How Colin & Samir Use Giveaways to Grow Their Newsletter
Giveaways are often considered a bottom-tier lead-gen strategy.
For one reason - high volume but low quality.
This perception will be flipped after learning about how Colin and Samir used giveaways to grow newsletter subscribers. Mine definitely did.
Colin and Samir ran a giveaway contest two years ago that generated 8000 subscribers in just one day.
It was so successful that they’re back with another giveaway, using the exact same playbook.
This is how they did it.
Pump Up The Volume With Urgency
Colin and Samir’s giveaways have a 24-hour time limit.
If you don’t sign up the moment you see the message, you could miss it.
To make the time limit credible, they title the YouTube announcement, “deleting this video tomorrow”.
On top of it - they keep updating the video title to reflect the time left until the video is deleted.
All of these create a powerful sense of urgency that generates hype and pump up subscriber volume.
Pre-Qualify And Nurture Giveaway Leads
Giveaway leads are cold leads.
Colin and Samir use a couple of tactics to pre-qualify and nurture to maximize return.
On the sign-up page, they noted that the giveaway winner is announced in the newsletter.
This incentivizes subscribers to open at least the first few newsletters.
And they can easily flag those who don’t open as low-quality leads.
In the sign-up confirmation email, they ask subscribers to reply to the email to warm up their inbox.
Again, serving as a subscriber interest indicator.
The giveaway announcement video is meticulously designed to educate the audience.
First, they announce the giveaway.
Then comes the hook: their team picks the prize and you don’t know what it is until they’re done shopping.
Queue the anticipation.
When viewers' attention levels are at their peak, they sneak in a quick intro about the newsletter and why it's worth signing up for.
This primes viewers about the newsletter and filters out uninterested leads.
The goal of a giveaway shouldn’t be to get everyone to sign up, it should be to attract highly interested and engaged leads.
Right Prize = Right Audience
Most giveaways generate low-quality leads because they take their eyes off the prize.
Most prizes are generic and attract a wide audience.
Anyone would give up their email for a trip to Greece without being interested in the return.
Colin and Samir’s giveaway prize is a $1000 creator starter kit.
Who’s interested in a kit with video gear? Current and aspiring content creators! The target audience of their newsletter.
“Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome.”
Align the incentive with your target audience to attract the right people to your giveaway.
If your audience is real estate agents, give away home staging accessories.
If your audience is software engineers, give away software subscriptions.
Know your customer.
Your Giveaway Playbook
So here’s how to apply these tactics to your brand:
- Create a sense of urgency with a 24-hour giveaway window.
- Qualify entrants: the purpose of the giveaway is to attract high-quality leads.
- Tell entrants you’ll announce the winner on the platform you are trying to build, in this case, a newsletter.
- Build anticipation, and pick a prize that will excite your ideal audience, not the widest audience.
