We Love Free !

New ideas and an offer too !

2007-07-11T12:57:00.000Z

OK, I've binned off the 'print my own flyer' idea, and found a company that print 250 free business cards instead. I'm gonna drop these through doors as they look a lot more professional than the flyer I'd made. They've been ordered and should be here in a coupla weeks, so we'll see how that goes.

I've also emailed all the yellows that have registered on nextgen and offered £5 cashback if they complete an offer. This is a great deal, as if they take out the Coral offer, and deposit the minimum £5, not only do they get there money back from me, they also have a chance of winning more !

I'm extending this offer to absolutely anyone now....if you register and complete an offer via my referral links (down the right of this website), I will give you a fiver absolutely free ! Just PM (private message) me via eXceem (my userid is handsy) once you've completed your offer. When I see you 'go green' I'll send you the fiver, simple :-)

Been away for a while

2007-06-19T18:54:00.000Z

Sorry guys and gals, been weeeeeeeell busy with other stuff recently. Been revising for a Cisco exam, and passed you'll be glad to know :-)
Anyway, so I need to get some more movement on this whole freebie thing. I still haven't done my flyer drop. Got 8 yellows at the moment, so a bit slow progress.
Got to persevere !

Tip of the Day

2007-06-04T13:17:00.000Z

Don't join too many networks on your quest for 'free'dom.
It can be overwhelming and confusing keeping track of which sites you've registered with, what gift you've selected, which offer you've done, etc.

Stick with one or 2 and work really hard on getting your referrals on them before progressing.
Click one of the images to the right to join nextgen with me and get your Free PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii :-)

A Reminder

2007-06-01T14:49:00.000Z

"How do I get those free gadgets then ?", I hear you cry. Well, here's my step-by-step guide for all those of you who still aren't sure.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Happy freebie'ing !

Two weeks in

2007-05-31T19:18:00.000Z

Coolio - so I now have 6 yellows which is OK.....if it was a school report, I suppose the teacher would say, "could do better".
I also had my offer marked as completed too, which is good. I chose the JackpotJoy offer on the nextgen site, which gave me the chance to win loads......I didn't of course ;-)

I've attached a screenshot of my nextgen account to show you what it looks like:

You can clearly see I have "Offer Completed", 6 yellow referrals, and 0 greens.

Still some way to go, but I'm still enjoying it. I've done endless tinkering with the layout of my BLOG, as any regular visitors will notice. I now hope, that I'm done 'tinkering' and I can concentrate on providing you with quality content.

Proof

2007-05-29T08:29:00.000Z

I've been talking a lot about how to get these free items, but not really proved that this scheme actually works ! Sorry 'bout that.

For starters have a look at this YouTube link. It's a clip from a BBC documentary detailing how you could obtain a free iPod. The principle is the same for the gadgets I'm discussing in this BLOG.

So, how do the companies afford to do this ?
They work on statistics. The freebie site that you point your referrals to, get money for each referral that completes an offer. The company that runs the offer, e.g. LoveFilm, work on the idea that 1 in 40 or 50 people who sign up, will then become a fully fledged member and spend some dosh with them, which in turn makes them money.
The freebie site, can then offer a gadget to you 'free', as they themselves have earned a bit more than the gadget was worth anyway !

I hope this makes sense to you all ? If not, feel free to add a comment to this post, and I'll do my best to respond.
By the way, I have 5 referrals now, none have completed an offer yet, but it's early days.......

Focus

2007-05-24T18:49:00.001Z

I've decided that it's a better idea for me to focus on one offer at a time, as referrals (at the moment) are very slow.

I've plumped for the PS3 offer at nextgen for now. This means that pretty much everywhere I have a link, it'll direct a potential referral to the nextgen website for me.

Update on the flyer I was creating. I've got a draft which I created using MS Publisher. It looks OK. Next step, is to run off a load of copies and start posting/pinning them around my area.

I've also created a sale on ebay, which seems to be attracting a few more clicks. NB. I've been very careful to state clearly that the sale is not an item, and is just free info - DO NOT BID ! I'm sure some dummy will though ;-)

Advertising - what next ?

2007-05-22T13:37:00.001Z

Google AdWords is bringing in the clicks, I've updated my signature on forums that I'm a member of with my referral URLs/this BLOG, and I've started telling a few family members about my quest for 'free'dom :-)

What next ? After all, advertising is key to getting those elusive referrals. My current thought pattern is to design a leaflet referring to this BLOG and stick it anywhere I can around my neighbourhood. Village notice boards, corner shop windows, etc....

I'm gonna give it a go, and I'll let you know what sort of response I reckon I get.

I should be able to tell from Google Analytics, as that tells me if people have visited me directly (i.e. keyed the full URL themselves), or been referred on from somewhere else.
Have I told you about Google Analytics yet ? Don't think I have. Well, it's another great free tool from Google that allows you to see stats for your website. It shows you how many people visit each day, where they clicked from, where they are in the world, how long they stayed, etc. It's brilliant for seeing where you get the most success from with your advertising techniques.

P.S. I've not had any more referrals yet, but it's early days......

Got my first yellow!

2007-05-20T11:32:00.000Z

I've just had my first referral on the nextgen website for my free PS3. This means that someone reading my BLOG, clicked the Free PS3 link to the right and signed up on the website. Pretty cool huh ? Now all I need them to do is sign up for an offer and they become green.

All the effort I've put in so far is coming good :-) Watch this space for more updates, tips and tricks.

Things are starting to happen...

2007-05-19T12:22:00.001Z

Got my first few clicks from my Google Adwords account to this site, plus I've had one click on Google Adsense (which earns me money)....hopefully this means you lot are realise this is genuine, and starting to sign up to those sites I'm advertising ;-)

Sad I know, but this is pretty exciting !

Hmmm, this is fun !

2007-05-17T08:59:00.000Z

Less than a day goes by and I find a load of new things to play with and help me get my free stuff. I've signed up to Google AdSense (which you can see at the top of the page) and that's free ! It will pay me if people click on the Ads :-) I also stumbled across a £30 voucher for Google AdWords which lets me advertise this BLOG on Google's search engine ! Every click brings a new person to my BLOG and hopefully a new green referral. The other thing you'll notice I've added is a web counter, which really helps me see if people are actually visiting my site or not, i.e. do I need to advertise the site more. Hopefully, what I'm writing here will help someone else out too ?

Day Zero.1

2007-05-16T14:36:00.000Z

Just found out something useful - you don't need to have a completed offer before you start referring. This means you can start referring straight away which is important as that's the bit that takes the time.

Day Zero

2007-05-16T09:28:00.000Z

So there I was, at work........normal day, bit bored I guess, and I stumble upon a link to a forum called eXceem. There's lots of strange lingo so I read the FAQ and it all becomes a bit clearer, so I sign up - it's FREE so what's the harm ?

First thing I do is post in the 'Introductions' forum. 3 people say "Hi" almost immediately ! Wow, this is friendly. eXceem turns out to be a forum not to directly get your free stuff, but to talk about ways and means of getting it. It's well run, friendly and won't tolerate idiots....my sorta forum ;-)

Next step then, where/how do I exactly go about getting these free consoles, etc I keep hearing about ? I read some posts, and start seeing a lot of different URLs appearing in posters sigs. I browse to them and find that this is where the fun starts.

A few that caught my eye straight away were :

They look really professional and clearly show you how you can start the process of claiming your free console / mobile / ipod / camera / whatever. I registered on both sites and started reading more in depth. Ah right...so I need to do an offer via the site to get things going. The site lists the offers available and I plump for a 'Deal or No Deal' jackpot site. Register, deposit a tenner, the site matches your bet, play through a tenner's worth of games and the site then tells nextgen (in this instance), that I completed the offer. I'm then up and running to start getting referrals. What are referrals ?

A successful referral is someone who's clicked your referral link back to the freebie website, registered and then successfully done an offer themselves. That would be called a green.
A yellow is someone who's clicked your referral link, registered but has not yet done an offer.
A conga (yes, you read that right) is a queue of people to get free referrals. You sign up for the person at the top of the list and go green. Then when they have 5 referrals, they go and the next in line moves up to the top of the conga. Pretty cool huh ?

Where am I now ? Waiting for my offer to be completed on nextgen. I can then start getting the 13 referrals I need for a Playstation 3 ! Go ahead, and click the links in this post and see for yourself. It'll help me and you to start getting free stuff :-)

I intend on posting a new blog entry every time something significant happens on my road to 'free'dom :)