Image the scene: you’ve stumbled upon an unfamiliar ecommerce web site.
First impressions appear constructive; you want their model and merchandise. Their costs and transport prices appear affordable. Nonetheless, you’re not 100% bought. With actually thousands and thousands of different manufacturers on the market, why not store round?
Then you definately spot a message like this:
All it’s good to do is enter your electronic mail tackle for an opportunity to win a very free product. What have you ever received to lose?
After all, product giveaways aren’t only a win for customers. They assist manufacturers develop their advertising and marketing 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 and marketing tactic, I’ve gathered collectively a few of my favourite suggestions and finest practices for operating efficient giveaways.
And I’ve even included 11 high-converting promotional giveaway concepts from real-world manufacturers you could steal on 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 realize. Frequent objectives embody:
Amassing Emails
It’s truthful to say we’re massive followers of electronic mail advertising and marketing at Drip; hardly shocking on condition that electronic mail generates a return of $36 for each $1 spent.
Utilizing giveaways for electronic mail seize is usually about concentrating 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 present clients to join your electronic mail record.
When you’ve received your arms on their electronic mail tackle, you’ll be able to attain them with customized campaigns primarily based 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 best time.
Boosting Your Social Following & Viewers Engagement
Many manufacturers use promotional giveaways to extend engagement on social media and develop their follower counts, similar to on this instance from our buddies at Haute Hijab:
Most of those contests observe an analogous format, providing followers the prospect to win a prize in trade for:
- Liking, commenting on, and/or sharing a selected social media publish
- Tagging buddies within the feedback
That is a straightforward solution to attain new audiences on social media—though, clearly, there are not any ensures that these folks will observe you or interact together with your content material (not to mention purchase from you).
Capturing Person-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 desperate to seize as a lot of it as potential.
However UGC doesn’t simply occur by likelihood. Most buyers aren’t going to basically do your advertising and marketing for you with out a 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 electronic mail tackle, process them with sharing photographs and movies of them utilizing and having fun with your product.
Run these giveaways repeatedly and also you’ll quickly construct a library of precious user-generated product footage, opinions, and testimonials to make use of in future campaigns.
Producing Buyer Referrals
Referred clients are precious clients.
In actual fact, one research revealed that they generate greater revenue margins, are extra loyal, and present a better buyer lifetime worth than “common” (non-referred) clients.
However, similar to with UGC, you’ll be able to’t afford to easily sit again and hope buyer referrals will magically seem—it’s good to 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. Somewhat than giving individuals the prospect to win a prize, you may supply a free product (or perhaps a money incentive) to each the referrer and the referred buyer.
When Ought to You Launch a Giveaway?
Like all 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 extra incentives at instances when buyers are already seeking to purchase (plus nobody wants the effort of operating 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 finest time to ship emails is usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays…
…with emails despatched at 8 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM performing finest by way of open and click-through charges.
The way to Run a Profitable Enterprise Giveaway
Finished effectively, promotional giveaways can develop your advertising and marketing record, 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 possibilities of operating 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 interact together with your promotion in the event that they don’t understand it exists. For that motive, it’s important you select the most effective platform on your giveaway; one which helps you attain the best viewers.
The “finest” platform on your marketing campaign will naturally depend upon the goals you are seeking to obtain.
As an illustration, in the event you’re seeking to attain and have interaction new audiences, it is smart to make use of a platform with built-in shareability, resembling Fb or Instagram. Or if you wish to seize extra electronic mail addresses, attempt concentrating on new clients visiting your web site by way of onsite popups.
Accumulate Emails & Nurture Giveaway Contributors
Bear in mind: you’re not operating a giveaway since you simply love handing out your merchandise freed from cost; you’re doing it to realize some form of broader advertising and marketing purpose.
Most probably, that purpose will contain rising and/or participating your viewers, with the last word purpose of producing extra gross sales and income.
Which means constructing some form of viewers nurturing course of into your marketing campaign.
Collect individuals’ electronic mail addresses after they enter your giveaway contest. And in case your giveaway is operating for an prolonged interval (say, any longer than 48 hours), be sure you share common competitors updates by way of electronic mail and/or social media.
Your giveaway electronic mail sequence may look this:
| Electronic mail quantity | Days after launch | Goal |
| 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 individuals |
After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all method right here. You’ll have to tailor your communications primarily based 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 finest if the product or expertise you’re making a gift of has a logical tie-in together with your model.
The simplest resolution is to provide away your individual merchandise. However that’s not the one viable method to operating a giveaway. With slightly creativity, you may be capable to establish a theme and prize that makes for a extra participating contest.
For a model like The White Firm, which sells luxurious homeware and clothes, the obvious technique is to supply up a elaborate 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 type 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 in a position to showcase its work in a extra participating manner than merely saying: “Come check out this cottage we adorned.”
Get Engagement on Social Media
Whether or not or not you’re operating your giveaway by means of 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 factor of your marketing campaign—prompting followers to touch upon a publish or tag a buddy with a view 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 and marketing world, easy is at all times finest, and giveaways are not any totally different.
Certain, your authorized workforce will seemingly need to cowl your again with a bunch of phrases and circumstances. That’s superb. However the overarching guidelines of the competitors—the right way to enter, what the prize is, and when the winner will likely be introduced—must be simply digestible.
Nationwide lotteries are a very good instance. They offer away thousands and thousands of {dollars}, but all you must 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 nearly actually too advanced.
11 of The Greatest Giveaway Concepts That Work (and The way to Execute Them)
1. Accumulate Emails with Related Prizes
In case you’re planning a giveaway, your prize must be the very first thing you resolve on.
In spite of everything, prizes are the primary motive why folks take part in giveaways.
Select a prize too widespread, and also you gained’t seize a lot consideration. However select a prize too massive, 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 most probably find yourself with an electronic mail record stuffed 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, guarantee that it serves your conversion objectives. In case your objective is to develop your electronic mail record, an Instagram contest the place customers tag their buddies gained’t make it easier to.
Bear in mind, a very good giveaway doesn’t converse to everybody. Somewhat, it speaks to your purchaser persona.
With a related prize that resonates together with your purchaser persona, you’ll be able to truly promote your on-line retailer, on prime of accumulating electronic mail addresses.
Take this instance by J.Crew Manufacturing facility:
The corporate hosts a spring giveaway on their web site and creates a devoted touchdown web page for it.
The large prize is a package deal that features a present 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’ll be able to mix a present card with different issues, as J.Crew Manufacturing facility does.
This manner, guests will get the prospect to attempt your merchandise. And it will increase their chance of changing into return clients.
Discover how J.Crew Manufacturing facility writes the worth of each the present card (value $100) and the package deal (over $300) to make the prizes extra engaging.
J.Crew Manufacturing facility asks if you wish to join their electronic mail record because the final step and leaves it non-obligatory. This manner, they seize the guests’ pleasure of getting into a contest, and so they develop their electronic mail record with leads.
In case you’re accumulating emails that you just’ll use for advertising and marketing functions, clearly write what customers are giving consent to. Give individuals the area to resolve for themselves, as a substitute of preselecting the publication checkbox.
2. Enhance Your Giveaway Copy
One main benefit of internet hosting an onsite giveaway is the power to customise each a part of your contest.
Because of this you may have the flexibleness to make your giveaway as engaging as potential.
With an onsite giveaway marketing campaign, you’ll be able to resolve 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 supply.
Check out this instance by Jysk Vin:
In contrast to J.Crew Manufacturing facility, Jysk Vin makes use of an onsite marketing campaign to host their giveaway. This manner, they’ll inform all their web site guests in regards to 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 very related and engaging to their web site 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 might be subscribing to (an unique publication for wine fanatics).
- The marketing campaign has just one enter discipline, 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’ll be able to simply nudge your guests to hitch your giveaway and provides them a powerful motive to join your publication.
What’s higher is, you’ll be able to exclude your present 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 Yr, the vacation purchasing season is the busiest time of the yr for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
In case you’re not already leveraging holidays with particular campaigns, you’re lacking out on a number of income.
Including slightly twist to your vacation campaigns can assist you stand out amongst lots of of different festive giveaways.
Many on-line shops host giveaways, particularly in the course of the vacation season, and so they often supply winners just a few massive prizes.
However you may make your contests much more engaging by letting your web site guests select the prize they need themselves.
Right here’s an incredible instance you could replicate in your web site.
In case you have been on the Chubbies electronic mail record final Christmas, you’ll have acquired this electronic 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. But it surely actually 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’s best to win, and ship the corporate an electronic mail.
And in the event you’re the fortunate winner, you get all the pieces in your wishlist.
Chubbies efficiently leverage the vacation season with this humorous giveaway electronic mail.
However if you wish to execute this sensible thought 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 kind 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’ll be able to set a situation to point out your marketing campaign on particular product pages.
And you’ll exclude sure pages, resembling your about or contact pages if you wish to disguise the marketing campaign.
You may as well use superior scheduling to arrange and deactivate your giveaway campaigns forward of time.
When the giveaway ends, you may give all individuals 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 accumulate emails and lift model consciousness.
If somebody needs to hitch your contest and win one among your merchandise or a present associated to them, it implies that they’re involved in 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 a part of your giveaway or not.
However right here’s the caveat: It’s best to do it subtly.
Take a look at this instance by Oru Kayak:
Following widespread apply, the corporate companions up with different e-commerce manufacturers, resembling Sunski, to supply greater prizes of their giveaway.
They create all of the prizes you’ll be able to win collectively and use the image on their giveaway touchdown web page. Additionally they embody the greenback worth of the prizes to enhance their perceived worth.
However the firm doesn’t cease there. They record 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.
It is a more practical manner of introducing your merchandise and creating pleasure for them, in comparison with merely itemizing the objects individuals can win.
5. Use Giveaways to Promote Extra
E-commerce giveaways not solely make it easier to achieve extra prospects but additionally interact with these prospects in a extra persuasive manner.
With onsite giveaways, you’ll be able to instantly enhance your gross sales by concentrating on each your present and potential clients, who’re at an extra stage of their purchaser’s journey.
A well timed giveaway can create a mild nudge that your guests want with a view to grow to be clients. Plus, it might probably assist enhance their common order worth (AOV).
Check out this giveaway thought 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 right this moment to win.”
Regardless that it is a good giveaway thought, 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 thought 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 pay attention to your giveaway and also you’ll enhance 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 purchasing restrict to enter, you’ll be able to nudge guests who’re near the restrict primarily based 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 most likely making an attempt onerous 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 person is involved in responding.
Chances are high, 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 seems to be like a buyer appreciation electronic mail, the place you’ll be able to click on by means of to enter a giveaway and win one among their merchandise.
As a result of Brooklinen frames the invitation electronic mail across the giveaway, as a substitute of the survey. Finishing the survey is simply 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 can assist enhance your completions and make your merchandise fascinating.
Ultimately, you’ll get precious suggestions and engaged clients.
Following this method, Brooklinen solely reaches out to their electronic mail subscribers and asks for his or her opinion.
If you wish to attain an even bigger viewers and accumulate extra insights, you’ll be able to create an onsite survey marketing campaign, as a substitute.
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 straightforward marketing campaign and goal the best folks on the best pages. Plus, you’ll be able to flip it right into a giveaway with slightly twist.
7. Accumulate Emails on Closed Giveaways
Right here’s slightly secret many entrepreneurs don’t learn about: even when your giveaway ends, it nonetheless has potential to convey 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 circumstances, corporations let me know that their giveaway ended, however they did not level me to a brand new route.
There’s an incredible likelihood that your prospects will land on an previous giveaway web page that you just shared on social media or they’ll discover an electronic mail of their inboxes slightly 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 one among 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 join their electronic mail record. As a result of they know that in the event you’re on this giveaway, you’re a precious lead for the corporate.
8. Collect UGC From Present Prospects
I’ve already talked about how efficient UGC may 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. 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 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 comfortable to share the outcomes with the widest-possible viewers.
Nonetheless, these elements alone are not any assure of success.
Prospects nonetheless want a compelling motive to ship of their snaps and vids, so GoPro incentivizes them with common gear giveaways and money prizes:
The outcome? 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. Usually 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 arms 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’ll be able to solely be a part of the competition in the event you truly purchase one thing.
In case you have been already planning to buy a brand new T-shirt and also you acquired this electronic mail, it’d provide you with all the motivation it’s good to click on by means 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 an enormous 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 on your retailer.
There’s one main caveat to this promotional giveaway technique: it solely works in case your model is robust.
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 sporting your brand on their chest.
Demise Want Espresso Firm is a wonderful working example. Certain, it won’t be the world’s greatest espresso model, however 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.
Demise Want Espresso launched the promotion to coincide with the Labor Day weekend, one among America’s (many) massive patriotic holidays—an event that positively matches with the model’s proudly American picture.
11. Companion With Different Manufacturers
If the aim of your giveaway is to get in entrance of latest audiences, one efficient method is to workforce up with a complementary model. That manner, you get prompt 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 have to be involved in 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 received to reminisce in regards to the scrumptious breakfast snacks they ate as youngsters, whereas Pop-Tarts was in a position to 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 in the event you get your concentrating on and placement proper.
Like, you don’t need clients who’re already signed as much as your mailing record to see your electronic 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 good advertising and marketing automation platform able to delivering super-personalized messaging to clients’ inboxes (and past).
Drip is that platform.
Our highly effective segmentation instruments convey collectively all of your retailer, customer, and advertising and marketing knowledge—serving to you construct conduct and engagement-based segments that get you in entrance of precisely the best folks, each time.
Discover out for your self by signing up on your 14-day free trial right this moment.