilliant:

1. Select a product or service your buyers really want and make a giveaway.
2. Entrants get excited, share it around social media, the giveaway gains traction.
3. You profit by getting all these new email addresses or phone numbers for your marketing at much less cost than ad spend.
4. Your winners are filled with good will and joy at this amazing experience - everyone loves to be a winner.

The reality is not so sweet.

I ran monthly giveaways for a couple of years and grew my mailing list successfully.

I did it from entirely the wrong premise. Here's actual data from my mailing list software as I write this:

Check out those suppressed profiles. Ouch. Obviously there are myriad reasons and giveaways are not the only one, but the point stands: attracting the wrong type of person into your list usually winds up resulting in this same scenario, a list filled with people who aren't actually engaging or even receiving what you have to say.

But the bigger issue about the giveaway mentality is that you're setting your audience up to expect something for nothing.

People who come in through freebies have already set their expectation on extraction.

When you start your relationship with someone by saying, "Hi! Let me give you something valuable for absolutely nothing," you're sending a message that that's what they can expect.

Sure, it's understood that a giveaway is the entryway into being marketed to. Recipients do pay with something, their contact info, but they learn that you'll be giving things away and perhaps they don't have to reach so hard for what they want.

Case in point, a woman in my community just popped up the other day, talking about how she'd won one of my giveaways last year and wanted to know where her lifetime access to community was. She was in it.

She began posting regularly, asking questions as her only mode of interaction. Other members continue to chime in, trying to engage her and thoughtfully answer her questions. Most often, she doesn't reply back at all and she hasn't made a single comment on anyone else's posts.

She started her relationship expecting that she would receive, and she is continuing to engage in that fashion. She is not a "lead who will convert," she is someone who learned that Megan's space is about getting good things for herself.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Most people in most groups behave the same. After all, we're all mostly running on fumes and trying to get done what we need to get done. Not many people have time to reinvest in their communities.

The point I'm trying to make though is how well this illustrates the potential failure of "freebie as marketing tool to convert into paying customers," and how the fault rests squarely on our own shoulders for giving them something for free and setting that precedent to begin with.

I am not against giving things away. In fact, being able to gift things to people is one of my favorite parts about running my business. These days though, I do it through other methods.

I noticed you've been really showing up and engaging in the community. That means so much to me. Here's a free ____ as a token of my thanks.

Someone mentioned an AI resource in my FB community the other day and respondents jumped on her about how bad AI is and how we shouldn't be using it at all. Beliefs are fine, but don't kick people who are trying to help, so:

Thank you, Allison, for sharing this resource. We're very AI friendly over in our Circle community. I'd be happy to gift you access if you'd like a more receptive audience.

Or to the community members who showed up for me during a time of need last year and purchased a new PDF binder I was launching, a gift of full course access in the members-only section of my community.

Giveaways that are targeted in an audience already engaged will scratch the "I want to do something nice for people" itch and help develop a business foundation of real community rather than extraction.

In the new world we are entering, fellowship and community will yield more sales than trad marketing and the wise builder makes that their business foundation.