8 Business Giveaway Ideas To Grow Your Business’s Reach
Creating a loyal customer base, generating more leads, and increasing audience engagement – the benefits of hosting a business giveaway are manifold. And there are multiple ways you can go about it. If you are planning to host one, this blog features some business giveaway ideas that you could try your hand at and follow the processes elaborated here to build a successful giveaway campaign.
Top Business Giveaway Ideas
1. Sweepstakes
This is the simplest of all giveaway ideas. This requires people to either drop in their email address or follow the brand’s social media page to enter the contest. And then, you can select the winner either as a lucky draw or by carefully reviewing each account. The prize could be anything that you decide on.
2. Photo Contest
A photo contest is another common business giveaway idea. In this format, the participants are required to either post their pictures using your product or a picture of the product itself on social media while tagging the brand’s page and using the campaign hashtag. However, the photos don’t always have to be restricted to the products; rather they could showcase anything that you are looking forward to promoting as a part of your campaign. Once you receive the entries, you could simply feature the ones that stand out to you as winners.
3. Discount Coupon
Dropping a discount coupon every once in a while can be a win-win for both you and your customers. Everybody loves special coupons that they can avail to use a service or purchase a product they love. As part of this campaign, you could opt to drop an email with a discount coupon. This is a great technique to let your customers know that you’re thinking about them, and this works as a great email marketing idea to drive home that point.
4. Host A Quiz
Designing a fun brand-centric quiz can work in two ways – it can create brand awareness and also help you learn more about your customers and how they perceive your brand. Again the prize for the quiz winners could be anything from a free product/service to a special discount.
5. Hashtag Contest
Can’t think of a creative and clever hashtag for your next campaign? Let your audience help you. Just as the name suggests, a hashtag contest is a giveaway idea that allows social media users to be a part of your marketing strategy and come up with a fun hashtag, and in return, you reward your participants with a gift. If planned well, this could turn out to be an interesting online marketing strategy for your business.
6. Free Product Or Service
This again isn’t a new giveaway idea, but it is definitely something that is quite well-received by customers. Because, who doesn’t love to get something extra for the sum paid for? Be it a free product, a free service, or a trial product, getting a little more always cheers us up! And if your audience loves the product/service, chances are they will come back for more! Worried that offering products and services for free would impact your budget? Well, to execute this idea, it is not necessary that your giveaway has to be something grand. It could even be a little something given as an add-on alongside the originally bought product. Or, you could opt to introduce a price limit, and any purchase after that could tag along with freebies.
7. Spin The Wheel
How about giving your customers the opportunity to avail a gift from a range of offers? One of the fun ways to do that is by adding a Spin The Wheel either on a campaign landing page or as a pop-up on your business website page. This interactive giveaway idea is both fun and engaging for your audience.
8. Time-Bound Giveaways
Time-bound giveaways can add an element of urgency and the fear of missing out on a specific deal. Therefore, driving more sales. However, to make them click, it is essential to time them well. You would see that brands often introduce such giveaways around festivities or a specific time of the year.
How To Host Social Media Giveaways
1. Choose A Goal
Before you begin with anything, decide on a goal and the purpose of the giveaway. What do you want to achieve through the giveaway? Generate more engagement, get more leads, or produce user-generated content. Give this a thought! The more clarity you have on this, the better you will be able to plan the entire giveaway campaign.
2. Choose A Platform
Once you have a set goal, the next step is to decide which platform you want to run your giveaway on. To make things work in your favor, compare which of the business social media platforms have a stronger following – Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. The main reason behind this is that platforms on which you have a better following are likely to create more traction for your giveaways, as there are already some people who are interested in your posts. However, even though this is an important factor to consider, this shouldn’t be the only defining factor for choosing the platform.
3. Pick Your Entry Parameters
There are a variety of parameters that you can set in order for someone to enter your giveaway contest. Some of the most common of them include liking a specific post and also following the Instagram page, tagging a few friends in the comment section of a post, or posting a picture of using your product or sharing their experience while using the giveaway hashtag. Depending on the purpose of your contest and the kind of audience you want to reach out to, you could opt to keep the entry parameter easy or hard.
4. Plan Your Contest & Set Rules
Another important step in the process of hosting social media contests is to set clearly defined rules and guidelines and plan everything accordingly. Set the terms and conditions for your contest. This should include not only how the contest will run but also how the participants or winners will be rewarded. Moreover, decide on a reward – whether it be a free service coupon, a discounted product, or something else. And most importantly, your participants need to be aware of these terms, making it important for you to share them online where they are easily accessible.
5. Select A Campaign Hashtag
Before you go live, work on finding a campaign hashtag. It is one of the key pillars that help you promote your giveaway across different social media channels. It is also one of the ways you can track the entries of your contest. When you are brainstorming ideas, try to think of something that relates to your brand and whatever the giveaway is about. Another crucial thing is to ensure that it has not been used before. Else, your traffic might be diverted to somewhere else.
The Benefits Of Hosting Giveaways
If you are still wondering what the benefits of hosting giveaways are, here are some reasons that could prompt you to plan your next giveaway campaign:
- Drives Engagement: One of the most common perks of hosting giveaways is that it drives engagement and traffic to your channel. It creates exposure for your brand or product/service and drives more and more people, both old and new followers, to your channel. Liking, sharing, commenting, tweeting, etc., increases your audience engagement.
- Creates Brand Awareness: There is a pile of content available online, especially on social media. And nothing remains on top forever. Therefore, to help your brand stand out and leave a mental imprint on your existing and target audience, you need to make constant efforts to create brand awareness. And these giveaway ideas can often help you achieve that.
- Ensures Product Exposure: While most of your audience might know about your brand, they may or may not be aware of the newest product or service that you have added to your product range. Or they might be informed about it, but might not know what it does and how it can help them. Hosting a campaign around that can help you create product exposure and generate awareness about your services and new launches.
- Generates Leads: Generating a constant flow of leads could be a struggle, but successful giveaways can become a gateway of relevant leads. The participants, whether or not they win the contest, are possibly still somewhat interested in your product/service or brand. And they can, therefore, turn out to be good leads.
- Builds A Community: Another byproduct of running giveaways from time to time is that you tend to connect with people who are interested in your brand. And so slowly and gradually, you build a community of trusted followers.
Further Read: 6 Ways To Increase Brand Awareness For Wedding Photography Business
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