Interview with Erin Giles: How to Create Buzz by Giving It Away

{Image from Erin Giles}

1. Can you tell us a little about how giving things away has affected your business?

Giving things away by embracing generosity has opened the line of communication between countless readers and myself. People that probably would have never reached out, bought a product, or replied to a blog post found a reason to communicate with me just by thanking me for what I gave them, no matter what form it was in. As we all know, when we begin to communicate with our customers and readers, a friendship and community begins to form. They begin to turn to you with questions and refer you to their friends because they know that you care and are passionate about what you do.

2. What do you say to people who worry about giving too much away for free?

I say you have to be intelligent about it. You can’t inundate your customers with free stuff or they won’t see what you are selling as having value. You also have to decide from the beginning how much time and money you are willing to put into what your giving away.

3. Can you give us a brief summary about what Give It Away Now is all about?

Give it Away Now is about embracing generosity intelligently and creating faithful customers. I cover:

• Addressing what your afraid of and letting those fears go!
• Why giving panties away is brilliant marketing and how this big biz doesn’t care that their giving them away.
• Step by step instructions on how to pitch and land guest posts on high traffic sites, like I did on Design*Sponge and ProBlogger.
• How to build a generosity plan of attack when giving away your products & services.
• What to watch for and how to react when it happens.

4. One of the things that I love about your guide is all the worksheets that help readers put your information into action. Could you help out Blacksburg Belle readers by giving them one thing they can do today to spread the word about their businesses if they have no marketing budget?

Plan a holiday giveaway! Be sure to get organized on how you are going to promote it, giving at least 3-4 weeks to build the buzz up. Promote it on your blog, Twitter, and Facebook! And be sure to offer everyone who didn’t win a special deal on what you were giving away, they had some interest in it, right?! Then show them some love and offer a discount off of the item that they entered to win.

5. Who is this guide for? And, who is not for?

This guide is for you if you’re looking to create a buzz about your business online and either have a non-existent marketing budget or you just love promoting your business yourself.

This guide isn’t for you if you are not a go-getter! To put what I offer in the guide into action, you must get to work:)

6. What’s all this talk about panties?

I can’t reveal that secret (he he) they will have to find out in the guide.

7. And, let’s wrap this up by telling readers where they can find this fabulous guide.

You can find the guide on my website HERE!