There are a number of different ways in which you can get people to join your mailing list; however, participating in free giveaway events is perhaps the eaiest and most cost-effective of all. The only problem you will encounter is actually figuring out how to participate in such events. So how can you do it?

The first way in which you can build a mailing list through free giveaway events is to actually create the events yourself. You can do this by organizing other business owners in your given niche and asking them if they are interested in giving away products in order to build mailing lists. In most cases, you will want to use some sort of event as a reason for conducting the giveaway. Perhaps you will organize a massive Christmas giveaway – or perhaps you will use some other Holiday. Regardless of what event you select, remember to use some sort of a premise to help it build momentum.

Once you have selected a premise, you will also want to start contacting everyone who sells a product in your given niche. This works especially well if you contact business owners who sell multiple products – some of which are relatively old. They will usually be looking to make some money off of older products by giving them away for free.

Let each of your potential partners know upfront what you plan to do. Let them know that you plan to organize a giveaway event, in which all product owners will allow visitors to download free copies of their software in exchange for providing them with an email address.

You can organize this in several different ways. One way is to allow each owner who joins to give away all the products of all the members in exchange for email addresses. Another way is to attempt to get several different email addresses per giveaway sign-up. The first is probably a better option to select if you are creating it yourself, as it is more likely to attract partners.

Now, if you don't want to start such an event yourself, you can always wait for someone else in your given niche to organize it for you. Again, look out for these events around Holidays, including Christmas and New Years.

Once you actually get the email addresses of those who sign up for the products, you will then want to carefully cultivate them into buyers. You may want to do this by either using an autoresponder or sending out periodic emails before you ever try to pitch anything.