What is it?
Offering giveaways that cost you nothing can be an excellent way to spread the word about your newsletter for free.
Here are two approaches you can try without spending a cent:
Your Own Digital Product Giveaway: If you can offer something digital (like an ebook, course, or shoutout) that doesn't cost you anything to produce, you could use it as a referral reward that allows you to grow for free.
Sponsored Brand Giveaways: Sponsors might be willing provide free products as giveaway prizes to reach your audience. With this route, you can offer high-value rewards without carrying the costs yourself.
For both approaches, provide a custom referral link (from a platform like Sparkloop) for each subscriber to share. As their friends sign up through that link, your reader accumulates chances to win your cool prize!
The Good and the Bad
Examples of how to crush it
Naptown Scoop
Naptown Scoop gives a birthday shout-out to any subscriber that manages to hit 3 referrals.
This costs Ryan nothing to fulfil, and he stands by it as a no-brainer growth tactic for local newsletters:
“Don't even think about it, just do birthday shoutouts, because everybody likes seeing their name in print.”
He also points out it's crucial to keep the first referral tier low so people think it's actually attainable, too:
"The only thing that matters in a referral system is the first milestone, because almost nobody will get past that. Make that one free for you to fulfill and easy for your readers to get. Mine takes three subscribers."
SEOFOMO
This search engine optimization newsletter was able to run a bumper giveaway without incurring any costs.
They partnered with 15 different companies to give away a bundle of licenses and courses that was very valuable for the potential winner, despite costing nothing in real terms.
Entry to the giveaway was conditional on referring two new subscribers to the newsletter - and it was ultimately this giveaway that boosted SEOFOMO over the 30k subscribers line!
