When you decide to partner with companies for promotions, you need the right approach for your giveaway to go as planned. The right strategy for hosting this event includes forethought, planning, and a good understanding of your followers.
Offering free items to your readers or potential audience can generate loyalty and interest in your blog. And teaming up with companies to run these promotions can be a massive help to you and a source of growth.
However, you might not anticipate how complex and strategic the giveaway process can be. Before you begin providing free products to your readers, check out these seven tips to make your promotion a success.
1. Determine Your Reason or Goal for the Giveaway
Sorting out what you want this giveaway to do for your blog is the first step to hosting a productive giveaway. Getting started without determining your hopes for the promotion can leave you without any helpful results once the giveaway concludes.
How do you want this promotion to benefit you? Are you aiming to boost your dedicated following, or to direct temporary traffic to your site? Once you figure out what your reason is, you can move forward with a central focus that can guide the rest of your decisions.
2. Choose a Prize Your Audience Wants
Depending on what kind of blog you run, your prize should match the interests of your intended audience. If your blog deals with parenthood, you can offer free children’s products and parenting resources. But if you run a fashion blog, you can give your readers a new and desirable purse or a complete outfit by a popular retailer.
The more attractive the product is to your followers, the more participants and visibility you can receive from the giveaway. Try contacting brands and shops your readers love to work out a deal with them. Your posts can be a rewarding experience for the companies you feature, too.
3. Communicate the Details About the Prize
When you’re interacting with a company, miscommunication can make your giveaway difficult. For a sponsored post and giveaway, the company may leave the delivery of the products up to you. Or, they could be the one to distribute the goods. But double-check you both know what’s going on, so the winner receives the correct product from the right party.
When you’re in agreement about the prize, this can limit the confusion from your followers, too. You won’t field as many questions and encounter as many setbacks if you iron out the details.
4. Attract Participants With a Sponsored Giveaway Post
If your readers are going to trust your recommendation on this product and want one for themselves, a sponsored post can present your personal use of the item. Take plenty of photos to document how you incorporate the product into your routine. A personal application can get more people involved and eager to win.
Testing out the product is a wise choice anyway because you don’t want to align yourself with things you aren’t familiar with. So, verify the value of the product by trying it out first. Once you’re a fan of the product, you can confidently share it with your followers.
5. Set the Terms and Conditions
To be conscientious of legal restrictions, your promotion needs to inform your readers and participants about everything from how you’ll select the winner to when they can expect their prize. Put the details of the giveaway in the terms and conditions, and make them readable and readily available.
One example of an effective promotion is Shipley Energy’s giveaway during the holidays. Their giveaway outlined its conditions well, stating the start and end date, eligibility, how to enter and more. They displayed the fundamental parameters on the main post, but the team also included an easily accessible full outline of the terms and conditions to fulfill their legal obligations.
6. Boost Visibility on Social Media
After your giveaway goes live, use your social media platforms to alert your readers. People spend approximately two hours a day on various social media throughout their lifetime, so informing them over social media about your promotion is a strategic way to cover your bases.
Even if you want your loyal email subscribers to hear about your giveaway first, you should supplement your newsletter with social media posts. Others in search of winning free prizes can also stumble across your post, which can add more readers to your blog.
7. Do a Follow-Up Post About the Experience
As a bookend to your giveaway, fill your followers in on the whole experience. Who ended up winning? How did the responses from your readers impact you? You can let your followers know if they should expect a similar giveaway soon, so they can prepare to enter your next promotion.
You can use this opportunity as a thank you to show appreciation for those who participated. Sincere engagement can create a connection with your followers that can benefit you in the long run.
Hold a Rewarding Giveaway Event
If your giveaway event goes well, it can be valuable to everyone involved — you, the maker of the product and your followers.
When you successfully inform participants and hone your focus to benefit your blog, you can look forward to a positive outcome. Develop your giveaway hosting skills to see the benefit in these events.
Kayla Matthews
Kayla Matthews is a WordPress blogger and independent writer. She’s done freelance work for Digital Trends, The Week, Website Magazine and VICE. To read more posts from Kayla, visit her blog, Productivity Theory.
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