Giveaways are a great way of promoting your company and building up your brand awareness. However, are you getting the most out of your efforts?

In this article, we will be going over ways you can benefit from increasing customer interactions, improving insights from your consumers, and how to keep getting them to participate in your giveaways.

Why Giveaways Work For Brands

Giveaways are a legitimate marketing expense that can help increase profits and make big impressions. For example, if you give away something for free, up to 75% of those who received a prize will remember your brand up to 12 months later! That’s a great way to make a lasting impression with a simple prize idea.

At events that give SWAG (Stuff We All Get) or something mailed for free online, has a big impact because it engages all 5 of our senses. Customers can see, touch, hear, taste, or even smell what you’re giving away, which can improve the memory of your business.

Studies have actually found evidence that the word, “free” actually does something to our brain. Because it’s a low-risk investment, high-reward gamble.

As you set up your next giveaway, let’s make sure you’re using this opportunity to its fullest potential.

5 Ways to Get The Most Out of Running Your Giveaways

1. Giving Away Unique Prizes

If you’ve recently done giveaways for your particular market niche, try branching out to giving away more creative prizes. For example, if your company usually targets parents, try out some kid prizes. Do fun giveaways of popular gifts like mermaid blankets or Legos sets, which are warm reminders about your company for the winning parents.  If you are a travel company, try tapping into the camping scene with headlamps or electric burner giveaways for those who like to travel to the great outdoors! This will get your brand in front of different types of travelers, and possibly new customers.  There are so many ways to get creative if you take a step back and think about how to branch out.

It may not connect with everyone in your target market, but one or two unique giveaway ideas will help your brand stand out in customer’s memories.

2. Ask Questions To Better Segment Your Audience

When a customer enters a giveaway, what information are you collecting besides just their email? Asking questions about gender, age, interests, concerns, etc. can help you understand what the demographic and drivers of your target audiences are for future campaigns.

Just make sure your giveaway’s prize value matches however many form fields you’re asking someone to fill out. Consider the average busy person’s patience on any given day, when balancing prize value vs. total form field count.

After receiving your entrant information, you can ask permission to send relevant emails to their inboxes. Using segmentation may be an effective tool which can increase 30 times the ROI than generic email marketing.

For example, if you run a food company and provide a newsletter with recipes, asking your users what kind of food they like to cook can be extremely powerful! You can allow your customers to opt-in to receiving information on vegetarian, low carb, or keto diet recipes. Asking permission for communication, and personalizing what you send will help you stay in contact with the customer, and out of their email spam box.

3. Being Strategic with Instagram & Facebook Contests

There are over 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram, and over 2 billion users on Facebook. Sharing and promoting your giveaways on these platforms can greatly increase your potential reach. There are some rules you need to be aware of, but asking for likes, follows, shares or a re-post can skyrocket your interaction.

You can also get really creative with how you engage on social media. Asking for a “Best Caption” to a funny picture, or comment-to-win contest are both fun ideas to engage people on each of the platforms.

4. Get Unfiltered Feedback

Hosting an online giveaway gives you opportunities that an in-person giveaway can’t provide. Asking the participant to fill out a quick survey or a poll will give you unfiltered and unbiased feedback from customers. It may be positive, and it may be constructive. Either way, you want to hear feedback from outside sources that aren’t your coworkers or family members.

You could ask questions like:

• “What’s your favorite thing to do with (your product)?”
• “If you could change anything about (your product), what would it be?”
• “Share your favorite (memory, etc.) that includes (your product).”

Asking questions like these help the participant feel apart of your brand. They will feel like they have a voice within your organization, and possibly be more willing to participate. If you want to take this customer loyalty to the next level, send a thank you response for the information.

5. Put The Winner On A Pedestal

Once you have a winner of the giveaway, don’t just send a simple email about the prize they won… Send them something that will make them feel like a million bucks!  Post the winner’s name or picture on your social media so other entrants, as well as friends and family, can see they won. Follow that up with a personalized email or even a phone call letting them know they won.

Promoting winners on your social networks doesn’t just make the winners day, it will also help other contestants see the celebration, and possibly get them excited and determined to enter other competitions down the road. Everyone likes a few seconds of fame and this is a great way to make someone’s day.

Don’t forget the non-winners! Use this opportunity to reach out and let everyone else know they did not win the main prize, but you still value them and their entry. You could provide something they would still get excited about, like a simple discount coupon. This can work wonders and possibly give you more business.

Conclusion

Giveaways are a great way to reward current customers and expand your reach to new consumers.  Make sure you have a strategy in place to get the most out of the giveaways. Doing so will give you valuable information, which in turn will help your business grow. If you are feeling overwhelmed by setting up a successful giveaway don’t stress! 

Feel free to call ( 1-360-450-5200) or email us here at Woobox and we will help walk you through the process to get the most out of your efforts.