Viral Giveway Goes Haywire-Please Help An Idiot!

by tomcam
5 replies
I am getting tremendous response from an item I'm giving away to build my list. It is starting to go viral. We'll call this item CoolThing. All of the links go to a squeeze page at CoolThing.com, and I'm suddenly realizing that they should have gone to CoolThing.com/tryitfree instead. That would allow me to create a sales page for the upsell at CoolThing.com.

What should I do to rectify this? Moving the squeeze page to CoolThing.com/tryitfree seems necessary but not sufficient. After all, people who get old versions of the link will feel ripped off if they don't see some kind of link to the free version. OTOH it is axiomatic that a sales page should funnel the user to a sale, not give stuff away. I don't want to make it overly easy for visitors who were primed for a sales page to get distracted by the freebie.

My current plan is to create a tab right alongside Contact, About, Privacy Policy, etc. named Get Free CoolThing. Freebie seekers are usually reasonably determined, so I think that will do the trick. However, I am very open to suggestions.
#giveway #haywireplease #idiot #viral
  • Profile picture of the author ARVolund
    You can do a redirect unless you need/want some people to use the original link.

    Even if that is the case I probably would do one anyway as it sounds like you habe a lot more people that you want going to the tryitfree page than the original page.
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  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    tough one....

    but if the campaign is already working....

    i'd say leave it...or you may end up losing momentum, and even credibility....if people start talking about not finding what the are looking for.

    rather put the product at coolthing.com/coolthing

    it's not ideal, but it is probably the lesser of two evils...

    just my 0.02c
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    I'd probably keep it as is to keep momentum. You're still getting them on your mailing list, right? So you can still do the upsell via email.

    Can you keep it as is for those who get the old version, AND kick out a new version and do it like you wish you would have, running them side-by-side, as it were?
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    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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  • Profile picture of the author P.Sharma
    you should continue building a list and then email them an irresistable offer
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  • Profile picture of the author tomcam
    Thanks for the feedback, all.

    @ARVoland, In the future I do indeed want people to go to the root page via pay per click, so I'd prefer to avoid the redirect And one huge problem is that it's the domain name, hence the root page, that adds so much of the search power.

    @grumpyjacksa, your idea is probably the best, and I pretty much agree with your assessment. My one thought is that it's early in the campaign and I think this product, while modest, is going to have legs. So I'm thinking it's probably better in the long run to make the change now, take the (deserved) credibility hit, and hope that eventually I'm forgiven... Ugh.... However, your suggestion to put the product at Coolthing.com/coolthing was briiliant. I hadn't thought of it.

    @Dennis Gaskill, I can indeed do the 2 site idea. In fact I had planned for it already but didn't think it through when I wrote up the offer! I have the domain registered called (for example) FreeCoolThing.com, which of course I should have used for the offer, along with CoolThing.com, which I ended up using for the offer. Doh!

    @P.Sharma, that was my plan all along, and I will indeed send them some great offers. Luckily I can do that regardless of the road taken. Thanks for the input.
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