I like a good sale but free stuff is even better. I am not one to turn
down a coupon, hand-me-downs for T or even hand-me-downs for me! There are a
lot of sites online now that will send you free stuff; here is a
breakdown of the ones I've tested.
Houseparty is by far the coolest site I've come across for free trials
online. You can sign up for the opportunity to host a party featuring a product.
If you are chosen to host you have to invite at least 10 friends to join you at
your party to test the product. The only other requirements are to fill out a
pre party survey, a post party survey and to take a photo of you and all your
guests to prove you had the party and how many people came.
A few weeks before your houseparty you will receive a box full of
goodies. So far we hosted few parties. Our first was a fisher-price play date party
and we received over $200 worth of Fisher-Price products. They also sent
coupons and coloring books for all of the party guests. The other two parties
we hosted were Hasbro Game nights- and you can check out my previous blog about
how awesome the last one was. My sister in law recently won a Duplo lego party,
and they have tons of cool parties to apply for all year round.
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| See that giant contraption in the middle, it is a ballapalooza and we live in a very little apartment! It is currently residing at the foot of my marital bed. Sexy! |
Your party acts as an advertisement for the company and your friends
are not obligated to do anything but attend and have a good time. To increase
your chances of being chosen to host you can use social media to promote your
party and make sure guests come. I have only used facebook to show that I’ve
applied to host various parties and to let friends know when I have one coming
up. I also tend to upload more photos to the houseparty website after the event
to showcase our party. Houseparty also asks that you share a post party survey
with your friends after the event. I always send it out but don’t harass
friends to make sure they fill it out.
How does this works for brands? If the product you introduce is really
great your friends will buy it! Almost all of T’s friends have the Fisher-Price
Laugh and Learn Stride-to-Ride Puppy because of our party.
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| Here is T and the dog walker |
There is really no negative I can think of, this is an awesome brand
party opportunity! But I guess if you don’t like parties or people this is not
for you.
Bzzagent is a social marketing company. They work with brands to send
you free products and coupons based on your lifestyle and needs. The products
we received from this site are pretty decent. We got a nice Schick razor,
Quaker products, Garnier Fructis hair products and some free yogurts. The
company also sends coupons for you to give out to friends and co-workers.
Once you receive and test the product you have over a month to write
reviews and tell your friends about your product experience. You do not need to
be a social media whore to fulfill your product promotional responsibilities. I
have uploaded product photos and reviews directly to the bzzagent website and
facebook and I share the coupons with friend and co-workers. The coupons are
usually pretty great, so people want them! I do not feel obligated to open a
twitter account or blog about each product. Bzzagent gives you Bzzscore, it
rates you in terms of the amount of surveys you fill out and product awareness you
raise. It is supposed to determine how many bzzagent product mailings you are
chosen for, but Im at a strong 8.2/10 and have not received a product invite in
a LONG time. Here is to hoping I get one soon!!
When I first signed up for bzzagent they made me fill out a million surveys
about myself, and in order to keep your profile up to date they expect you to
fill more surveys each week. If you do not have time for surveys this site is
not for you!!
Influenster is also a social marketing company. Once you sign up you
fill out a few surveys based on categories that fit you and your needs the
most. Then you wait to get your first VoxBox invitation! I just got my first
voxbox and it is like a miniature birthday present filled with great surprises.
It is like getting 3 bzzagent kits at one time.
My first voxbox was called the JollyVoxbox and it was packed with
goodies. I received…
An entire box of skinny cow chocolates – Yum!
A Rimmel London lip lacquer- not my color, but I could see it being a
hit in a pink/red
NYC New York Color HD Color Trio Eye Shadow – totally my colors and I wear
it to work every day now
Duck Tape mini roll, it is a cute roll of strong duck tape that has a
fun print and that T thinks is big roll of stickers, super fun and crafty
A pack of puffs tissues that went right into my diaper bag and have
been super helpful with all this crazy cold weather!
There is a catch; after you get it they want you inundate all of your
friends with product reviews. It is not good enough to post one review of the box,
each and every product has its own requirement to keep your score high and to
get more awesome boxes. They want you to instagram the products, tweet them,
facebook them, video review them, create pintrest boards and blog away. Now,
you may not have noticed how tricky I am, but I just gave a quick review of all
my products on this blog, so influenster is going to be very happy with me!! And
to all of my friends, I am sorry about all of my social media product promoting
but I really like these boxes, you should try it too.
More social marketing! Swaggables is like the last 2 sites, you get
invited to try out new products based on a few surveys you took and you have to
review the products.
This site doesn’t require you to fill out so many surveys and only
requires that you review the products on the swaggable website, with the option
of a facebook or twitter share, which I totally love. I only recently signed up
for this site and already received two products in the mail, my issue is that
the products are a little sub par. It was nice to have the opportunity to try
them for free, but I will not be buying/recommending them anytime soon. I feel
like swaggable needs to get some better product partners, or it is just not
worth sticking around.
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