Every brand wants its products and services to receive significant attention. Although becoming viral is the goal, it’s only sometimes possible, especially if your industry has great competition.
Giveaways are ideal for promoting your goods, reaching a wider audience, and offering customers fun activities. This article will guide you step-by-step through the entire process, from how to run a viral giveaway to which tool to use to succeed with this tactic.
How to run a viral giveaway
Even if you calculate the precise share-to-impression ratios or entrant-to-referral ratios, you will only reach those numbers if people want your prize. The main elements that help a contest become popular are:
Answer the “What’s in it for me?”
Start by addressing the “what’s in it for them?” to get people’s attention and make your contest more viral. Your strategy for encouraging individuals to enter involves clearly stating the prize that they will have a chance to win.
Offer a prize that will appeal to your audience and be impossible to resist. You can entice unqualified leads into entering by offering some generic incentives. However, if you give your audience something they genuinely want, chances are they’ll be more inclined to enter and spread the word about the giveaway to their friends.
Create a dedicated email campaign
It’s crucial to keep your participants up to their toes all the time to increase the chances of higher reach. Because of this, you should incorporate engagement emails into your campaign to guide them to take the next step.
Woorise is the easiest way to create lead generation landing pages, forms, quizzes, surveys, viral giveaways and popups to help you grow your business from a single platform. Explore templates
Send updates to pique their interest in the prizes and encourage them to refer friends to get additional entries in the giveaway.
Here is an email sequence you could send:
- The contest is halfway over; keep going.
- There are just 5 days left; keep making referrals to raise your chances of winning the ultimate prize.
- There are just 24 hours left, the last chance to enter and win!
- There is a new bonus action introduced for action-takers.
- For the next 48 hours, earn twice as many referral points.
- Your next milestone reward is just 50 points away.
Having a similar approach will help you spread the word about the giveaway, and also you will help participants engage with your brand with various actions.
To make your life easier, you can always use an affordable email marketing service to put this challenging task on autopilot and concentrate on the other sections below.
Leverage scarcity
Many people have their mobile gadgets almost glued to their faces. On topics that interest us, there is a persistent “fear of missing out” (FOMO). And it’s disappointing to miss the opportunity to participate in a great contest or giveaway.
We want to use this psychology trick in our contests and giveaways. How?
- By stating the start and end dates of the competition explicitly. Even better, use a contest countdown timer to provide an additional visual cue for the contest’s end.
- Informing participants of the number of prizes being awarded or whether sharing increases their chances of winning.
Make it clear to your audience that there is a good chance they will win, but they had better enter quickly.
Transform the giveaway into a game
Even if a big prize might be enough to entice participants, gamification can make your contest more interesting and enjoyable.
People feel more involved if you ask them to contribute by submitting a photo of themselves using your product or a testimonial video. Additionally, it encourages them to participate actively and promote your contest.
You’ll learn more about your audience and how your customers are utilizing your product or service by structuring your contest his way.
Remember that not all competitions will benefit from gamification. Some contests perform better with a straightforward, one-step sign-up approach.
In general, finding a good balance requires some experimentation with competition and depends on your understanding of your market.
Combine the giveaway with influencers
To increase reach and reputation in the current environment of intense competition, you need people to spread the word about you. Here is when something becomes truly viral.
Something as simple as adding social media sharing buttons to the entry and confirmation pages makes your contest go viral. The sharing message should ideally be personalized and extremely simple to distribute.
Building trust with your audience requires taking the time to identify and reward those providing you with more significant traffic volumes. Let them know how grateful you are that they came and shared.
The success of your giveaway depends on influencers, so take some time to connect with them on LinkedIn and give them the incentive to share your giveaway with their audiences. Influencer marketing is an excellent tactic to boost your giveaway and help new audiences find your brand.
3 benefits of running a giveaway
Running an online giveaway on social media has many advantages, which we’ll go through one by one below.
1. Increase traffic and get qualified customers
When we discuss the benefits of hosting a giveaway on your social networks, this advantage is undoubtedly the first to come to mind. And the reason for that is that everyone wants to see their company’s sales increase.
Online giveaways are a simple, quick, and affordable way to increase brand awareness, boost website traffic and sales, and attract new users to your products or services.
This is because you selflessly provide something free to those who engage with your post, follow you on social media, or subscribe to your newsletter.
2. Spread the word about your brand
What could be better for your company’s reputation than a free giveaway where each participant has an equal chance of winning based on their level of engagement?
Giving away a service or product creates a highly positive impression of your brand; therefore, you should take advantage of this. Many big brands worldwide use this tactic to engage with their audience and spread the word about their message.
3. Understand your target audience
You may use a survey or several lead magnets with forms to find out your target audience, their preferences, and their needs when you want more than just traffic or visits to your page.
Additionally, you may build an email list to give your customers promotions, updates, or offers as part of your digital marketing strategy. This knowledge is priceless to increase a solid customer base or brand exposure among new potential customers.
How to create a successful giveaway?
Ready to launch your first giveaway? This section will explain how to set up your first giveaway, give you an overview of some features, and offer advice on maximizing engagement with your campaigns.
Choose a platform to run the contest
Among other giveaway tools, Woorise is one of the top ones. Giveaways are an excellent method to engage your audience and expand your brand’s reach among consumers. Woorise provides every tool you need to create attractive and effective giveaways, whether you’re a blogger, an eCommerce brand, an agency, a marketing manager, or a publisher.
Learn the main types of giveaways and set goals
With Woorise, there are many options for giveaways and contests. You can start with a basic or an Instagram giveaway, and as you become more experienced with the platform, you can create more sophisticated ones.
When you understand which giveaway better suits your needs, it’s time to set your goals and expectations. You may need to attract new followers or drive qualified leads for your sales funnel.
Every business is different; thus, customizing a giveaway for your needs is essential to create successful campaigns.
Create the giveaway
Starting with an optimized template, you can customize it to fit your brand’s personality and aesthetics. Leverage the drag & drop campaign and form builder; anyone can accomplish it in a few clicks without coding or technical background.
Start by picking a campaign from the Woorise dashboard menu. Then, select a template to use by selecting the Create option. You are directed to the campaign’s edit page once you add a new giveaway.
You can edit your campaign from this screen, check the changes before saving them, or save it to finish later. Another excellent feature is the preview feature, where you can see your campaign on various screens like mobile and desktop.
You can choose a catchy and appealing name, such as “Moosend Giveaway: Enter to win a Pro Subscription.” When sharing the campaign, you also have the choice to change the headline that appears on the Share page.
By default, the URL for your landing page is determined by the title. You can always use the right sidebar to customize everything if you need to change that to something more memorable.
Next, you can use blocks to update the current content or add new stuff, including images, text, videos, and more. To add a new block, click on the plus sign in the position where you want it or in the top left corner. Here you can use any graphic design trends you like and adjust them to the template.
Set a timeframe and incentivize participants
Set the campaign’s expiration date and the content displayed after the campaign. A highly suggested feature for boosting sharing and engagement in your campaign is viral share.
A unique URL sent to a user who entered your campaign is used to track bonus entries. After entering, they receive a URL they can copy or share using the buttons.
Apart from this referral marketing tactic, you can expand your audience by using various social actions already built in and provide Bonus Entries to users that complete them.
The best part? You can create sophisticated combinations by using conditional logic.
Publish and notify the winners
Send personalized emails to yourself, participants, or anybody else, or automatically receive a submission summary in your mailbox. After a user fills out your form, use conditional logic to automatically send personalized follow-up email notifications.
Apart from viral share, you can expand your audience by using various social actions already built in and providing Bonus Entries to users that complete them.
8 Giveaway tips to increase leads and sales conversions
Giveaways are fantastic for branding. A successful giveaway can help you to increase your social media presence, boost engagement metrics and even align you with brands that you want to be seen with. However, at the end of the day if it’s sales you’re looking for, then you need to know how you can use giveaways to gain more customers.
How can you convert those engagement metrics, or floods of UGC into trackable sales that you can attribute to your giveaway efforts and ultimately acquire customers?
We’ve listed 8 tips and tricks on how you can frame or host your giveaways to result in ultimate sales conversions.
1. Email Capture
One of the simplest routes to acquire more customers is by collecting the emails of everyone who has entered your giveaway and sending them down a nurture journey. By putting one of the barriers of entry to your giveaway as an email capture you can build your client list and segregate them so you know that this section of your list came from XYZ giveaway. Build a funnel that is specific to them and the giveaway they entered. Tailor their journey and in turn they’ll reward your efforts.
Remember, they entered your giveaway because they were interested in what you had to offer, no matter how cold of a lead you think they may be, a lead they still are and interested in your product they are too. Create content that supports that interest. Don’t overpower them with the content though, be sensitive in your delivery and you’ll start to see new customers emerging from the list.
2. Follower Growth
By tailoring your giveaway around (relevant) follower growth, you can reach a wider audience, gain more eyes on what you have to offer and, in turn, acquire more customers. Make sure the entry rules of your giveaway include a follow on your leading social channel and tagging a friend or two, as well. In doing this you help the virality of your giveaway or contest. Pushing a share wherever possible enables you to reach new audiences and expand into them.
You can also do this with hashtags. Today, many are losing faith in hashtags, however it’s still the easiest way to find content that is relevant to you. We’ve listed the 100 most searched hashtags already, take a look and see if some of the hashtags in there are relevant to your brand. Both tagging and hashtag implementation as a strategy implemented will grant your giveaway a follower growth in return. This giveaway follower growth will eventually convert into sales. Although, like no.1 this is a much softer conversion to sales, you can’t argue with quantity alongside quality.
The team over at @chicadegallo held a social media giveaway in partnership with another brand and ensured that entry to the giveaway was a low lift for their consumers but also a high reward for them.
- Like this photo
- Follow @chicadegallo + @mininatortilla
- Tag a friend in the comments
- Tag more friends for more chances to win [one tag per comment]
In asking for a follow you ensure that what is now a potential customer has a better opportunity of converting in the near future once you start delivering content on the same channel, once the giveaway is over.
3. Bring a Buddy
Giveaways don’t always have to be aimed at potential new customers. If you have a product that is best shared, say an experience, then consider targeting your giveaway to your current customer base. Your customers are already your best brand ambassadors and 39% of social media users say they use social to stay up to date with their friends and family.
Give your customers not only a reason to reach out to their loved ones but potentially a prize they can enjoy with them as well. By gifting the winner a group prize, say a ticket for alongside tickets for four friends you essentially hand your sales in to the hands of your customers. Let them bring you new, like-minded customers to experience your product with and watch their guests return as customers in the future.
4. The Sampler Route
There’s often a huge pressure on giveaways to have the grandest, most lucrative prizes. However, if you’re looking to convert your entry list into a sales report then actually going with low cost prizes but a lot of them can be the best way. Gift “samplers.”
If your product is fast moving and relatively low-cost then give away a hundred samples rather than a few main products. In doing this you’ll expand your ability to get your product into as many hands as possible and you’ll expand your potential for sales once those samples run out.
@Birchbox did this perfect with their Giveaway of a new range of hair products by @livingproofinc. Instead of giving away one prize in an effort to gain new customer interest, they ended up giving away ten smaller prizes. This does two things:
- It appeals to a wider audience as the prizes are suddenly more attainable, resulting in more entries to your giveaway.
- It gets your product in the hands of ten winners rather than just one. That’s ten new brand ambassadors, ten returning customers and ten new audiences for your product to reach!
5. Aim Within Your Demographic
Capitalizing on customer acquisition with a giveaway is all well and good but you need to set up some parameters. If you’ve clearly defined your buyer personas and target demographic then you need to do two things:
- Make sure you advertise your giveaway on channels where your buyers are sitting.
There’s no point trying to reach males in their late 40s on Pinterest when almost 80% of Pinterest users are female. Identify where your demographic are sitting, on which channel specifically, and reach them there. - Make sure the barrier of entry is unique to your buyer.
By making the barrier of entry to your giveaway so specific that only your demographic can enter you filter through those entries that are unlikely to turn into sales further down the line.
To summarize, identify where your demographic are and create a competition or giveaway that they are in a unique place to enter. For example, if it’s a UGC competition, make sure the requests for UGC are filtered so that the entrant can enter with ease and those irrelevant to your brand can’t.
Influencer @justatinabit recently teamed up with @HomeGoods and one of the rules to enter the giveaway was:
Tag 3 friends who live nearby in the comments below. Must complete all 3 to enter. No Purch Nec. Open to greater Seattle, WA area residents, 18+.
@justatinabit
It’s okay to get specific with your entry rules, especially if you’re a smaller brand or only applicable to a certain geographical area. By closing these boundaries for this contest, @HomeGoods have ensured they’ll reach people within the area they want to and are therefore more likely to acquire customers from this giveaway rather than just followers.
6. Discounts Are Prizes Too!
Your first place giveaway normally needs to be a real prize, whether that’s your product or an experience that you’ve managed to partner with another brand to acquire and offer. However, what about 2nd and 3rd place? Who’s to say we stop there? What about from 4th – 10th? And then 11th – 20th? By opening the floor up to more winners it’s perfectly acceptable to offer them discounts on your product.
For example, the top twenty entries will all win XX% off their next purchase whilst 3rd, 2nd and 1st place receive a unique prize. By doing this you keep everyone happy and open the door for direct point of sales.
7. Get Time Sensitive
Build an anticipation around the winners of your giveaway, countdown the days until you announce the results and make sure you deliver them via the channel most relevant to you.
@Expedia did this fantastically with their campaign #ThrowMeBack in which they recreated scenes from #TBT posts and literally took customers back to those exact locations. The anticipation around the reveal went viral, everyone loves a before and after photo but a before and after story, that’s another thing!
Our winners in action! Post your #TBT w/ #ThrowMeBack @Expedia & you could get thrown back! http://t.co/K6k9QXBDhdhttps://t.co/uJBWLbZ5ti
— Expedia (@Expedia) July 24, 2014
Following Expedia’s example and with converting your giveaway entries into customers in mind you need to not only build anticipation but to get time sensitive with what comes next. “Sorry you didn’t win this time, however…” offer up your season sale or campaign within the same winners’ messaging.
This can be done on social media but is often done best via email with social posts pushing people to check their emails for the announcement of the winners. This way you’re not only delivering your consumers the information that potential customers wanted to hear, but you’re also delivering them with a unique opportunity to buy.
8. Reward Loyalty
Giveaways don’t always have to be organized. They can be spontaneous and random acts of kindness can be hugely appreciated by your audience base. It’s often considered that there needs to be an event or special occasion to give a brand an excuse to host a giveaway. That’s not the case! By organizing surprise giveaways to your most “loyal” followers, you’re guaranteed to keep your engagement rates high and keep those visits to page and site ticking over.
Build a community of loyal followers by displaying random acts of kindness. This loyalty that you’re building, in the long run, will convert into sales.
How can you do this? Use social media marketing tools to track your most engaging followers, identify who those “super fans” are, call them out publicly and reward them publicly as well. Perhaps they’re a customer already, perhaps they’ve been sitting in the consideration phase for a while and merely love what you do online. Either way, by acknowledging your thanks to them via a giveaway, you not only encourage others to do the same but you build a stronger connection with a true fan of the brand.
The takeaway
With this article you have everything you need to create your next giveaway. Whether you are searching for the right giveaway tool or tips on how to create virality, this is the blueprint you must have in your arsenal.
Remember to set goals with every giveaway you set up, you choose the right tools and make your best to drive traffic to your campaign. You audience will love this initiative so pay some time to think of an excellent prize and see these qualified leads coming your way.
Before you start to set up your own giveaway or contest make sure you’re up to date with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) rules on how to host a giveaway. You don’t want to put in all that work only for your giveaway to be rejected from the social media platform you’re posting on.
Lastly, ensure you’re able to track the success of your giveaway. Set up KPI’s that will help you to determine the campaign’s success and will dictate how you run future giveaways. If you really want to acquire new customers via your giveaway then you need to be able to know what a new customer looks like!
Make sure you have all the tracking tools in place before launch so that by the time your giveaway ends you can validate your efforts and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
