Image the scene: you’ve stumbled upon an unfamiliar ecommerce website.
First impressions appear constructive; you want their model and merchandise. Their costs and transport prices appear affordable. Nonetheless, you’re not one hundred pc bought. With actually hundreds of thousands of different manufacturers on the market, why not store round?
Then you definately spot a message like this:
All it is advisable do is enter your e mail tackle for an opportunity to win a very free product. What have you ever bought to lose?
After all, product giveaways aren’t only a win for customers. They assist manufacturers develop their advertising lists, giving them the chance to remodel one-off web site guests into engaged ecommerce leads and, ultimately, paying clients.
That will help you benefit from this extremely efficient—but underutilized—advertising tactic, I’ve gathered collectively a few of my favourite ideas and greatest practices for working efficient giveaways.
And I’ve even included 11 high-converting promotional giveaway concepts from real-world manufacturers that you could steal to your subsequent marketing campaign.
What’s the Aim of Your Giveaway?
As with any marketing campaign, step one to planning a promotional giveaway is to outline the target(s) you hope to attain. Frequent targets embody:
Accumulating Emails
It’s truthful to say we’re large followers of e mail advertising at Drip; hardly stunning on condition that e mail generates a return of $36 for each $1 spent.
Utilizing giveaways for e mail seize is typically about focusing on web site guests who’ve by no means purchased from you earlier than. You shouldn’t have to depend on free items to steer present clients to enroll in your e mail listing.
When you’ve bought your palms on their e mail tackle, you may attain them with personalised campaigns based mostly on their preferences and onsite behaviors. In the event that they love shopping necklaces or purchase a brand new mattress cowl each six months, you may hit their inbox with a focused promotion at precisely the proper time.
Boosting Your Social Following & Viewers Engagement
Many manufacturers use promotional giveaways to extend engagement on social media and develop their follower counts, identical to on this instance from our buddies at Haute Hijab:
Most of those contests comply with the same format, providing followers the prospect to win a prize in change for:
- Liking, commenting on, and/or sharing a selected social media submit
- Tagging associates within the feedback
That is a simple strategy to attain new audiences on social media—though, clearly, there aren’t any ensures that these folks will comply with you or interact along with your content material (not to mention purchase from you).
Capturing Consumer-Generated Content material
With four-fifths of customers saying user-generated content material (UGC) extremely influences their buying choices, it’s straightforward to see why many manufacturers are wanting to seize as a lot of it as attainable.
However UGC doesn’t simply occur by probability. Most buyers aren’t going to basically do your advertising for you with out a little incentive.
That’s the place promotional giveaways are available. Fairly than asking clients to remark in your social posts or provide you with their e mail tackle, process them with sharing pictures and movies of them utilizing and having fun with your product.
Run these giveaways repeatedly and also you’ll quickly construct a library of worthwhile user-generated product footage, opinions, and testimonials to make use of in future campaigns.
Producing Buyer Referrals
Referred clients are worthwhile clients.
In actual fact, one examine revealed that they generate increased revenue margins, are extra loyal, and present a better buyer lifetime worth than “common” (non-referred) clients.
However, identical to with UGC, you may’t afford to easily sit again and hope buyer referrals will magically seem—it is advisable incentivize the method.
Referral campaigns are sometimes about producing gross sales as a substitute of leads. So they have an inclination to supply extra engaging, assured rewards. Fairly than giving members the prospect to win a prize, you may provide a free product (or perhaps a money incentive) to each the referrer and the referred buyer.
When Ought to You Launch a Giveaway?
Like every kind of promotion, it makes most sense to launch your giveaway marketing campaign throughout slower gross sales durations to your model. As a result of there’s little level in providing further incentives at instances when buyers are already seeking to purchase (plus nobody wants the effort of working a contest within the buildup to BFCM).
Past that, construct your launch round instances when engagement is highest throughout your chosen promotional channels.
As an illustration, the greatest time to ship emails is typically on Tuesdays and Thursdays…
…with emails despatched at 8 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM performing greatest when it comes to open and click-through charges.
How one can Run a Profitable Enterprise Giveaway
Completed nicely, promotional giveaways can develop your advertising listing, generate buyer referrals, and drive gross sales and income. However these outcomes aren’t assured. Get it mistaken and also you danger devaluing your model and turning off loyal clients.
Listed here are 5 greatest practices to spice up your possibilities of working a profitable giveaway…
Select the Proper Platform for Your Giveaway
Whether or not you’re making a gift of a pair of socks or the winner’s physique weight in gold bullion, nobody’s going to have interaction along with your promotion in the event that they don’t realize it exists. For that purpose, it’s important you select one of the best platform to your giveaway; one which helps you attain the proper viewers.
The “greatest” platform to your marketing campaign will naturally rely upon the targets you are seeking to obtain.
As an illustration, should you’re seeking to attain and interact new audiences, it is smart to make use of a platform with built-in shareability, akin to Fb or Instagram. Or if you wish to seize extra e mail addresses, attempt focusing on new clients visiting your web site by way of onsite popups.
Accumulate Emails & Nurture Giveaway Contributors
Keep in mind: you’re not working a giveaway since you simply love handing out your merchandise freed from cost; you’re doing it to attain some type of broader advertising aim.
Almost definitely, that aim will contain rising and/or partaking your viewers, with the last word purpose of producing extra gross sales and income.
Meaning constructing some type of viewers nurturing course of into your marketing campaign.
Collect members’ e mail addresses once they enter your giveaway contest. And in case your giveaway is working for an prolonged interval (say, any longer than 48 hours), remember to share common competitors updates by way of e mail and/or social media.
Your giveaway e mail sequence might look this:
| E-mail quantity | Days after launch | Goal |
| 1 | 0 | Verify giveaway entry |
| 2 | 1 | Remind entrants of the competitors prize and any key phrases and situations |
| 3 | 3 | Inform folks what number of entrants have signed up; share UGC examples if related |
| 4 | 5 | Announce the giveaway winner(s) |
| 5 | 6 | Share a reduction code with non-winning members |
After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all method right here. You’ll have to tailor your communications based mostly on a complete vary of things, from the size of your competitors to the entry necessities and the prize you’re providing.
Hyperlink the Prize Again to Your Enterprise
Apparent as it’d sound, it’s greatest if the product or expertise you’re making a gift of has a logical tie-in along with your model.
The best resolution is to present away your individual merchandise. However that’s not the one viable method to working a giveaway. With just a little creativity, you may be capable of establish a theme and prize that makes for a extra partaking contest.
For a model like The White Firm, which sells luxurious homeware and clothes, the obvious technique is to supply up a flowery quilt set or a botanical candle as a prize. As a substitute, it gave clients the prospect to win a mini-break at a luxurious cottage on the English coast:
Why? As a result of The White Firm helped model the property, successfully making a bodily case examine for its entire aesthetic; one thing aspirational to encourage its viewers.
By providing up the mini-break as a contest prize, the model was capable of showcase its work in a extra partaking means than merely saying: “Come check out this cottage we adorned.”
Get Engagement on Social Media
Whether or not or not you’re working your giveaway by way of social media, it is best to completely use your social channels to drum up extra curiosity.
As with the Haute Hijab instance I shared earlier on this article, the obvious method is to make social engagement a key ingredient of your marketing campaign—prompting followers to touch upon a submit or tag a good friend to be able to enter.
However you may additionally leverage platforms like Instagram and TikTok to lift consciousness of your giveaway and direct followers to register on a devoted competitors touchdown web page.
Be Clear About Your Guidelines
Within the advertising world, easy is all the time greatest, and giveaways aren’t any totally different.
Certain, your authorized crew will seemingly need to cowl your again with a bunch of phrases and situations. That’s high quality. However the overarching guidelines of the competitors—learn how to enter, what the prize is, and when the winner will likely be introduced—must be simply digestible.
Nationwide lotteries are a great instance. They offer away hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, but all it’s a must to do to enter is purchase a ticket and match some numbers. Anybody can perceive it.
In case your contest can’t be defined in 2 – 3 bullet factors, it’s virtually definitely too advanced.
11 of The Finest Giveaway Concepts That Work (and How one can Execute Them)
1. Accumulate Emails with Related Prizes
In case you’re planning a giveaway, your prize must be the very first thing you determine on.
In any case, prizes are the primary purpose why folks take part in giveaways.
Select a prize too widespread, and also you received’t seize a lot consideration. However select a prize too large, and chances are high you’ll entice freebie-seekers.
As tempting because it sounds, providing a brand new iPhone in your giveaway will do little good for you. Why? As a result of engaging however irrelevant prizes are spam magnets.
You’ll more than likely find yourself with an e mail listing stuffed with uninterested leads who’re solely in for the prize.
As a substitute, hold your prize related to your merchandise and your worth proposition.
Earlier than planning your subsequent giveaway, guarantee that it serves your conversion targets. In case your goal is to develop your e mail listing, an Instagram contest the place customers tag their associates received’t assist you.
Keep in mind, a great giveaway doesn’t converse to everybody. Fairly, it speaks to your purchaser persona.
With a related prize that resonates along with your purchaser persona, you may truly promote your on-line retailer, on prime of gathering e mail addresses.
Take this instance by J.Crew Manufacturing facility:
The corporate hosts a spring giveaway on their website and creates a devoted touchdown web page for it.
The massive prize is a bundle that features a reward card winners can spend on J.Crew Manufacturing facility’s on-line retailer.
A pattern product or a present card is a related and efficient prize, however for some guests, it’s not sufficient of an incentive. If you wish to make the prize extra fascinating, you may mix a present card with different issues, as J.Crew Manufacturing facility does.
This fashion, guests will get the prospect to attempt your merchandise. And it will increase their probability of changing into return clients.
Discover how J.Crew Manufacturing facility writes the worth of each the reward card (value $100) and the bundle (over $300) to make the prizes extra engaging.
J.Crew Manufacturing facility asks if you wish to join their e mail listing because the final step and leaves it non-compulsory. This fashion, they seize the guests’ pleasure of getting into a contest, they usually develop their e mail listing with leads.
In case you’re gathering emails that you simply’ll use for advertising functions, clearly write what customers are giving consent to. Give members the house to determine for themselves, as a substitute of preselecting the e-newsletter checkbox.
2. Enhance Your Giveaway Copy
One main benefit of internet hosting an onsite giveaway is the flexibility to customise each a part of your contest.
Which means you have got the pliability to make your giveaway as engaging as attainable.
With an onsite giveaway marketing campaign, you may determine what actions guests ought to take, which info they need to submit, and the place they need to go subsequent.
Writing compelling marketing campaign copy and a benefit-driven call-to-action (CTA) are the 2 pillars of an efficient giveaway marketing campaign. However they’re solely nearly as good as your provide.
Check out this instance by Jysk Vin:
Not like J.Crew Manufacturing facility, Jysk Vin makes use of an onsite marketing campaign to host their giveaway. This fashion, they will inform all their website guests concerning the giveaway with out making them go to a brand new web page.
This marketing campaign works nice for just a few causes:
- Their prize (24 bottles of wine) is extremely related and engaging to their website guests.
- The headline “Win $770 value of wine” is attention-grabbing and value-driven.
- They offer clear details about the draw date.
- They freely state what you’re subscribing to (an unique e-newsletter for wine lovers).
- The marketing campaign has just one enter area, which makes it ridiculously straightforward for his or her guests to finish.
- They use a benefit-driven CTA, as a substitute of merely writing “Signal Up” or “Enter Now.”
With a well-written onsite marketing campaign just like the one above, you may simply nudge your guests to hitch your giveaway and provides them a robust purpose to enroll in your e-newsletter.
What’s higher is, you may exclude your present subscribers from these campaigns so that you simply don’t ask them to hitch your e-newsletter once more.
3. Leverage the Vacation Season
With Black Friday, Christmas, and New Yr, the vacation buying season is the busiest time of the 12 months for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
In case you’re not already leveraging holidays with particular campaigns, you’re lacking out on a variety of income.
Including just a little twist to your vacation campaigns might help you stand out amongst a whole lot of different festive giveaways.
Many on-line shops host giveaways, particularly in the course of the vacation season, they usually normally provide winners just a few large prizes.
However you can also make your contests much more engaging by letting your website guests select the prize they need themselves.
Right here’s an ideal instance that you could replicate in your website.
In case you have been on the Chubbies e mail listing final Christmas, you’d have obtained this e mail with the topic line “take something on our website”:
At first sight, you don’t know if it’s a giveaway or not. Nevertheless it definitely evokes curiosity.
And that is what you see while you open the e-mail:
They ask you to make a wishlist with their merchandise, write why it is best to win, and ship the corporate an e mail.
And should you’re the fortunate winner, you get every thing in your wishlist.
Chubbies efficiently leverage the vacation season with this humorous giveaway e mail.
However if you wish to execute this sensible concept in a more practical means, attempt making issues simpler to your guests.
Asking for an excessive amount of effort for a small payoff will scale back your variety of entries.
As a substitute, you may create a easy type with just a few enter fields and present it solely on related product pages.
If you wish to run the giveaway on a particular class, say, “footwear”, you may set a situation to point out your marketing campaign on particular product pages.
And you may exclude sure pages, akin to your about or contact pages if you wish to conceal the marketing campaign.
You too can use superior scheduling to arrange and deactivate your giveaway campaigns forward of time.
When the giveaway ends, you may give all members particular reductions for his or her wishlist objects and convert them into clients even when they didn’t win.
4. Promote Your Merchandise
With e-commerce giveaways, you are able to do way more than acquire emails and lift model consciousness.
If somebody desires to hitch your contest and win one among your merchandise or a present associated to them, it implies that they’re thinking about your on-line retailer.
As soon as they enter your gross sales funnel, you have got an opportunity to advertise your merchandise and convert them into clients—whether or not they be a part of your giveaway or not.
However right here’s the caveat: It is best to do it subtly.
Take a look at this instance by Oru Kayak:
Following widespread follow, the corporate companions up with different e-commerce manufacturers, akin to Sunski, to supply larger prizes of their giveaway.
They bring about all of the prizes you may win collectively and use the image on their giveaway touchdown web page. Additionally they embody the greenback worth of the prizes to improve their perceived worth.
However the firm doesn’t cease there. They listing all of the merchandise you may win with their particular person costs and hyperlinks to product element pages:
Along with providing you with details about the giveaway, additionally they introduce you to their merchandise and promote them in a refined means.
It is a more practical means of introducing your merchandise and creating pleasure for them, in comparison with merely itemizing the objects members can win.
5. Use Giveaways to Promote Extra
E-commerce giveaways not solely assist you achieve extra prospects but additionally interact with these prospects in a extra persuasive means.
With onsite giveaways, you may immediately improve your gross sales by focusing on each your present and potential clients, who’re at an additional stage of their purchaser’s journey.
A well timed giveaway can create a delicate nudge that your guests want to be able to turn into clients. Plus, it could actually assist improve their common order worth (AOV).
Check out this giveaway concept by Vinomofo:
The corporate celebrates its birthday with a “treasure hunt” kind of giveaway.
Milestones like this are a intelligent excuse to understand your clients and host a giveaway to extend your gross sales.
Vinomofo’s guidelines are easy: “Purchase something right this moment to win.”
Although this can be a good giveaway concept, internet hosting it on a touchdown web page makes it tough for website guests to see it.
If you wish to apply Vinomofo’s concept to your on-line retailer, you may enhance it by utilizing an onsite marketing campaign and related triggers.
This fashion, extra website guests will pay attention to your giveaway and also you’ll improve your gross sales.
Including an exit-intent set off and a situation to point out solely on product pages will make your giveaway marketing campaign more practical.
If you wish to create a way of urgency with out being annoying, attempt including a countdown timer to your marketing campaign.
In case your giveaway requires a minimal buying restrict to enter, you may nudge guests who’re near the restrict based mostly on their basket worth.
Right here’s an instance of how such a marketing campaign may look:
6.Mix Surveys with Giveaways
It doesn’t matter what enterprise you’re in, you’re in all probability attempting exhausting to get some insights out of your clients.
You need to discover out why your guests abandon their carts or how one can enhance your on-line retailer.
You ship out survey invitation emails over and over, however no one is thinking about responding.
Chances are high, you’re lacking an incentive.
Combining your surveys with giveaways will interact your subscribers and improve your survey completions.
Right here’s a typical survey/giveaway instance by Brooklinen:
At first, it appears to be like like a buyer appreciation e mail, the place you may click on by way of to enter a giveaway and win one among their merchandise.
As a result of Brooklinen frames the invitation e mail across the giveaway, as a substitute of the survey. Finishing the survey is barely a easy situation to hitch and it takes two minutes.
Once you click on “Enter Now,” you see that it’s a Typeform survey:
Positioning your surveys round a giveaway might help improve your completions and make your merchandise fascinating.
In the long run, you’ll get worthwhile suggestions and engaged clients.
Following this method, Brooklinen solely reaches out to their e mail subscribers and asks for his or her opinion.
If you wish to attain an even bigger viewers and acquire extra insights, you may create an onsite survey marketing campaign, as a substitute.
You possibly can add a situation to cover your marketing campaign out of your first-time guests and get extra correct suggestions. Or you may solely present it to guests who spend an X period of time in your website.
Livingshop makes use of a marketing campaign to survey their clients at checkout:
It’s straightforward to recreate this straightforward marketing campaign and goal the proper folks on the proper pages. Plus, you may flip it right into a giveaway with just a little twist.
7. Accumulate Emails on Closed Giveaways
Right here’s just a little secret many entrepreneurs don’t find out about: even when your giveaway ends, it nonetheless has potential to deliver you heat leads.
With a minor addition, you may flip your giveaway web page into an automatic lead technology machine.
Whereas doing analysis for this text, I clicked dozens of lifeless giveaway hyperlinks that result in a 404 web page.
And in lots of different instances, corporations let me know that their giveaway ended, however they did not level me to a brand new path.
There’s an ideal probability that your prospects will land on an outdated giveaway web page that you simply shared on social media or they’ll discover an e mail of their inboxes just a little too late.
As a substitute of shutting down your giveaway pages, you may flip them right into a lead generator till your subsequent marketing campaign.
Right here’s how Bellroy does that efficiently:
Once you go to one among their outdated giveaway pages, first, they inform you that this marketing campaign is closed.
Then, the corporate triggers your fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) by saying “Don’t miss out once more!”
Lastly, they invite you to hitch their e-newsletter by explaining its profit for you: “Be the primary to find out about product releases and giveaways sooner or later.”
Bellroy efficiently eases your frustration and provides you a robust purpose to enroll in their e mail listing. As a result of they know that should you’re on this giveaway, you’re a worthwhile lead for the corporate.
8. Collect UGC From Present Prospects
I’ve already talked about how efficient UGC could be for showcasing your merchandise and influencing buy choices. So the extra of it you may collect, the higher.
GoPro is an absolute grasp at this. Take a look at the model’s Instagram and also you’ll discover that the overwhelming majority of content material they share comes from present clients.
Admittedly, GoPro has a definite benefit: it sells motion cameras, that are fairly carefully associated to the motion of taking pictures and movies.
Additionally, the entire purpose folks purchase GoPros is to seize themselves doing cool stuff like climbing mountains or leaping out of airplanes, so it’s solely pure they’d be blissful to share the outcomes with the widest-possible viewers.
Nonetheless, these components alone aren’t any assure of success.
Prospects nonetheless want a compelling purpose to ship of their snaps and vids, so GoPro incentivizes them with common gear giveaways and money prizes:
The consequence? A seemingly infinite stream of user-generated content material prepared and ready for GoPro to share.
Professional tip: Discover how GoPro makes use of devoted UGC hashtags. With out them, it’d be near-impossible to maintain observe of all these contest entries.
9. Provide Restricted-Version Merchandise
By their very nature, giveaways depend on urgency and/or shortage to drive motion. Typically talking, you’re both:
- Providing a set variety of prizes; or
- Solely making these prizes obtainable for a brief interval
So why not elevate the stakes by including extra shortage within the type of a limited-edition product giveaway?
That means, clients know in the event that they don’t participate within the competitors, they’ll by no means get their palms on the product in query.
Cotton Bureau used this technique as a part of its tenth birthday celebration, giving clients the prospect to win numerous limited-edition goodies by getting into a selected code in the course of the checkout course of:
I like this method as a result of it’s all about gross sales and income: you may solely be a part of the competition should you truly purchase one thing.
In case you have been already planning to buy a brand new T-shirt and also you obtained this e mail, it’d provide you with all the inducement it is advisable click on by way of and make a purchase order.
10. Run a Branded Merch Giveaway
From T-shirts to pens to espresso mugs, it seems branded merchandise is a giant hit with customers.
Certainly, 53 % of People love receiving these kinds of merchandise from manufacturers. And since 51 % repeatedly use them in day-to-day life, branded merch successfully turns your clients into strolling, speaking billboards to your retailer.
There’s one main caveat to this promotional giveaway technique: it solely works in case your model is powerful.
In case you’re a brand new entrant to your market, or have restricted model consciousness, folks won’t be too excited on the prospect of carrying your emblem on their chest.
Demise Want Espresso Firm is a superb working example. Certain, it won’t be the world’s largest espresso model, nevertheless it’s undoubtedly well-known—and it has sturdy enchantment amongst its target market.
So when the corporate supplied the prospect to win a branded espresso mug, clients jumped on the alternative:
Partially, the marketing campaign’s success hinged on its timing.
Demise Want Espresso launched the promotion to coincide with the Labor Day weekend, one among America’s (many) large patriotic holidays—an event that undoubtedly matches with the model’s proudly American picture.
11. Accomplice With Different Manufacturers
If the aim of your giveaway is to get in entrance of recent audiences, one efficient method is to crew up with a complementary model. That means, you get instantaneous entry to their clients (plus you get to share the promotional prices).
For this technique to repay, your collaboration must make sense.
Whereas that doesn’t essentially imply partnering with an organization in your business, your respective audiences should be thinking about each manufacturers, like on this instance from Too Confronted and Pop-Tarts:
At first look, a cosmetics firm and a producer of toasted pastries aren’t pure bedfellows. But this marketing campaign labored by leveraging nostalgia.
The collaboration was a “win” for each events: Too Confronted clients bought to reminisce concerning the scrumptious breakfast snacks they ate as children, whereas Pop-Tarts was capable of attain folks youthful than its conventional buyer base.
Drive Actual Outcomes From Promotional Giveaways With Drip
Giveaways are one among our favourite methods for producing ecommerce leads. However they solely work should you get your focusing on and placement proper.
Like, you don’t need clients who’re already signed as much as your mailing listing to see your e mail seize campaigns, or to ask new web site guests who’ve by no means purchased from you earlier than to refer their associates.
That’s why you want a good advertising automation platform able to delivering super-personalized messaging to clients’ inboxes (and past).
Drip is that platform.
Our highly effective segmentation instruments deliver collectively all of your retailer, customer, and advertising information—serving to you construct habits and engagement-based segments that get you in entrance of precisely the proper folks, each time.
Discover out for your self by signing up to your 14-day free trial right this moment.
