What is a giveaway?

by Gerardo Sánchez March 14, 2023

Giveaways are a promotional tool that helps companies and organizations boost brand awareness .

This strategy can also be used to increase sales or generate greater impact in user spaces, from social networks to mass media.

Essentially, giveaways are events in which a company gives one or more gifts to its followers and customers ; from services or products from its line, to any other benefit that is attractive to its audience.

How to design an effective email marketing?

Likewise, this promotional tool can have different approaches depending on what you want to achieve. Usually two types of giveaways are used:

Contests: To be eligible to enter a contest, the company will design rules and criteria so that people can have a chance to win a prize. Users are regularly asked to follow certain pages, comment on a post, or share particular content.

Sweepstakes: These are events where there are few criteria for winning. It is usually left to luck or chance.

What is a giveaway for?

We can think of hundreds of benefits that come with giving products or services to our users; from brand recognition to customer loyalty.

However, giveaways have various functions that allow companies and brands to maximize or enhance their work. Among the main benefits of a giveaway are:

Effective marketing at a low cost. Giveaways can be used as a resource to help design great marketing strategies . Similarly, they can be used as advertising campaigns .
Network growth. As mentioned at the beginning, you can create bases and criteria to participate in the giveaway. One of the most requested is to ask for “microtasks,” which can range from following a profile on a social network to sharing a post on personal social networks.
Brand recognition. According to a study by Sageworld, nearly 89% of consumers can remember a brand if they have received a promotional product or service from it. Therefore, it is convenient to create giveaways that generate brand recognition for years to come.
Lead generation. Giveaways can be useful when increasing, for example, the number of subscribers to your email list .
Generating loyalty. In addition to brand recognition, customers can become loyal to a brand that gives them a product or service. Giveaways function as an investment for customers and their preference.
Boost sales. Giveaways also work as an organic strategy in which users can try out the brand's products or services. This helps their preference to be shared among their social circle.

Carrying out a giveaway effectively and without sparing resources can be an excellent way to have positive results in the development and growth of the brand or company.

How to make a giveaway?

If you want to get started, here are the elements you need to consider when creating a giveaway.

You can modify the processes you consider necessary to fit the style of your company or brand.

Choose the goal of the giveaway

Do you want to increase your followers? Increase brand awareness? Generate traffic and engagement with your content?

It is important to identify the focus (and needs) you want. This will help you design the event dynamics more easily.

Choose the ideal prize

The characteristic of a giveaway is that it is about something relevant or important. This event is not about a sale, promotion or discount. The gift has to satisfy the needs and desires of an audience.

Most companies give away their products or services, sometimes in the form of kits, as this is usually more attractive to users.

Keep it simple with the basics

Don’t ask for too many “microtasks,” as this can discourage your audience from participating.

The fewer restrictions or conditions there are for participating in the giveaway, the greater the public interaction and participation will be.

Promote the event

To make a giveaway successful, try to make smart use of social platforms, as well as the various channels you have.

If necessary, you can create key elements such as hashtags to take advantage of social media space.

Moments of truth in customer service

Choose a good selection method

We do not want consumers to think that they have been scammed. Therefore, it is recommended that the winner(s) be selected through a platform that provides trust, security and honesty to users.

Ideas for a giveaway

To begin with, the themes, as well as the products or services of a giveaway, can vary depending on the type of brand or company that will carry it out. However, it is true that there are some ideas that can be very useful when creating your giveaway.

Here are 5 ideas that can help you launch your first giveaway event with users of the social network of your choice.

Comment with most likes

It is one of the most creative ideas when it comes to integrating the community.

You can ask your followers to share an anecdote or comment based on a generative question, which is related to your brand's theme.

The advantage of this strategy is that the participating people will start sharing the page in order to support your comment.

Tag a friend

During this strategy, you can indicate that, in addition to tagging a friend, they are asked to follow the page or profile. It is a great way to gain followers and generate traffic.

Ask them to create a post or story

It is a creative idea that allows you to share your products, services and content through your followers' profiles.

Under this idea, you can create great themes; from creating a creative photo to challenging them to perform some fun action.

To have better control over this strategy, you can implement the use of a hashtag or a mention of your page in the post.

Like and share

This is perhaps one of the simplest but most effective giveaway ideas. In just a few seconds, the person who completes these steps will be entered to win a great prize.

If you think this is not an ideal strategy, keep in mind that simply interacting with content in this way generates great benefits for our brand.

Creative exploration

There are many ways to create giveaways, some more dynamic and creative than others.

Depending on your brand and industry, you can ask your audience to write a story, make a video, create a painting, take a photo, or complete a challenge based on a proposed theme.

Not only will this help create a creative and innovative vision for your brand, but it will also position you as a company that doesn't stay pigeonholed with classic giveaway ideas.

Written by Moises Hamui Abadi : I am an entrepreneur, founding partner of Viceversa and SoyMacho. After leading several digital businesses and advising several other businesses, I decided to form MHA Consulting, a digital marketing consultancy dedicated to growing and empowering digital businesses in more than 7 countries and generating more than 1,500 million pesos.