Trending: Giveaways for the Holidays
We are all inundated with content.
Did you know, for example, that 350 million photos are uploaded every day on Facebook? That breaks down to about 4,000 photo uploads per second.
How do you stand out from that kind of crowd? Here’s one simple idea: give away things for free!
Giveaways, sweepstakes, and contests are a great way to build up your audience, increase engagement, and grow your email list. We mean, who doesn’t like free stuff?!?
Things have changed a bit since the giveaways of the early Internet; this tactic is much more common than it used to be, and there are strict rules about how to do this legally and what information you have to disclose. Use this guide to see if a giveaway could be right for your organization.
Define your goals & audience
Like every great campaign, you have to know what you’re aiming to accomplish and how to measure your success.
Whether your goal is to grow your audience or generally increase brand awareness, picking something specific will help you design the right giveaway. Most giveaways are designed to build email lists or your social media followers; you’ll notice that they often ask you to follow their account as a part of entering the contest. If you want more people to notice your brand, designing a giveaway that’s unique, funny, or attention-grabbing in some way might be the way to go.
This is also the ideal moment to ask yourself, who is your ideal customer? The answer will inform all your choices - from what prizes you give away to how you promote this campaign.
Think about who you want to do business with.
Do you want to connect with a stay at home moms? 👩👦
Business professionals?👩💼
Dog Lovers? 🐕
Dance fanatics? 💃🏽
Artists? 🎨
The prizes that appeal to a certain demographic can be very specific, and the virtual spaces they hang out in can differ quite a bit. Your professionals might be chillin’ on LinkedIn while those dancers might be taking Instagram selfies; follow the steps in our user persona guide to fully think through who you want to reach.
Pick the type of giveaway you want to host
Determine the logistics of your giveaway, like:
How are people going to enter?
How will you select your winner?
How long will you run this giveaway?
As you’re prepping to create your giveaway, you must review the guidelines and rules of hosting or sharing a giveaway on different platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, for example, have particular guidelines, and you can get in trouble if you don’t follow them.
If you’re using a third-party platform, like Gleam, Wishpond, or Rafflecopter, you will want to take some time to review their guidelines as well.
All giveaways should have a privacy policy and terms of use document that goes with it. We recommend checking these docs with a legal professional if you’re not sure if you’ve covered everything (although, to be fair, most people don’t take this step; however, they do still get in trouble sometimes!).
Create your budget and select your prizes
It’s easy to let a giveaway budget get out of hand, so, before you purchase, create, or share anything, make sure to establish your spending limits. Here are a few things you’ll want to budget for:
Cost of any third-party software
Cost of the prizes (don’t forget about tax and shipping so you can send them to the winners!)
Cost of running ads to promote this contest
Cost of hiring someone to manage the giveaway (or save a few bucks and run it in-house)
Miscellaneous expenses (you never know what might happen)
You don’t have to give away physical products, necessarily, but pick a prize that fits your brand well and helps you meet your goals. If you just want to build your customer base, you can give away some of your own products or services. If you’re part of a non-profit and you want to raise money, consider gifting an experience related to your mission to the supporter who raises the most money for your cause.
And if you’re trying to grab some serious attention, plan for a surprising, outlandish, “I can’t believe they did that!” sort of prize that will merit some media coverage or social shares. Think dinner with a celebrity, a pony, a year’s supply of Fruity Pebbles… you get the drift.
Create your giveaway
Now it’s time to do the dang thing.
You can host your giveaway directly on a social platform like Facebook, or use a third-party platform like Gleam.
The benefit of hosting it on social media is that you can reduce your costs and keep things simple.
However, adding a third-party hosting platform also has its advantages. With a platform like Gleam, you can connect one landing page to different platforms and efficiently track your entries across all of your different channels. Plus, you can get more valuable information, such as emails, names, and general locations, than you would with a giveaway hosted exclusively on a social platform that only gives you a name or just a username.
Consider what kind of information you need to collect based on your goal.
Promote your giveaway
Once you’ve created your giveaway, it’s time to promote! Hop on Canva to design some custom graphics (they even have handy templates for giveaways!), write your promotional copy, and schedule your posts. Think about what you want to share and when:
Do you want to do a countdown to the last day to enter?
Do you want to feature different products that you’re giving away?
Do you want to create videos and get your audience pumped about the prize?
Save yourself stress, and take the time to plan this out long before you start posting.
And remember your audience when you’re deciding where to promote your contest. For example, busy moms probably don’t have time for complicated entry forms or clicking through multiple pages, so make things obvious and easy for them with bright, eye-catching graphics and a very simple way to enter.
Select the winner & announce on social media
Once your giveaway ends, make sure to select your winner (or winners) and share it everywhere! It’s exciting!
If you’re using a third-party platform to manage your giveaway, they often have an automatic winner selection tool so you can pick someone at random. However, if you’re DIYng this contest on your own social media channel, you will have some work cut out for you.
The easiest thing to do is add the usernames of the entries to a spreadsheet, google a randomizer tool, and pick the winners based on whichever number pops up on the randomizer. It’s time-consuming, especially if you get a lot of entries, but you can save time overall by creating and updating your spreadsheet regularly. For example, pick a day of the week and set aside some time to add your entries to the spreadsheet. Before you know it, you’ll have all the entries in one place, and you will avoid a severe headache.
Send the prizes & a thank you card
The last step is to send the prizes! Go the extra mile and include a hand-written thank you note with the prizes. If the rewards are all digital or sent directly to the winner, you can still send a note, or, as a last resort, send a personal DM or email.
Trust us; it’s hard to forget when a company sends a handwritten note. It doesn’t take much effort, time, or money, but it can significantly impact your brand perception and build customer loyalty when it feels genuine and authentic.
Okay, okay, we know… this is a long list of steps for giving away a free thing on the Internet, but when you do it right it can really work! Here’s proof: One of our colleagues recently created a giveaway for her client, which brought in 2,500 emails and 500 followers across Facebook and Instagram in 30 days. By using Facebook ads, a modest budget, and some creative networking, their giveaway reach extended well past their usual audience and built some long-lasting brand awareness.
Ideally, you will have multiplied your audience exponentially, but now you need to keep them engaged and build a relationship with them before you can expect them to make a purchase.
Add them into your typical funnels and consider the best ways to stay connected.
Hosting a giveaway is a fun way to connect with new users and generate your brand engagement online.