Contests and giveaways are one of the best ways your business or brand can interact with your followers (both existing and potential customers), so as to create a strong community and generate even more leads.
So, without further ado, we present you with 6 giveaway ideas expected to help turn your participants into leads. Plus, you’ll find 5 giveaway prize ideas that will incentivize your participants and encourage them to eventually become customers.
6 Giveaway Ideas to Generate More Leads and Sales
Giveaway idea #1 – A photo contest
When it comes to giveaway ideas, photo contests are particularly effective because the participants are more likely to get involved if it involves something they’ve created themselves. The main idea behind a photo contest is to get participants to apply by uploading their own original photos relevant to the giveaway you’re organizing.
From your own perspective, photo contests are useful because they enable you to collect user-generated, unique content that can be used in some of your future campaigns.
Extra tip – Use a custom branded hashtag
Creating a custom hashtag can be beneficial for your giveaway in many ways. In addition to being fun to use, hashtags also enable you to track your entries and measure the engagement more accurately. Pairing a hashtag with your photo contest also allows you to easily gather all photos from one campaign.
When creating your branded hashtag, keep in mind to use something relevant to your campaign and as unique as possible. If you were to use, for example, something general like “accessories”, you’re likely to get tons of irrelevant entries.
Joe Fresh, for example, used the branded #freshselfiecontest hashtag in one of their campaigns.
Giveaway idea #2 – A referral contest
If you’re looking to boost your social media engagement and generate more exposure for your brand, a referral contest may be one of the best giveaway ideas for you. In a referral contest, participants are usually awarded additional entries for sharing your giveaway with their friends on social media.
This strategy can help you increase your social following and spread the word of your business to a greater pool of people.
Extra tip – use a share prompt
A share prompt is basically a pop-up which shows up after a participant has taken part in your giveaway. It gives them an opportunity to start following your brand on social media and share the giveaway in exchange for additional entries.
As those are the people who have taken part in your contest, you already know that they are interested. So, there’s a high chance they’ll do those other things you ask them to do, especially when there’s an additional incentive involved. This is a great way of getting more exposure and even more leads.
Giveaway idea #3 – A time-limited offer
Actually, it doesn’t need to be time-limited (it can also be quantity-limited, for example) but it’s important to set certain limitations so as to create a sense of scarcity or urgency. The best way to do it is by adding a countdown to your giveaway. So, you can either count the time remaining or the quantity remaining.
Adding a timer will urge your participants to act more immediately instead of delaying the decision (which almost never ends up happening). By limiting the amount of time the promotion is running, you’re creating a sense of urgency and making it more likely for participants to claim the offer. Countdown timers, expiring prizes, and other visual triggers are an extremely effective means of persuasion.
Giveaway idea #4 – Use interactive content
One of the most effective giveaway ideas involves using interactive content to engage your participants. In marketing, interactive content is notorious for its immense lead-generation potential. In fact, studies have shown that interactive content generates 2x more conversions than passive content.
What makes interactive marketing so effective? Different types of interactive content (such as polls, surveys, quizzes, calculators, interactive videos, and so on) all have a sense of intrigue, along with that element of “revelation” human beings are so intrinsically attracted to.
Let’s take quizzes – one of the most widely used types of interactive content – as an example. LeadQuizzes users, for instance, have managed to generate 4,224,340 leads so far using online quizzes. If you’re interested to learn more about how to create and use online quizzes in your marketing strategy, check out our comprehensive guide to online quizzes.
Let’s take GothRider as an example. They created a fun and engaging quiz about well-known bikers. After opting in, quiz takers were taken to various offers – a free + shipping or a discounted product sale with follow-up upsell and downsell offers. Such a sales process converted at 3%, while profitably generating them 75,813 leads.
Giveaway idea #5 – Team up with social media influencers
The world of social media influencers represents a sea of opportunities for online promotion. Why not promote your giveaway with the help of one of those gurus from Instagram or Facebook?
If you’re on a budget and looking to reach out to influencers, the “micro” level is probably your best shot. Depending on your niche, there you could be able to find influencers who aren’t so popular that they charge enormous amounts of money per promotion but still have a significant following. You just need to make sure their target audience is relevant to your own business.
If you’re an avid Instagram marketer, here you can find some neat Instagram giveaway examples that can help you build your brand and generate massive engagement.
If you’re looking for additional help on how to team up with influencers to promote your giveaway, we have prepared this guide to Instagram influencer marketing.
Giveaway idea #6 – Use a live video
Using a live video for your giveaway adds a personal touch and enables you to establish a more personal connection with the participants. It’s as close to meeting in person as it gets.
Whether you opt for Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or a webinar, live video is a great way to engage with your audience and promote your giveaway campaign. You can use live video to answer any questions or objections your participants might have, which is bound to lead to generating more sign-ups and leads.
5 Giveaway Prize Ideas to Incentivize Your Takers
It goes without saying that all those giveaway ideas are useless if you don’t offer people something they want. But, as it’s crucial for the success of any giveaway, I’m going to say it anyway – you need to present your participants with a compelling offer.
There’s no use in creating a sense of urgency if nobody wants what you’re offering. As it is a vital part of lead generation, we present you with several ideas for giveaway prizes, which you may decide to use, depending on the product or service you’re offering.
1. Your own products
The product you’re going to offer depends on your industry, of course. If you’re selling clothes, sure you’re going to offer some piece of apparel as a price. But, even if you’re not selling clothes (and the products you sell are maybe too expensive to simply give away) you can offer some branded piece of clothing as a prize instead.
Here are some suggestions on how to approach giving away your own products as a prize. You should consider offering:
- Pre-selected products (of your choice)
- Products of their choice (within a certain range)
- Bundles
2. Coupons, vouchers, or gift cards
With products, you can never be sure if it’s really something a lot of people would like to get. That’s where coupons, vouchers, and gift cards come in. As long as your potential customers need something from your entire range of products and services, you can’t go wrong with those.
If coupons and gift cards aren’t applicable to your own business, you can always give away an Amazon gift card, for example.
3. Service trials
If you run a service-based business, it’s not always possible to give away a physical product, right? What you could do instead is offer a free trial of the service you offer (it could also be a software or an application).
4. Event tickets
If you’re a company that deals with event organization or if you’re an entertainment venue, giving away tickets is the most logical prize that best reflects your business. However, even if you’re in any other industry, you could give away tickets for different promotional events, meetups, webinars, seminars, and so on.
5. Exposure
If you don’t want to spend any actual money on your giveaway, but still want to present your participants with a compelling offer, you can offer them a prize in terms of exposure. Of course, this works only if you have a huge following on social media. This is one of the most commonly used giveaway ideas with photo contests – the winner gets his photo shared on your social media accounts along with any promotional links.
We just gave away some actionable giveaway ideas, now it’s your turn to convert those ideas into a lead-generating contest!
