Software License Giveaways – Go Big Or Go Home

If you get the impression that this article is a bit of a rant – you’d be right.

As a popular Blogger, I receive giveaway offers from software developers virtually everyday. You know the type – “Contest: We have 5/10 licenses to giveaway to your readers”, or something similar. I avoid them like the plague – and here’s why.

It’s a sweet deal for the software developer.

The Blogger writes a review on a piece of software he may not otherwise have even considered, which amounts to free publicity for the developer.

Depending on the Blog’s readership base, this can amount to significant free exposure.

The Blogger does all the back end work – testing the application (although I’m aware of some Bloggers who don’t), writing a review, replying to the contest entries; setting up the drawing to pull the winning entries; notifying the winners, etc.

All of this for what – so that 5 readers out of perhaps as many as 4/5000 daily readers, get a free one year license for a piece of software? All of this for a marginal increase in Blog traffic, which at best, is transient.

Contrast that type of low end giveaway with a “professional” giveaway, such as the following.

Zemana, the developers of the highly regarded security application AntiLogger, on two occasions in the past year, set up a special giveaway download page for Tech Thought readers, which resulted in 2,000+ licenses  being given away. No fuss, no muss, no waiting, no trusting to luck, professionally handled, and a win-win for all involved.

Ashampoo, a German software developer with over twelve million customers, periodically offers free multipacks of their programs for download with the only requirement being registration. At the moment Ashampoo is offering five of their best selling applications, at no cost.

Since I posted an article on this offer late yesterday, 300+ readers here, have taken advantage of this generous offer. Definitely beats a low end 5/10 license contest hands down. There’s no entry to fill out, and then having to trust that lady luck will reward you. Best of all – there’s no waiting.

You might wonder why I’d bother writing a piece like this. There’s a simple answer really.

It allows me to answer the many reader inquires I’ve received, as to why I no longer promote skimpy software giveaways.

It allows me to point out to readers, that mature software developers (like the two above), focus on the big picture in creating opportunities for users to benefit from giveaways – not 5 or 10; but, significant numbers of users.

It allows me to point out to other Bloggers that getting involved in low end giveaways is a mugs game – that the only marginal winner is a software developer, who has yet to grasp the fundamentals of marketing in the Internet age.

And finally, it allows me to point out to fellow Bloggers the truth of that old axiom – “If you work for nothing, you’ll never be out of a job.”

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