A Perfect Marketing Giveaways Guide for Small Business

Giveaways are the smart move for engaging more audience for your business. It’s one of the oldest but effective tricks that can help in attracting more attention toward your brand. 

With the help of promotional giveaways, you can get more website traffic, boost your brand, and help in getting more reviews from your customers. 

First, you need to understand the giveaway goals of yours, and picking the prize fits perfectly. 

perfect marketing giveaways guide

Once you cover the basics. It’s time to consider the ideas that you can use as giveaways for attracting the customers. 

Contents

Why Should You Host Giveaways?

Giveaway is one of the better options that can help the business to promote their product effectively. 

The idea fits perfectly whether you are a small or large company. 

Giveaways boost up the engagement, create a buzz about what you are offering, and many more. 

benefits running giveaways

Here are some prime reasons why you should host giveaways for your small business. 

For Better Engagement 

Engagement on social media like sharing, commenting, liking, and tweeting your post 

Giveaways help you in getting people engaged with your content. Also, it improves your overall interactions. 

For Brand Awareness 

One of the ways that can help you in boosting brand awareness is giving more options to your customers. 

Image source: AdEspresso

Giveaways promote your brand on social media along with your websites. People know more about what you offer and by this, you can target new customers as well. 

The options can be used for making them interact with the products and services you offer. 

For Offering Fun 

To establish a strong relationship between a company and its customers, giveaways are an interesting option to choose from. 

It’s fun to participate and win the giveaways, It gives a sense of achievement to your audience. By this you get more of their confidence in you, 

With this, you can get better customer relations which will help you in the future too. 

For Creating Buzz

Image source: Practicalecommerce

Start with understanding who is your targeted audience. When you find out who you are aiming for, start with their interest and what they like to talk about. 

With such data, you can start the giveaway that can help you in creating buzz about your brand or upcoming products. 

Steps For  Run A Effective Giveaway For Your Business 

Running a successful giveaway can be hectic if you don’t know how to do it. 

Well, giveaways can help you in promoting your business by getting more leads for your sales.

Knowing how to plan a creative giveaway can help you in achieving your goals and getting the positive results you are hoping for.

Step 1: Set Your Goals For Giveaways 

Before you set your contest, the first thing you should know is what you want to achieve from it. 

There can be multiple reasons why you want to host giveaways, for example – 

  • You want to get more sales
  • You want more followers for your social media
  • You want to create more buzz before launching a new product
  • You want more interactions with customers
  • You want to boost the traffic for your site

Takeaway – Choosing your goals line up with the objectives for your marketing and business. 

When you choose what you want, you can easily run the giveaway and select a prize according to that. 

Step 2: Choose The Prize 

Well, people do love free gifts but even for that, they won’t do the entries. Until you are offering them something that is relevant and attractive enough.

Image source: Woorise

For a successful giveaway, a gift is important to choose from. Make sure you are focusing on your product and brand as a giveaway prize. 

It’s the best way to promote your brand along with making your customers aware of what you offer. 

Step 3: Determine The Rules 

The next step includes the rules and logistics of your giveaway.

There are different types of contests and giveaways for different purposes. Make sure you know what you are choosing and for what. 

Once you clear that step, now it’s time for setting the rules.  

Image source: Twitter

Well, lots of people don’t prefer submitting a lot of information, basics can work.

Here are few details to take care of before you run your giveaway – 

  • Set who can enter. What’s the age restrictions etc. 
  • When it will start and end?
  • What is your entry method?
  • How will people get their prize?
  • Create Your Giveaway & Promote 

Now, it’s time to create your giveaway. You can choose tools for making the giveaway. 

Make sure your information and details are handy. So it will save you time while creating one. 

Once you are done,  now make sure to promote it. Here are some ways to promote your giveaway – 

  • Create an email newsletter 
  • Encourage people to tag and comment
  • Use hashtags
  • Add a link to the homepage
  • Ask influencers and blogger to promote 
  • Use social media to announce

Pro Tip: Start promoting your giveaway early, at least take a week before the actual date. 

It will give enough time to the people and also keep it fresh and interesting. 

Step 4: Pick The Winner 

Image source: rafflepress

When the contest is over,  pick the winner for your giveaway. 

Well here comes the first and common question – How to pick the winner?

The fair option you can choose is going random.

Either way, you can use tools so you can get an accurate result of how many entries you get by each. It will also show you the winner or possible winners.

Step 5: Follow Up 

Image source: upviral

Not just the winner but the rest who participated are important for you. 

To make sure you are connected with them, send a follow-up email. It will help you in a better connection and one more to promote your brand. 

Use your social media to announce who is the winner of the giveaway. Tag them and let them feel special. 

Creative & Effective Ideas To Try For Your Marketing Giveaway

To try something that can help you in holding the attention of your customer. 

Here are some of the best ideas you can use when you are deciding your next giveaways for your business. 

1. Customize Product 

You can use the customized product for promotion and boosting brand awareness. 

It’s effective for getting a more engaging audience. You can offer the customers to get the chance to customize the product the way they want.

It’s fun and people will like to show their creativity along with keep interacting with your brand.

Also, you can suggest people do the voting and design the shortlist winners.

2. Fill In A Blanks 

Fill in the blanks can be exciting and you can put lines and ask the customer to fill it for you. 

It can be fun for people to try it out. Also, you can offer a free version of your new product. 

You can start with simple sentences and leave blank space. Let the people use their creative thoughts for filling it. 

3. Spot Difference 

Spot the differences are fun and something new to try. 

The giveaway can be used for your products. If you are offering graphic-heavy products or run something like design agencies, you can put designs together.

 Use the chance for showing off your skills. 

Add two same photos but with some minor differences. The person who could find out those differences will win the giveaway. 

4. Limited Time Giveaways 

You can also host limited-time giveaways. These come with limited time, it will help you in creating urgency and people will feel more excited to participate.

You can fix something interesting and fancy to boost the sense of urgency. 

Image source: Rafflepress

You can also add the countdown timer, so the customer can see how much time is left. It will keep people more into participating. 

5. Naming The Product 

If you are going to launch a new product or you want to increase awareness, you can use the idea.

Here you need to create the giveaway, and to win the giveaway the participant has to come up with something interesting and catchy for the product name. 

You can promote it by sharing the participant answers on social media. The best one will receive the getaway prizes.

6. Guessing Object 

Guess objects can be used for your brand loyalty boost. You can use your product but in an obscured image. 

Ask your people to guess what the product is and what they know? This will help you in understanding more brand elements you have. It will boost brand awareness. 

The winner could be someone who answered correctly and first too. 

If you have too many comments, you can choose random winners.

7. Spin the Wheel 

Spin the wheel can be beneficial for your email list. By this, you can get more emails listed for your marketing. 

It will help you in getting more nurture loyalty from your customers. 

Image source: Frip.in

To participate in this spin the wheel contest, the participant has to enter their email address. It will give the spin the prize chance. 

It will give them a sense of achievement. But also in return, you will get the emails for future marketing. 

8. Nominate Someone 

You can host a nominate someone giveaway. It can be a kind of act you can encourage your audience to perform. 

To participate, they can nominate someone they think deserving of winning the giveaway. 

The winner can receive a special prize. You can ask the participants to comment on social media or your blog. 

9. Product Launch 

For the product launch, you can use the giveaway for creating the promotion or buzz about what is going to come. 

You can offer an advance copy or something exclusive for the giveaway only. 

10. Discount On Future Purchase 

The best way for getting more repeat customers is to offer discounts on a future purchase. 

You can use the giveaway by offering discounts. It will not just promote your business but you are getting your customer purchase one more time. 

It increases the interaction with your brand and getting a loyal customer too. 

You can even offer a 10 % discount and this will do the job. 

Pro Tip: focus on your discount, and remember it will encourage your people to speed more

11. Free Product With The Purchase 

Giveaways are effective but what makes them more exciting is to offer an extra bang of luck. 

You can offer an extra product with what your customer purchased. It can be a tote or something branded with your company’s logo. 

This will help you in doing a promotion too. The free gift will encourage more people to participate in the purchasing. 

12. Hashtag 

A hashtag can boost interaction with your brand. But if you are not getting ideas for creating one, you can run a hashtag contest. 

Ask your audience to make a hashtag using your brand and tagging your business.

Not just you will get a brand new and creative hashtag for your brand but you can also make your customer more interactive with the brand. 

13. Surprise Coupon 

You can offer a surprise coupon as your giveaway. 

It will surprise your buyers as they will save the money but also it will make the experience fun too. 

Image source: Easypromos

You can send the surprise coupon directly to their email. Or you can send them a template link that will reveal the code for the discount if they are in store. 

Pro Tip – It will boost the foot traffic but people will spend more time while shopping as they feel excited about the next coupon. 

Both are profitable for your brand. 

14. Themed Or Local Gift  Box 

You can partner with the local business and create the gift box for your giveaway. 

However, make sure that you select a theme before you offer the giveaway. 

For example,  The Natural Lighting Company did a giveaway of a Basket Full Of Sunshine for banishing the winter blues. 

Image source: woodboxblog

You can also host the giveaway based on seasons or moods. Tying with the locals not just gives you more people to connect with but also you get cross-promotion too. 

It makes your giveaways more effective as well as cheaper in terms of investment. 

15. Ask To Share Ideas 

You can also run the short contest of getting quick, fun, and easy giveaway. 

Ask your audience to share their ideas with you. It can be about your upcoming product, name, etc. 

Also, you can offer queries so you can get exactly what you are hoping for. 

Make sure to keep the giveaways friendly and fun. 

16. Follow, Like And Tag 

The most straightforward type you can consider for your giveaway is to ask your audience to follow, like, and tag someone for entering the giveaway. 

It will boost engagement but also you can get more followers and brand exposure to a wider range in the audience. 

17. Follow or Subscribe 

One of the easiest ways of promoting is to ask your audience to follow you. Also, make it a condition for participating in a giveaway, 

You can use Twitter for announcing the giveaway or you can promote in your other social media challenge. 

tips running successful giveaways on twitter

18. Gamify The Giveaway 

Gamification is a new trend and people are invested to try it. 

It’s one of the options you can get a lot more engagement and creative content for getting more entries. 

The idea is a friendly competition and you get more repeat traffic. 

19. Giveaway For A Cause 

Collect entries but for a cause.

It will encourage your people to do good deeds and support others.

You can raise awareness regarding the education or environment. 

For example,  Aware environment did a successful campaign for educating their audience about the work they did in Borneo and for protecting the Orangutans from the Palm oil industry. 

Image source: Witnessroad

They also indulged them by providing the palm oil-free product. With this, they not just received a lot of entries but they created a positive opportunity for the people. 

As for the winner of the giveaway, The winner and his family were sent to Borneo for a free trip and to experience first-hand Orangutans.

Also, they emailed their participants for showing the trip of the winner and giving them more information about upcoming options. 

20. A Year’s Worth Product 

A giveaway that can make your winner get the free products for one year. Not just it sounds exciting but you can get a lot of interested people eagerly participating. 

Well, for example, East Forged did the same giveaway. They focused on offering something which cant be bought with money. They asked to name the super cute tea pets.

Image source: Origamiglobe

But they offered a cold brew and nitro infused tea for one year, not just for the winner but also for a friend. 

Well, the prize might cost you but it will boost the appeal in the market. Above that, you are going to get loyal customers too.

methods choosing right giveaway winner

21. Treasure Hunts 

There are a lot of powerful ways that can help you in getting an engaged audience and brand awareness.

The treasure hunt is exciting and attracts people who love to solve the mystery. It makes you giveaway more appealing and interactive. 

Image source: Thekitchenwhishperer

You can run a task for the audience to find the hints throughout your websites and blogs to win the prize.

It will help you in an engaging audience for a longer time. Also, it adds a positive relationship and an ideal chance to promote your content. 

For example, Fun Diet Food Finds, a popular food blog runs the giveaway. They asked their users to participate in a treasure hunt through the food tips and recipes.

Also, they gave hints through images of Jack- o-Lanterns. This helped people to get entry and also boost engagement while doing the treasure hunt. 

22. Partner Giveaways 

Announcing a partnership and collaborating for the giveaways is one of the options that can help you in building the buzz. 

Here you are targeting two different scales of market and audience. 

It will give you a perfect wide range and a new audience who are interested in similar services or products you are offering. 

Takeaway – Partnered Giveaways are especially good for new businesses that need to establish their online presence. 

It gives more opportunity and level of trust to introduce your product or services to your audience. 

23. Weekly Giveaways 

Running a giveaway consistently is good especially if you are looking for getting more engagement and followers.

You can run the giveaways regularly based on weekly,  monthly, or fortnightly. 

reasons run weekly giveaways

With regular giveaways, you can get consistent engagement as well as growth that has better chances of conversion. 

Takeaway- Weekly giveaways are also good for rewarding your loyal customers. It will create an excited and engaged audience for you. 

24. Holiday  Giveaways 

For every business, there is a peak season.  For example,  E-commerce retailers have the highest sales during Christmas. 

People look forward and buy gifts like chocolates during such seasons. Same for Valentine Day Or Mother’s Day, Florist has a high demand for sales.

Choose a season which has your highest peak of sales. You can do the giveaways based on that.

Run a well themed and holiday based giveaway .it will help you in converting more drive and sales.

Image source: Wishpondblog

With this, you are offering what your customer needs at the exact time. 

For example, Adore Me successfully grew their followers on social media and revenue during the Valentine Day season. 

They offered giveaways and capitalized on the high demand from their audience. 

Takeaway – Don’t focus on seasons that relate to your business. You can choose the holidays for running the giveaway. 

For example, Christmas is the overall season for almost every business.

25. Voting Giveaways 

Giveaways are also good for getting feedback and valuable opinions from your medicine. 

Run a contest giveaway for voting on which product your customers like the most or something like that to give an opportunity for winning the giveaway.

It can be based on what you sell or you can do market research and it can help you in understanding the taste of your audience. 

Pro Tip – Use your social media like Facebook or Instagram.  People can easily interact with you there and you can ask them to comment or tweet their answers. 

26. Giveaway For Ideas

Ask your audience what they will like next?

It’s a fun and creative way of conducting a giveaway. You can ask your audience to share their ideas related to your product for winning the prize. 

Common examples are Lays and Oreo who engaged their audience by asking for what next flavor they would like to taste. 

With this, they successfully created an engaged audience. But it also provided them with new ideas for their next product which was already tested by the audience. 

27. Instagram Stories Giveaway

This one can be your quick giveaway idea. Run an Instagram story as your next giveaway. 

You can use it for announcing the giveaway and share the link of the post or page where people can easily enter. 

You can use it for asking questions and get a chance for winning the giveaway.

tips for instagram giveaways

28. Repost The Post 

You can use the Instagram post for offering to repost to get into the giveaway. 

why rung giveaway on instagram

Ask your audience to repost it on their feed. Also, make sure to add a hashtag and tag so people can direct repost and you can easily monitor your entries. 

This way you can introduce your product or brands to more people. It boosts build awareness and consumer relationship improvement.

Takeaway– Well reposting too much may look spammy. However, Instagram is not offering any native way. 

Make sure you have some creative or new options that don’t make you look spammy. Avoid using repetitive or old hashtags. 

29. Behind The Scene Giveaway 

Well, your audience who is loyal to you will feel excited to know how their favorite products are made and what is behind the scenes that happen. 

It’s something new, exciting, and not that they are going to get anywhere. 

You can give them the giveaway of participating in behind the scenes, and for building the excitement you can give a peek too.

Also, you will get user content and it doesn’t cost too much either.

30. Influencer Giveaway 

Considering the influencers on social media who relate to your niche and can help you in getting you a massive audience and also boost the drive-in action. 

Image source: Medium

Reach out to the influencers that can promote your giveaway and you can easily pay them.

Takeaway – You can use influencer giveaway for targeting huge and new audiences for your brand. 

Such an audience has faith in their influencers which allows you to introduce your product or services more effectively. 

Inspiring Giveaways That You Can Consider For Next Campaign 

To understand what and how you should run your giveaway campaigns, here are some brands who successfully achieved their goals by running following giveaways. 

To know more, here are few examples. 

ZHC Giveaway With  James Charles

ZHC aka Zachary Hsieh is a comic book artist and also an influencer personality on youtube. 

He collaborated with other influencers for hosting the giveaways on his channel. 

One of the successful giveaways he did was collaborating with James Charles. 

Image source: Youtube

He is one of the mega youtube influencers. They both did a custom iPhone giveaway. 

The entry was simple as the participant had to follow both influencers on youtube and Instagram. 

Takeaways – This is one of the best influencers collaborating giveaways. Two indications from different niches worked to promote the product.

Also, they filmed together and covered the making which was evidence that the product is indeed theirs. It increases trust and value.

Love One Today‘s  AvoFruitFull 

Love One Today promoted the different ways of eating and staying healthy with avocados.

Image source: SEMPAD

They created a buzz as the brand launched the AvoFruitFull contest.

They asked their followers to submit a photo using avocado and adding their own creation. 

The participants who received most of the likes on their photos were announced as the winner. They awarded a themed water bottle, Vitamix blender, and food processor. 

Takeaway – Picking the prize that can attract the people who are interested. For example, the brand did with Vitamix blenders which are for health-conscious people. 

It was a good idea for resonating with them and attracting them to participate as well as win. 

E.L.F Cosmetic Giveaways 

Well, the cosmetic brand does giveaways every 2 to 4 months.

E.L.F do Instagram giveaways, offering an opportunity to win primer, blushers, blush, etc by leaving comments and following their pages.

Image source: Influencermarktingresources

The brand collaborated and promoted their giveaway. For this, they got more than 3200 comments as entries.

With great numbers for brand engagement but it boosted the numbers of followers as well.

They added all the rules and important details in their captions which made it easier for their audience to understand. 

Takeaway – E.L.F is a good example of showing that giveaways should be done with a certain period of time like the brand does every 2 to 4 months. 

It gives them more engagement and interaction with their brand. But the flowers look forward to participating as they offer gifts that the customers would like to win. 

OCHO Candy Giveaways 

OCHO  Candy is a food brand, many focus on providing alternative options to popular candy bars. They are up and coming as well as organic. 

OCHO celebrated their holiday season by collaborating with Green Toy Sinc. The brand sells eco-friendly toys for kids.

Image source: Influencermarktingresources

The participant had to follow the brand pages and tag their two friends. 

With this,  the brand earned around 7000 new followers. Well, OCHO partnered with a brand that had 37000 followers.

Also, they got more than 610 likes and 600 comments with a great amount of brand engagement. 

Takeaway – OCHO is a great and inspiring example for small business brands. 

The brand crushed the giveaways by offering valuable and beneficial items. With the strategic partnership, they got more brand exposure and established their brand. 

In addition, they achieved more followers for their pages. 

Stoke Bar Giveaways

Stoke Bar did a boatland giveaway.  They offered their followers to win the 40 free treats bar. 

The brand sells crunchy, delicious, and low carbs which are attractive enough for health-conscious people. 

The brand received followers and more exposure to what they sell.

Takeaway – Stoke Bar received followers by running a  giveaway which was not that huge but still effective. 

It’s a good option for gaining more followers if you have a new page or Instagram presence. 

Giveaways Ideas & Mistakes To Avoid 

Over the years, the companies kept working on finding strategies and ideas to get more attention as well as the audience for their brand. 

Giveaways, sweepstakes, and contests are some of the wonderful techniques that worked in every scenario. 

However, there are some major mistakes and ideas that should be avoided at all costs. 

Not you are going to waste your resources and chances but also it will waste the time and money too. 

Here are a few of the mistakes you need to avoid – 

Unappealing & Hidden Prizes 

When you are hosting a giveaway, it should be clear about how much available the contest is for others.

Being an owner, you did your research and planned everything out. It’s natural for you to understand deeper about the giveaway. 

Unlike your audience who have no idea about how beneficial and features they are going to get. 

Microsoft backed study did research, based on the report the minimum attention span of your audience is 8 seconds. 

This means you have 8 seconds to make your price recognized by your advice.  

It means the value of your giveaway including benefit and all positive sides should be clear and easy to grab within this 8-second span. 

Difficult Registration Process

People despise the idea of filling forms, and longer forms are a no-no for them. 

Lots of marketers add complex processes and more than needed personal information for registration. 

It’s a major mistake that makes your audience drop the idea of participating. 

And to run the giveaway, you don’t really need that much information either. 

Too Much Or Too Less Promotion 

Blowing off your customer’s inbox by sending promotions in emails, messages, and reminders. Or keeping it too low both are something you should be avoiding. 

There are some basic options you could try for driving more such as – 

  • Partner Up 
  • Sending To Email List 
  • Print Media 
  • Announce On Your Site 
  • Paid Ads

Prizes That Make No Sense 

Prizes are an important factor and one of the reasons why giveaways are successful. 

Not knowing what to offer and whom to offer are two mistakes that you might be doing right now. 

Don’t give ideas of prizes that are way too irrelevant or unbeliever for your audience. 

Ideas To Avoid In Giveaways 

Here are some ideas for giveaways that you should not do at all. These ideas are not profitable and also ruin the chances of making your giveaway successful. 

Offering IPad, Macs, Or iPhone 

If you are not Apple, don’t go with this idea at all.

Anything that is related to Apple or something that is big tech giants should be avoided at any cost. 

First of all, you are promoting a brand that is not yours. Here you are missing out on the opportunity to promote your products and brands.

Apple does have an appeal that can give you more attention but people won’t be paying attention to what you are selling. 

Pro Tip: Consider your ideal demographic before you decide the prize. 

Gift Cards And Vouchers 

Gift cards and vouchers are the sign of a lazy business. 

This shows that you are not a little bit bothered to pay attention to what your audience would like to win or like to buy in general. 

Also, people are not always thrilled about receiving gift cards or vouchers that are not in their use. 

Pro Tip: Offer your gift cards or vouchers with the prize. Add the emotional and experiential attachment to get more attention. 

Cash 

Cash might help you in getting the wider interest of people but it won’t benefit your business or your brand. 

People don’t remember the brand that paid them in cash.

 For some people, it’s a way of living where they don’t bother with whose brand is offering them what expect the winning cash prize. 

Choosing loop Competitions 

Well, there is nothing major with loop competition except you are adding lots of work for your audience. 

Lots of people just drop the idea by looking at the steps they need to follow. Instead of that, you can make one landing page with the easiest steps. 

Pro Tip: To hold the interest of your audience through the steps, you can offer a bonus or little surprise prizes too. 

Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQs)

Why is Giveaway good for marketing my brand?

Giveaways are good as it connects your audience with your brand without making the purchase first. 

The audience just needs to do basic entries and they can get giveaways without spending anything.

You can use the giveaways as complimenting with other channels,

How should I choose the Giveaway winner?

There are different methods. However the most common is too random numbers.

You can pick the winner randomly, It will give a more fair chance to everyone without you going biased.

What do Giveaways mean?

Giveaways are the free product or services by the brands given to their audience.

In exchange for that brand gets information about their audience and boost their awareness. 

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