Image the scene: you’ve stumbled upon an unfamiliar ecommerce web site.
First impressions appear optimistic; you want their model and merchandise. Their costs and delivery prices appear cheap. Nonetheless, you’re not one hundred pc bought. With actually tens of millions of different manufacturers on the market, why not store round?
Then you definitely spot a message like this:
All it is advisable do is enter your e mail handle 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, finally, paying clients.
That will help you make the most of this extremely efficient—but underutilized—advertising tactic, I’ve gathered collectively a few of my favourite ideas and finest practices for working efficient giveaways.
And I’ve even included 11 high-converting promotional giveaway concepts from real-world manufacturers that you could steal on your subsequent marketing campaign.
What’s the Objective 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 embrace:
Accumulating Emails
It’s truthful to say we’re large followers of e mail advertising at Drip; hardly shocking on condition that e mail generates a return of $36 for each $1 spent.
Utilizing giveaways for e mail seize is usually about focusing on web site guests who’ve by no means purchased from you earlier than. You shouldn’t have to depend on free presents to influence current clients to enroll in your e mail listing.
When you’ve bought your fingers on their e mail handle, you’ll be able to 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’ll be able to hit their inbox with a focused promotion at precisely the precise 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 an analogous format, providing followers the prospect to win a prize in change for:
- Liking, commenting on, and/or sharing a selected social media put up
- Tagging buddies within the feedback
That is a straightforward approach to attain new audiences on social media—though, clearly, there are not 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 selections, it’s straightforward to see why many manufacturers are desirous to seize as a lot of it as doable.
However UGC doesn’t simply occur by probability. Most customers aren’t going to basically do your advertising for you with no little incentive.
That’s the place promotional giveaways are available. Somewhat than asking clients to remark in your social posts or provide you with their e mail handle, job them with sharing photographs and movies of them utilizing and having fun with your product.
Run these giveaways commonly and also you’ll quickly construct a library of beneficial user-generated product photos, evaluations, and testimonials to make use of in future campaigns.
Producing Buyer Referrals
Referred clients are beneficial clients.
Actually, one research revealed that they generate larger revenue margins, are extra loyal, and present the next buyer lifetime worth than “common” (non-referred) clients.
However, identical to with UGC, you’ll be able to’t afford to easily sit again and hope buyer referrals will magically seem—it is advisable incentivize the method.
Referral campaigns are usually about producing gross sales as an alternative of leads. So they have a tendency to supply extra enticing, assured rewards. Somewhat than giving contributors the prospect to win a prize, you would possibly 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 sort of promotion, it makes most sense to launch your giveaway marketing campaign throughout slower gross sales durations on your model. As a result of there’s little level in providing further incentives at occasions when customers are already trying to purchase (plus nobody wants the trouble of working a contest within the buildup to BFCM).
Past that, construct your launch round occasions when engagement is highest throughout your chosen promotional channels.
For example, the finest time to ship emails is usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays…
…with emails despatched at 8 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM performing finest when it comes to open and click-through charges.
Easy methods to Run a Profitable Enterprise Giveaway
Achieved properly, promotional giveaways can develop your advertising listing, generate buyer referrals, and drive gross sales and income. However these outcomes aren’t assured. Get it improper and also you danger devaluing your model and turning off loyal clients.
Listed here are 5 finest practices to spice up your probabilities of working a profitable giveaway…
Select the Proper Platform for Your Giveaway
Whether or not you’re gifting away 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 motive, it’s important you select the perfect platform on your giveaway; one which helps you attain the precise viewers.
The “finest” platform on your marketing campaign will naturally rely on the goals you are trying to obtain.
For example, when you’re trying to attain and have interaction new audiences, it is sensible to make use of a platform with built-in shareability, equivalent 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 Individuals
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 objective.
Almost definitely, that objective 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 contributors’ 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), make sure you 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 | Function |
| 1 | 0 | Verify giveaway entry |
| 2 | 1 | Remind entrants of the competitors prize and any key phrases and circumstances |
| 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 contributors |
After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all method right here. You’ll have to tailor your communications based mostly on an entire 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 finest if the product or expertise you’re gifting away has a logical tie-in along with your model.
The best answer is to offer away your individual merchandise. However that’s not the one viable method to working a giveaway. With just a little creativity, you would possibly have the ability to determine 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 an alternative, 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 fashion the property, successfully making a bodily case research 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 manner 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 social media, it’s 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 aspect of your marketing campaign—prompting followers to touch upon a put up or tag a good friend with the intention to enter.
However you’ll be able to 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 at all times finest, and giveaways are not any totally different.
Certain, your authorized staff will seemingly need to cowl your again with a bunch of phrases and circumstances. That’s nice. However the overarching guidelines of the competitors—tips on how to enter, what the prize is, and when the winner can be introduced—must be simply digestible.
Nationwide lotteries are instance. They provide away tens of millions 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 actually too advanced.
11 of The Finest Giveaway Concepts That Work (and Easy methods to Execute Them)
1. Accumulate Emails with Related Prizes
In the event you’re planning a giveaway, your prize must be the very first thing you determine on.
In spite of everything, prizes are the primary motive 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 likelihood is you’ll appeal to 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 enticing however irrelevant prizes are spam magnets.
You’ll most certainly find yourself with an e mail listing filled with uninterested leads who’re solely in for the prize.
As an alternative, preserve your prize related to your merchandise and your worth proposition.
Earlier than planning your subsequent giveaway, make it possible for it serves your conversion targets. In case your goal is to develop your e mail listing, an Instagram contest the place customers tag their buddies received’t provide help to.
Keep in mind, giveaway doesn’t communicate to everybody. Somewhat, it speaks to your purchaser persona.
With a related prize that resonates along with your purchaser persona, you’ll be able to really promote your on-line retailer, on high of accumulating e mail addresses.
Take this instance by J.Crew Manufacturing unit:
The corporate hosts a spring giveaway on their web site and creates a devoted touchdown web page for it.
The massive prize is a bundle that features a present card winners can spend on J.Crew Manufacturing unit’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’ll be able to mix a present card with different issues, as J.Crew Manufacturing unit does.
This manner, guests will get the prospect to attempt your merchandise. And it will increase their chance of turning into return clients.
Discover how J.Crew Manufacturing unit writes the worth of each the present card (price $100) and the bundle (over $300) to make the prizes extra enticing.
J.Crew Manufacturing unit asks if you wish to join their e mail listing because the final step and leaves it non-compulsory. This manner, they seize the guests’ pleasure of coming into a contest, they usually develop their e mail listing with leads.
In the event you’re accumulating emails that you just’ll use for advertising functions, clearly write what customers are giving consent to. Give contributors the area to determine for themselves, as an alternative of preselecting the publication 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.
Because of this you may have the pliability to make your giveaway as enticing as doable.
With an onsite giveaway marketing campaign, you’ll be able to 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 pretty much as good as your provide.
Check out this instance by Jysk Vin:
In contrast to J.Crew Manufacturing unit, Jysk Vin makes use of an onsite marketing campaign to host their giveaway. This manner, they will inform all their web site guests concerning the giveaway with out making them go to a brand new web page.
This marketing campaign works nice for a couple of causes:
- Their prize (24 bottles of wine) is extremely related and enticing to their web site guests.
- The headline “Win $770 price of wine” is attention-grabbing and value-driven.
- They provide clear details about the draw date.
- They freely state what you might be subscribing to (an unique publication for wine fanatics).
- 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 an alternative of merely writing “Signal Up” or “Enter Now.”
With a well-written onsite marketing campaign just like the one above, you’ll be able to simply nudge your guests to hitch your giveaway and provides them a powerful motive to enroll in your publication.
What’s higher is, you’ll be able to exclude your current subscribers from these campaigns so that you just don’t ask them to hitch your publication once more.
3. Leverage the Vacation Season
With Black Friday, Christmas, and New 12 months, the vacation purchasing season is the busiest time of the yr for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
In the event you’re not already leveraging holidays with particular campaigns, you’re lacking out on numerous income.
Including just a little twist to your vacation campaigns will help you stand out amongst tons of of different festive giveaways.
Many on-line shops host giveaways, particularly through the vacation season, they usually normally provide winners a couple of large prizes.
However you may make your contests much more enticing by letting your web site guests select the prize they need themselves.
Right here’s an amazing instance that you could replicate in your web site.
In the event you have been on the Chubbies e mail listing final Christmas, you’ll have acquired this e mail with the topic line “take something on our web site”:
At first sight, you don’t know if it’s a giveaway or not. However it actually evokes curiosity.
And that is what you see whenever you open the e-mail:
They ask you to make a wishlist with their merchandise, write why it’s best to win, and ship the corporate an e mail.
And when 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 good concept in a more practical manner, attempt making issues simpler on your guests.
Asking for an excessive amount of effort for a small payoff will cut back your variety of entries.
As an alternative, you’ll be able to create a easy type with a couple of enter fields and present it solely on related product pages.
If you wish to run the giveaway on a particular class, say, “sneakers”, you’ll be able to set a situation to indicate your marketing campaign on particular product pages.
And you’ll exclude sure pages, equivalent to your about or contact pages if you wish to disguise the marketing campaign.
You too can use superior scheduling to arrange and deactivate your giveaway campaigns forward of time.
When the giveaway ends, you can provide all contributors particular reductions for his or her wishlist gadgets 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 needs to hitch your contest and win certainly one of your merchandise or a present associated to them, it signifies that they’re excited about your on-line retailer.
As soon as they enter your gross sales funnel, you may have an opportunity to advertise your merchandise and convert them into clients—whether or not they be part of your giveaway or not.
However right here’s the caveat: You must do it subtly.
Try this instance by Oru Kayak:
Following widespread follow, the corporate companions up with different e-commerce manufacturers, equivalent to Sunski, to supply larger prizes of their giveaway.
They convey all of the prizes you’ll be able to win collectively and use the image on their giveaway touchdown web page. In addition they embrace the greenback worth of the prizes to enhance their perceived worth.
However the firm doesn’t cease there. They listing all of the merchandise you’ll be able to win with their particular person costs and hyperlinks to product element pages:
Along with supplying you with details about the giveaway, in addition they introduce you to their merchandise and promote them in a refined manner.
This can be a more practical manner of introducing your merchandise and creating pleasure for them, in comparison with merely itemizing the gadgets contributors can win.
5. Use Giveaways to Promote Extra
E-commerce giveaways not solely provide help to acquire extra prospects but in addition interact with these prospects in a extra persuasive manner.
With onsite giveaways, you’ll be able to immediately enhance your gross sales by focusing on each your current 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 with the intention to turn into clients. Plus, it could assist enhance their common order worth (AOV).
Check out this giveaway concept by Vinomofo:
The corporate celebrates its birthday with a “treasure hunt” sort 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 at the moment to win.”
Regardless that it is a sensible giveaway concept, internet hosting it on a touchdown web page makes it troublesome for web site guests to see it.
If you wish to apply Vinomofo’s concept to your on-line retailer, you’ll be able to enhance it by utilizing an onsite marketing campaign and related triggers.
This manner, extra web site guests will concentrate on your giveaway and also you’ll enhance your gross sales.
Including an exit-intent set off and a situation to indicate 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 purchasing restrict to enter, you’ll be able to nudge guests who’re near the restrict based mostly on their basket worth.
Right here’s an instance of how such a marketing campaign would possibly look:
6.Mix Surveys with Giveaways
It doesn’t matter what enterprise you’re in, you’re most likely making an attempt 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 time and again, however no person is excited about responding.
Likelihood is, you’re lacking an incentive.
Combining your surveys with giveaways will interact your subscribers and enhance 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’ll be able to click on by to enter a giveaway and win certainly one of their merchandise.
As a result of Brooklinen frames the invitation e mail across the giveaway, as an alternative of the survey. Finishing the survey is just 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 will help enhance your completions and make your merchandise fascinating.
In the long run, you’ll get beneficial 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’ll be able to create an onsite survey marketing campaign, as an alternative.
You may add a situation to cover your marketing campaign out of your first-time guests and get extra correct suggestions. Or you’ll be able to solely present it to guests who spend an X period of time in your web site.
Livingshop makes use of a marketing campaign to survey their clients at checkout:
It’s straightforward to recreate this easy marketing campaign and goal the precise folks on the precise pages. Plus, you’ll be able to 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 learn about: even when your giveaway ends, it nonetheless has potential to deliver you heat leads.
With a minor addition, you’ll be able to flip your giveaway web page into an automatic lead era machine.
Whereas doing analysis for this text, I clicked dozens of useless giveaway hyperlinks that result in a 404 web page.
And in lots of different instances, firms let me know that their giveaway ended, however they did not level me to a brand new path.
There’s an amazing probability that your prospects will land on an previous giveaway web page that you just shared on social media or they’ll discover an e mail of their inboxes just a little too late.
As an alternative of shutting down your giveaway pages, you’ll be able to flip them right into a lead generator till your subsequent marketing campaign.
Right here’s how Bellroy does that efficiently:
Once you go to certainly one of their previous 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 publication by explaining its profit for you: “Be the primary to learn about product releases and giveaways sooner or later.”
Bellroy efficiently eases your frustration and offers you a powerful motive to enroll in their e mail listing. As a result of they know that when you’re on this giveaway, you’re a beneficial lead for the corporate.
8. Collect UGC From Present Clients
I’ve already talked about how efficient UGC could be for showcasing your merchandise and influencing buy selections. So the extra of it you’ll be able to collect, the higher.
GoPro is an absolute grasp at this. Try the model’s Instagram and also you’ll discover that the overwhelming majority of content material they share comes from current clients.
Admittedly, GoPro has a definite benefit: it sells motion cameras, that are fairly carefully associated to the motion of taking photographs and movies.
Additionally, the entire motive 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 glad to share the outcomes with the widest-possible viewers.
Nonetheless, these elements alone are not any assure of success.
Clients nonetheless want a compelling motive 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. Supply 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 increase the stakes by including extra shortage within the type of a limited-edition product giveaway?
That manner, clients know in the event that they don’t participate within the competitors, they’ll by no means get their fingers on the product in query.
Cotton Bureau used this technique as a part of its tenth birthday celebration, giving clients the prospect to win varied limited-edition goodies by coming into a selected code through the checkout course of:
I like this method as a result of it’s all about gross sales and income: you’ll be able to solely be a part of the competition when you really purchase one thing.
In the event you have been already planning to buy a brand new T-shirt and also you acquired this e mail, it’d provide you with all the motivation it is advisable click on by 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 p.c of Individuals love receiving these types of merchandise from manufacturers. And since 51 p.c commonly use them in day-to-day life, branded merch successfully turns your clients into strolling, speaking billboards on your retailer.
There’s one main caveat to this promotional giveaway technique: it solely works in case your model is robust.
In the event you’re a brand new entrant to your market, or have restricted model consciousness, folks may not be too excited on the prospect of carrying your brand on their chest.
Dying Want Espresso Firm is a wonderful working example. Certain, it may not be the world’s largest espresso model, nevertheless it’s positively well-known—and it has robust attraction amongst its target market.
So when the corporate provided the prospect to win a branded espresso mug, clients jumped on the alternative:
Partially, the marketing campaign’s success hinged on its timing.
Dying Want Espresso launched the promotion to coincide with the Labor Day weekend, certainly one of America’s (many) large patriotic holidays—an event that positively suits with the model’s proudly American picture.
11. Associate With Different Manufacturers
If the aim of your giveaway is to get in entrance of latest audiences, one efficient method is to staff up with a complementary model. That manner, 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 trade, your respective audiences should be excited 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 certainly one of our favourite methods for producing ecommerce leads. However they solely work when 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 buddies.
That’s why you want a sensible 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 knowledge—serving to you construct conduct and engagement-based segments that get you in entrance of precisely the precise folks, each time.
Discover out for your self by signing up on your 14-day free trial at the moment.
