Your Go-To Guide for Contests & Giveaways

We all know that, yes, contests and giveaways have been around for basically EVER and are a classic marketing tactic. But contests and giveaways certainly aren't what they used to be; they have taken on a completely new life, as if they were reincarnated to coincide perfectly with the growing reliance on social media. 

To kick things off with a little honesty, contests and giveaways are NOT the end-all-be-all of your marketing challenges. That said, they are still a genius, kick-butt way to build your fan base, engage your audience, build a rich data source, and, wait for it.... get your consumers to do your marketing for you!  

First, let's back it up a bit so you don't do something crazy with your giveaway, like give away a new car to the 100th person to like your Facebook status. As much as we would love to take you up on that offer, you should be creating a contest or giveaway that will bring in new consumers, draw in your existing consumers, and ultimately be of the most benefit to your company. 

In the interest of providing you everything you need to build the most effective contest or giveaway possible, I broke down the process into this easy-to-digest, go-to guide.

Benefits of Giveaways and Contests for Business

1. Contests Bring the Fans to You

Whether you have 100 or 1 million Facebook likes on your company page, contests have consistently proven to drive more followers. When Blue Soda Promo ran its very first Facebook contest, we saw over 1,000 new, unique consumers visit and like our Facebook page. As you can imagine, this led to increases in other areas, such as a 25% increase in engagement on our Facebook posts. 

Sure, increasing engagement isn't the only metric your company cares about, but the above example provides a strong measurement in terms of the power of promotion. Designing an easy, enter-to-win contest or giveaway is often low-hanging fruit that companies just starting out on social media, or that are just putting a strategy behind their social media accounts, can implement to drive quick results.

2. They Allow You to Engage with Your Audience

As mentioned previously, when you increase your fan base, you increase the number of people that interact with your brand. That said, you can foster a much deeper brand-consumer connection as well. UGC (user-generated content) promotions, such as photo or video contests, are perfect examples of driving deeper connections between your brand and your end-users.

UGC contests tap into the human instinct to compete, providing an opportunity for everyone to experience their 15 minutes of fame. When running a UGC contest, users are naturally investing in your brand, posting personal content, such as videos or photos, to demonstrate their relationship with it. This connection is ultimately what makes these contests extremely effective.

3. Contest Entries Provide Rich Data Sources 

With the lure of a shiny, brand new prize, many individuals are prepared to share their personal information with you as part of the entry process. That said, be careful when deciding which information is useful to collect, as many consumers are hesitant to share personal contact information. Essentially, you don't want to introduce too many barriers, but you also want to take this opportunity to learn about your customers. When in doubt, keep it simple. 

What are fun, yet effective, questions to ask during a giveaway?

To complete your giveaway, you'll want users to complete a couple questions without deterring them. These questions should be quick and simple to answer, relate to your products or services, and ultimately maintain their interest. Here are a few sample questions you could ask in a giveaway: 

• How did you hear about this promotion?
• What is your favorite product/service that we offer?
• What can we do better?
• If you had 1 million dollars, how would you spend it? (Is one of your products or services listed in their response?)

With questions like these, you're not only collecting data as part of the entry process, but you're also gathering knowledge about your consumers in general. Note that you'll actually learn much more if you maintain the relationship with these consumers, interacting with customers and implementing changes according to their responses. You also want the questions to be proportionate to what you're offering in return. For example, if you're giving away a simple branded pen, don't expect in-depth, essay-length responses.   

4. Empower Your Consumers to Market for You

How does it sound to have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of your fans helping you spread the word about your campaign? Pretty freaking fabulous? Well luckily, this is super achievable! All you need is to create a promotional plan that encompasses multiple marketing channels. And thanks to the ease of social media sharing, contests nowadays enable an amplification of your marketing message.

So let's say you create a contest that has a voting component to it: participants will be inclined to share this contest via social media, asking friends and family to support their entry. As a result, you'll likely see upwards of ten voters per entry (oftentimes, many, many more), which means you're getting upwards of ten clicks per shared link. In short, you're multiplying traffic to your contest site as a result of consumers directly marketing it to their followers.   

Summary: 

Holding a contest or giveaway promotion can create buzz about your products or services, encourage new consumers to visit your website, grow your marketing distribution list, generate advertising content at a reasonable cost, provide valuable market research, and strengthen your relationship with your consumers. Long story short, when done correctly, contests or giveaways drive significant value for your organization. 

How to Conduct a Successful Promotional Item Giveaway

Before you begin planning your value-driving contest or giveaway, there are a few questions you should ask yourself:

1. What prizes can I offer?

2. How do I want the application process to look?

3. How will I measure success?

4. What follow-up is required? 

Once you've answered these questions, it's time to move onto the next step! 

1. Determine Goals for your Giveaway or Contest

Before you begin planning your promotion, you must first determine what your goals are. The key here is to ensure you understand each goal, as well as the path to achieve that goal. Whether you're looking to drive revenue, grow your audience, or enhance your database, your team should not only have clearly defined goals, but should also have an effective baseline for measuring success. This way, when you run a campaign report after the contest closes, you'll be better able to determine whether or not your campaign was successful. 

Common goals when running a contest:

• Capture a specific number of new email addresses for your marketing mailing list 
• Increase Facebook likes by a percentage
• Receive a specific number of retweets on Twitter
• Collect a specific number of photo/video submissions
• Receive a specific number of shared links 
• Drive a specific number of new or unique visitors to your contest landing page or website
• Drive a percentage increase in sales
• Drive an increase in time users spend on your website 

To be clear, the above listed goals are meant to serve as a starting point when defining your own goals; bossy as we may be, we aren't telling you what to do. That said, contests are most commonly designed to increase sales and/or drive consumers to your various websites, social accounts, etc. If you're not interested in either of these goals, a contest or giveaway may not be for you, in which case, feel free to stop reading at this point; we won't take it personally.

2. Gather Giveaway Ideas and Create a Plan 

Still with us? Great! Let's move onto the next stage: creating an outline for your contest. Lucky for you, we've condensed everything you need to remember as you outline your contest:

• Relate your contest to your business: If you are a car dealership hosting a hot dog eating contest, you're probably doing it wrong.   
• Determine the type of information you are looking to collect: The entire purpose of holding a contest or giveaway is to gather the information you need to successfully market your company. So, determine what your company is looking to achieve, i.e. your goals, and then build the contest according to those goals. This way, you can specifically define rules and criteria according to the data you're looking to collect. 
• Specifically define what you will collect: In adding to the last point, you are going to build your contest according to the desired goal. Make sure you are also defining the submission and entry criteria according to those goals so you are collecting those email addresses, consumer interests, and other relevant data with every submission. Otherwise, the point of the contest is probably moot. 
• Set a time frame: When will you begin and end your contest? This window is essential, as you'll need to ensure you have plenty of time to both market the contest or giveaway and collect all the data you need. Plus, it's important to provide and communicate a clear entry window to participants so they know when a winner will be announced. This can help to really build excitement or, if your contest runs too long, it can result in consumer fatigue in which they become bored with and forget about even entering your contest in the first place. It's a fine line. 
• Select a prize: No contest is complete without an outstand prize. Why should your participants want to enter your contest? Honestly, the success of your promotion oftentimes hinges on your prize selection. If the prize doesn't properly align with your consumer base, you'll find your promotion underperforms.

3. Promote it! 

In the (slightly modified) words of REO Speedwagon, it's time for you to fly. When it comes to promoting, there are millions of routes you can go, so this is where we leave you. Not to worry though, we'll provide you with a few of our favorites, just to help get you started before we kick you out of the nest: 

• Email
• Newsletter 
• Banner Ad 
• Blog Post
• Press Release
• Forum
• Radio Spot
• Contest Directory
• PPC
• Social Media
• Blogger Outreach
• Influencer Marketing 
• Organic Search 

4. Choose a Winner

Once the contest promotion is complete, the deadline has been reached, and all entries are in, it's time to close down the contest. We know goodbyes are hard, but with all the amazing data you've collected, it'll feel much more like an exciting beginning. 

But before you dive into that fresh start, make sure you select a winner. There is no single answer for the best way to choose a winner, as this typically comes down to the way you designed the contest. Make sure you adhere to your contest rules and regulations to select a winner in a fair manner, and once you've made the selection, be sure to let everyone know! 

And before you completely move on from the contest, make sure you compile all information received, save the best practices, and note the shortcomings so that your next contest or promotion performs even better than the last! 

Conclusion 

Giveaways and contests can be a great marketing tactic for your organization, but if not executed correctly, you could end up doing more damage than good. Follow this go-to guide and your next campaign is sure to be a hit! Need a little more guidance? Not a problem! Just get in touch. 

Has your company or small business run a contest or giveaway? Do you have any stories or tips to share? Let us know in the comments below!