In this blog, we detail the importance the giveaways and contests in lead generation. Moreover, we are giving out the best practices for giveaways along with actionable tips and real-life case studies.
Giveaways are often termed as the most effective lead magnets. A well-designed lead magnet can help you qualify your leads by offering a relevant prize. Moreover, it will incentivize your participants to share it by offering additional entries. So, without wasting any of your precious time, let’s move on to the best practices for giveaways and contests. These tips help you optimize your interactive giveaways for increased conversion!
1) Leverage Exclusivity
Our first tip is one of the little known best practices for giveaways.
It is a well-known fact among marketers that nothing generates curiosity as exclusivity does. So, to express exclusivity, you can provide freebies to the people who take part in the giveaway.
But only if they have bought a product from you in the past, even if they’ve bought it offline.
Maybe this experience by UncapBeauty will help you understand our point better.
After completing the survey, the customer has to enter their email to get the $10 Amazon voucher. Most customers happily provide their emails in such a scenario, mainly because they have 10$ to gain and absolutely nothing to lose.
2) Get Ideas For Your Giveaway/Contest
It is extremely important to create a giveaway that specifically targets your ideal customer. In fact, there are thousands of groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora, and Reddit that cater to different kinds of audiences. Many of these groups are buzzing with discussions, debates, and conversations. All you have to do is search for your niche on these platforms and participate in discussions. For instance, if you are a nutritionist then you should try to identify the most popular groups in the health and nutrition space and then observe the commonly asked questions in these groups.
Do people talk about how to add more proteins in their diet? Do they want to know how to cut sugar intake? The idea is to gain as much information possible so that you have a vault of ideas for your next giveaway. Moreover, you can include prizes that your target audience is interested in getting instead of uninspired prize ideas.
3) What’s Trending, Google?
Google Trends, as the name suggests, can let you know what’s trending in a country and category. Depending on where you are situated and which category (health, entertainment, politics, etc.) of interactive experiences you want to create, you will get plenty of giveaway ideas. You can also compare two trends and see how popular they have been over a period of time! This strategy can come especially handy if you are looking to pursue demand generation!
4) Add Social Share Buttons
Make it easy for people to share their results by adding social share buttons. You can also create a link with a pre-drafted tweet/message that users can share on their social networks. This way the users won’t have to put any effort into writing a tweet or message to accompany the giveaway link.
Furthermore, you can ask users to recommend the giveaway to someone who may benefit from it. This increases the chances of your giveaway/contest gaining more traction through the word-of-mouth. After all, who wouldn’t trust a recommendation from a friend?
5) Google Keyword Planner + Right Hashtag = Virality!
Not planning out the SEO strategy for your giveaways can be a grave mistake. Thankfully, there are tools to help us out.
Selecting the right hashtag can be hard but equally rewarding. For starters, it will allow you to see how many posts there are under your particular hashtag. Moreover, if you are choosing a branded hashtag, it is ‘free marketing!’
Furthermore, Google Keyword Planner can help you understand what your prospects are searching for online. Focus especially on long-tail keywords — you never know they could be the title for your next giveaway. This is a sure-shot way of generating giveaways that actually resonate with what people want.
6) Leverage Influencer Marketing
An influencer marketing survey conducted by Collective Bias reveals that “70% of millennial consumers are influenced by the recommendations of their peers in buying decisions.” What is then stopping you from getting some influencers on board to promote your giveaway?
Influencers already have an audience base and can drive traffic to your content. If your budget allows, have as many influencers share your giveaway. BuzzSumo found out that your reach is directly proportional to the number of influencers you have onboard — the more the merrier!
7) Advertise It
Interactive content is value-driven and works on the principle of instant gratification. Therefore, ads linked to interactive content are likely to get more clicks than those about products or services. Just make sure you are targeting the right audience so that you make the most of your ad budget.
This is a Facebook ad created by the Chelsea Football Club. This ad included an interactive quiz that enticed fans to test their knowledge about their new team coach.
This is what the quiz actually looked like. It also offered some extra information along with the correct response as soon as the user selected his/her option.
This ad managed to gain 87100 likes along 1100 thousand shares and 1300 thousand comments- within 9 days of going live. Imagine the amounts of quality leads they must have garnered!
Conclusion
Giveaways and Contests are one of the most tried and tested lead generation tactics out there. However, without proper direction, they can often result in wastage of resources. Follow these best practices for giveaways and contests and let us know what you think about them.
Did we miss out on any important giveaway best practice? Are there any favorite giveaways that you’d like to tell us about?
Let us know!
