Let’s face it, getting people to respond to your promotional giveaway is becoming harder and harder.
Since giveaways continue to be extremely popular, every brand is doing it.
So what are you doing to set your brand apart?
The reality is that it takes a lot to beat your competitions in this ‘noisy’ market.
Sadly, there is no quick hack to snowball your brand to the next level.
There is, however, a formula to make your brand cut through the noise.
So, what should you do?
Well, the first thing you need to do is to change the way you think about promotional giveaways.
Typically, you’d think of it as putting it out in front of your prospect customers, hoping they’d remember you later.
Today, it is more than that.
Marketing giveaway is an excellent opportunity for you to shake things up a bit for your customers.
Leverage giveaway marketing to create a unique experience for your consumers.
Make them remember your company the way you want them to through exceptional customer experience.
Here’s the 20-step promotional giveaway strategy you should follow. Also included are some inspiring giveaway ideas.
Step 1: Define your giveaway goal & target audience
What is the primary purpose of your giveaway?
Do you want to generate and capture leads? Is your focus on link building? Or you are interested in increasing social engagement?
Setting SMART Goals
Whatever it is you need to set your campaign goal. An effective goal should answer questions like
- What type of giveaway
- How are you creating the campaign
- Who is the campaign for
- How are you running the campaign
Your goal must be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Actionable
- Relevant
- Timely
An example of a SMART goal should look like this:
Increase the number of qualified leads by 1,000 (starting with one standard giveaway marketing with a budget of $500 per quarter) by December 2019.
Next, define your target audience.
Build a user persona to guide your campaign direction.
It should NEVER be everyone.
If you don’t define a type of audience to focus on, you’ll end up giving wrong gifts to wrong people ended up attracting no one.
Now, let us start with the following few questions:
- What age group?
- Gender
- Where do they stay?
- What do they do for a living?
- What industry are they in?
- What’s their interests/hobby?
- What type of gifts would they enjoy the most?
- When do they go online usually?
- What problems are they facing?
- How do they consume info?
- Where do they always hang out (online & offline)?
These questions will help you understand your target market.
Consequently, it helps you frame your campaign planning, ideas, the language to use, where to run the campaign, and more.
Examples of User Personas
Step 2: Think about what freebies to offer & establish campaign details and guidelines
Based on the goal you set, your budgets, and target demographic:
- Select the type of giveaway ideas that will likely help you achieve your goal
- Choose the best gift and delivery methods your targeted prospect will most likely participate
You can offer your products, but it may not be lucrative enough to attract people to join your promotion.
In this case, you’d want to give something that’s exciting, like a vacation.
There are many options. Here are some giveaway ideas to get you started.
- clothing & apparels
- coupons
- gift cards or vouchers
- bundles
- products
- pick your own prize
- service trials
- food and hampers
- electronics
- event tickets
- holidays
- event-based rewards
- exposure
Here are some giveaway examples.
Free vacations to attract intended clients
Sweepstake to distribute coupons of products suitable for a targeted group
Gift cards for your usual web visitors for your mailing list campaign
Bundle Giveaway to make your marketing campaign more lucrative
Offer suitable apparel
Create an exciting pick-your-own prize giveaway
Do a pick-your-own event tickets
Free trials products or online tools
Run an engaging giveaway contest
Finally, determine how long you want to run the giveaway game. According to Jeff Bullas, 1 month is the optimal length, sufficient to get the most out of a promotional giveaway campaign.
You’d also want to define the rules and regulation and that includes the mechanics.
Quick Tips:
- Select the type of gifts you know your prospects will not just like but love
- Always go for something simple yet effective
- Think of entertainment and engagement when contemplating your ideas
- Try Google search “[keyword] + [services]”.
- For example, “organic food services” and “landing page services” depending on your business and target customers.
- A quick search results in many options. Focus on paid ad listing because they are highly relevant services and products you can give your winners.
Step 3: Create a landing page & include viral sharing
Next, it’s time for the assets of your campaign.
Typical marketing campaign assets involved the following.
- Ads: Whether it’s rich media, display or search ads, you will need to ensure the theme aligns with the rest of the campaign. Rich media ads give you the advantage of gamification that increases engagement.