How a partner-powered giveaway grew her list and kept readers engaged for 6 months after.
Welcome to Day 8 of the 30 Days of Growth.
This is a pop-up newsletter put together by the team at Growth In Reverse. We’ve pulled 30 creators together to help give one short, actionable way you can either grow or improve your email list.
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Giveaways can work. But a single giveaway usually spikes your list for a day and then it’s over. The new subscribers got their free thing and now they’re just sitting there.
What if you could stretch that into a 12-day series where every day brought a new partner, new prizes, and a new reason for people to open your email?
That’s what Fab Giovanetti did with Alt Marketing School. She built a partner-powered giveaway series modeled after a 12 Days of Christmas advent calendar, where each day featured a different tool, platform, or community offering something free. 1 partner per day for 12 days.
The result: 550+ new subscribers in 12 days, and her click-through rate doubled for the 6 months that followed.
How Fab Did It
Fab ran hers during the holidays, but the format works anytime. A “12 days of free tools” series in Q1, a back-to-school version in September, a new year kickoff in January. The exciting part is the daily reveal, not necessarily the season.
1. She picked a familiar seasonal hook. Fab is a big believer that storytelling is the thing that drives reader buy-in. The more you can take a familiar theme and spice it up, the more attention it’s likely to get. She took the traditional 12 Days of Christmas and remixed it with this giveaway to drive excitement.
2. Fab found ideal partners for the giveaways. For each of the 12 days, a different brand offered something free. She got partners to promote it to their audiences as well – so it was 12 different brands/creators pointing at the same thing over 2.5 weeks.
3. She mixed up the formats to keep people curious. Some days were on-demand trainings; others were live events; some were straight up giveaways. You never knew what was behind the next door (which is the whole point).
4. She promoted it weeks in advance. She had around 3-4 weeks of promotion before day 1, with a couple partners teasing it early as well.
5. She skipped weekends to stretch the runway. 12 weekday giveaways spread across about 2.5 weeks allowed more time to build momentum and for latecomers to jump in.
Why It Works
There are a few reasons this works. But here are the main ones:
A familiar story & format is easy to opt into. People understand the advent calendar concept.
The multi-day series creates a curiosity loop each day. “What’s behind today’s door?” is the kind of question that brings people back every day.
The partner cross-promotions layer on top of each other. Each partner introduces Fab’s list to a new audience, and each new subscriber gets exposed to 11 more partners over the next 2 weeks. That’s a lot of warm reach for a low investment.
Existing readers also get a reason to stay engaged. After the test, Fab kept hearing from people who were sad they’d missed a specific day. This excitement and engagement around her content is what helped double her click-throughs for the 6 months that followed. Readers were trained to expect something worth clicking on.
Results
- 550+ new subscribers, run as a simple advent calendar page on her site
- CTR doubled for 6 months after the campaign ended
How You Can Implement It
Step 1: Pick a theme or hook that ties the series together. Fab used the holidays, but “12 days of free tools for [your audience]” works any time of year.
Step 2: Line up your partners. Each day = 1 partner + 1 free thing (a course, a template, a tool credit, a live workshop). Reach out 6-8 weeks early so everyone has time to prep.
BONUS: Get partners to agree to share the giveaway with their audiences and email lists.
Step 3: Pick one home for the whole campaign. A landing page works for v1. To upgrade, host it on a summit platform like HeySummit so videos, live events, and giveaways all live in one place.
Step 4: Promote it 3-4 weeks ahead of launch. Build a waitlist and tease 1 or 2 partners early so people know what is coming. Have partners to do the same.
Tools
- A landing page builder (Carrd or Kit)
- HeySummit (or a
Notion page) as a giveaway & online events hub - Your ESP with tagging to track partner-driven sign-ups and which days/prizes drove the most subs
- A shared doc (like Google Docs) for partners with deliverables, due dates, and promo copy
A single giveaway grows your list for a day. A 12-day series with partners grows your list for 2 weeks and trains your readers to keep opening for months after.
See you tomorrow,
Chenell
P.S. You can follow Fab on LinkedIn or check out her work at Alt Marketing School.
