Giveaways can work very well as lead generators. When I gave away thousands of copies of a free booklet called "Six Steps to Free Publicity," it was safe to assume that anyone requesting it was a potential candidate for publicity- related products and services. The mailing list from that giveaway helped build my business.

You can also offer giveaways as a bonus for a certain number or dollar value of sales. For instance, Talisman Billiards Accessories Company in Thailand offers a free golf shirt for every offer over $70. "I do see a lot of people increasing their order to get free bonus," says Tony Jones, Talisman's general manager. The golf shirt would need a humorous imprint or some hard-to-find design relevant to audience to be considered newsworthy, so you'll need creativity if media coverage is among your aims. Put on your thinking cap for a giveaway with pull power!

Dig up all of information you can find on topic. Do research. The information may just be hard to find, or it may be somewhat out of date. Dredge up what you can and begin compiling it into a product. If what you find needs updating, find a way to update it... find a way.

If you simply cannot find information... if it just isn't available, now you have a real opportunity. You need to track down whoever can help you discover or generate this information. In United States this could be a librarian, or even a congressman. Congressmen have staff members who are there to help constituents with problems. Not being able to find information on a given topic is a "problem." Call and see if your local congressman's staff can point you in right direction.

No matter what topic you're looking for information on, there IS someone who can help you. There is someone interested in and probably doing research on that topic. Your job is to locate them. They may work in a laboratory or at a university. They may be in retirement but still very interested in their old line of work. Your job is to locate information and then package it for market.

In process of dredging up hard to find information that you need, or noticed a need for, something magically happens. You become expert. Since you are now source of information on that topic, where very little information was previously readily available, you become known as expert. Since you did so much research, reading and studying topic... you are now expert. You are not pretend expert, you are real expert. You know more about topic than almost anyone most people know.

I personally have seen many people use just this route to become recognized experts on a topic. The topics range from how to afford a house, to how to score higher on test, to how to protect yourself from degenerative diseases. Look around you... read papers... and I am sure you will see many people who have done similar things. They validate this path to becoming an expert. It's a proven path and it's also a well-known fact that people will pay experts for what they know.

Now road map is unfolded in front of you. You only need to set out to become expert. In process something else magical will happen. People will recognize you as a "real" expert because pretend experts are fairly easy to see through. What are you waiting for? You have have road map and only need to get started.