Everyone loves to win or try to win prizes and giveaway campaigns are a great way to drive visitors to your blog or website. Creating a successful giveaway doesn’t have to be hard. Here are some tactics that you can use to drive traffic, build an email list attract new followers or boost sales.
1. Clearly define your goal for the campaign
It is important to start with a clear and definite goal for your campaign, so you know exactly what you want to achieve both in the short term, like while the contest is running and the long term, once the competition has finished. The goal for the campaign should tie into what you really want people to do on your site. It is one thing to increase traffic to your site, but if that won’t lead to eventual sales, your campaign might not be the success you may have hoped for.
2. Put up a worthwhile prize
To create maximum “buzz” around your campaign. make sure to offer a prize that is going to get people excited. The prize should also be something that your target market is going to want. Avoid generic prizes like an iPad, which will probably make people interested in the competition, they might have no interest in coming back to your website, unless of course your site is about tablets or Apple products.
You don’t necessarily need to spend a huge amount of money on the prize, you could even offer a free service. If you are a photographer for example, you could offer a free photo shoot. Ideally the prize should be something that people can purchase from your business, which they may do if they miss out on the prize.
3. Collect email addresses to follow up with contestants
In order to get in contact with the prize winner, you will need to contact them either by phone or email. If you would like to contact them further for marketing activities, you make this clear and receive their permission to do so.
4. Make the rules clear and straightforward
The rules and requirements for entering the competition should be clear and straightforward. People will not want to read through pages of instructions, so try and keep the rules and entry requirements as clear as possible. You need make any restrictions clear, like whether the competition is only available in an specific location (think shipping costs) or if people can only enter once.
5. Align competitions with different events
You can gain further buzz and interest in the competition by aligning it with a special event that might be happening in your area or related to your business. It could help for example with SEO if people search for information about the event and they come across your contest.
6. Retarget people who viewed the contest but may not have entered
Not everyone who visits your website about your competition will enter. This could be any number of factors, like time or convenience. You could retarget these people with advertising on other platforms such as Facebook, reminding them of the competition, or maybe even giving them a way to enter the competition from that platform. You could even run a separate but related promotion.
7. Include the competition details in an image
If possible create a professionally designed image/graphic that has all of the important information about the contest. Some platforms like Instagram are image focused, so by doing this it makes it people to share with their friends and followers.
8. Adhere to the relevant laws and regulations
Most jurisdictions have various laws that regulate competitions and lotteries. You can check government related websites or even with a knowledgeable lawyer. If you are running a competition on a platform such as Facebook, then you will need to follow any of their rules. Such as these:
If you use Facebook to communicate or administer a promotion (ex: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:
- The official rules;
- Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and
- Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals).
Required ContentPromotions on Facebook must include the following:
- A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant; and
- Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Facebook.
Administration of a Promotions may be administered on Pages, Groups, Events, or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”, and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted).
9. Create a specific end date/time for the competition
Your contest should have a specific end date and time. You should also specify the time zone you are going by for anyone who might be living in a different location.
10. Use the right tool to create your competition
There are many different tools that you can use to make it easy to administer your competition. Some of the leading apps include Woobox, Rafflecopter and Wishpond.
11. Use a consistent approach if you plan on ongoing competitions
If you plan on having regular contests, rather than just one off campaigns, make sure you set a schedule and do your best to stick to it, whether it is weekly or monthly. This will help to build your audience over time.
12. Track and monitor the success of the campaign
Once the contest has been completed, it is important to go back to your original goals (step 1) you created for the campaign. Were your goals met? You can measure your ROI and decide whether you need to make any modifications if you want to run a campaign again in the future.