Just find an awesome product to giveaway, post it on social media sites and people will rush over to enter and win those giveaways. But I was completely wrong. Giveaways don’t work like that. In fact, you need to work really hard to find people to participate in your giveaways. So this detailed post is exclusively made for those bloggers who want to find solid ways to promote their blog contests or giveaways to reach wider audience. Are you ready to find out few secrets to promote giveaways? Let’s jump into the details.
7 Powerful Ways to Promote Your Giveaways or Blog Contests
7 Powerful Ways to Promote Your Giveaways or Blog ContestsStep 1: Set predetermined goalsStep 2: Tease your audience before launching your giveawayStep 3: Create a blog post about your giveawayStep 4: Use your email signature smartlyStep 5: Make use of your top 10 high traffic postsStep 6: Do a blogger outreachStep 7: Find best contesting sitesBonus tip: use paid adsWhy should you run giveaways or blog contests?Final Thoughts
Step 1: Set predetermined goals
The very first step to promote your giveaways successfully is to have a predetermined goal. You need to have a blueprint. You need to ask yourself “what am I expecting from this giveaway”. Without having predetermined goals, your giveaways won’t succeed. Here are few things you must consider using in your giveaways to make them a hit.
Increasing social media followers Increasing your email subscribers Increasing your blog backlinks Increasing your brand awareness
By using free tools like Rafflecopter, you can easily achieve all the above mentioned goals. Just create a free account, include the above things and paste the code in your giveaway blog post so people can enter their details to participate in your blog contest.
Step 2: Tease your audience before launching your giveaway
This is the MOST important step while promoting your blog contests. To be honest, I missed this step during my recent giveaway on Semrush. I didn’t tease my fans, readers and blog audience in advance about the giveaway. I launched it right away! Don’t make that mistake if you want to make your blog contents go viral. Here’s what I mean when I say “tease your audience with your giveaways”. Do you know why few movies collect hundreds of crores? Do you know their selling point? Teasers. Yes, movie teasers and trailers are what create curiosity among people before the movie release. That’s why trailers usually go viral and attract millions of views just within a day or two. You should also do the same (i.e tease your audience) before releasing your giveaways or blog contents. Now, if you are thinking about how to tease your audience before you actually launch your giveaways, here are few powerful tips for you.
Pick a date of your giveaway launch (i.e. the date when you are going to start your giveaway). Tell people about it through your Facebook and twitter profiles. Write all the details about your giveaway and what people can do to win it in advance. Also tell them when you are going to start that giveaway so people get curious before you even launch it. Also send personal message through Facebook and twitter to all the bloggers that you know. Tell them that you are soon running a giveaway and ask for their feedback and suggestions. Most people give you their advice which you can follow to make your blog contests go viral. Email all the people who you know. Also send a newsletter (if you already have an email list) before you run the giveaway. Mention the dates. Create a video about your giveaway. It works like a charm. Give a sneak peak of your giveaways so people can get curious before even launch your giveaways.
Finally, when the giveaway actually starts, follow up everyone who shown interest in participating in your giveaways. Ask them to enter your contest and also to share your posts with their network. This step alone can give you MASSIVE visibility and make your giveaways successful.
Step 3: Create a blog post about your giveaway
I’ve seen so many bloggers running their giveaways without even writing a blog post about them. That’s the biggest mistake one can make while promoting blog contests. After all, your own blog audience should know what’s happening on your blog, right? The initial traction that you get from your giveaways or blog contests will come from your existing blog readers. They will know about your contests only if you write and publish them on your own blogs. Also make sure to give enough time to giveaway blog post. Why? If you publish more blog posts, the giveaway blog post will go down and get less exposure that you don’t want. So give it enough breath and make it stick to your home page so it will get enough exposure from your own blog readers and new visitors so they can enter your blog contest.
Step 4: Use your email signature smartly
I’ve a simple hack for those who are promoting their giveaways or blog contests. Once you publish a blog post about your giveaway, simply use that link in your email signature. That’s it and you are done. You will sending a lot of emails every single day, right? By including an email signature that links to your giveaway can help more people to find and enter your giveaways. Make sure to use compelling lines in your email signature and make them really short. Something like; P.S: I’m currently running a BIG giveaway on my blog. Here’s the link (and link to your giveaway blog post). Feel free to use the above copy in your email signature if you want. That being said, here are few things you can try with your email signature.
Step 5: Make use of your top 10 high traffic posts
If you are a blogger and running a giveaway, there’s ONE secret strategy you can use to bring massive visitors to your giveaway post. It is using your top 10 posts that send you most traffic from search engines. The concept is simple. Step 1: Find your top 10 high traffic blog posts. Go to Google analytics and find your top 10 posts. Step 2: Give a link to giveaway post and use it at the beginning of your top 10 high traffic posts. By using simple words like “Hi, I’m currently running a giveaway on this blog. If you are curious about knowing more about it, click here (enter your giveaway post link)”. That’s it! All the new blog visitors will be mostly interested in checking it out. Step 3: Enjoy more people entering into your blog contest. Harness the power of social media sites Apart from finding and using your giveaway post’s link, you should also use social media sites to get more exposure.
Post your giveaway link on your Facebook profile and your blog’s Facebook page. Ask people to share about your giveaways on their Facebook profiles. Do the same with your twitter, Instagram and Google+ profiles too. Also make use of Facebook groups. They can help you quickly boost your giveaway participants as more and more people are looking for winning blog contests.
Step 6: Do a blogger outreach
You are not a Seth Godin or Pat Flynn. They can attract thousands of people to enter their giveaways within a day or two. They have a HUGE impact online. So how can you reach more people with your giveaways? You need other bloggers help and support if you want to reach wider audience with your giveaways. Without the help of other bloggers, it’s almost impossible to run a successful blog contest especially when you don’t have HUGE blog audience. Reach out to other bloggers. Connect with them on Facebook and twitter. Tell them about your giveaway. Ask them whether they are interested in entering or promoting it. Most bloggers would be glad to promote your blog contests if they find valuable. Also make sure to email all the bloggers that you know or have connections with. They also can help you spreading the word out about your blog contests. The following image from Search Engine Journal sums it all about doing the blogger outreach correctly.
Step 7: Find best contesting sites
There are a TON of sites and places are there to promote your giveaways and blog contests. Here are few hand picked places where you can list your giveaways to reach wider audience. Note that, all the below mentioned sites are exclusively designed for contesting giveaways. So the people who land on these sites only search for giveaways. That means you can attract targeted people who are eager to enter your blog contests.
FreakyFreddies.com ILoveGiveaways.com JustFreeStuff.com Contestgirl.com
So there you go. Use the above sites to list your giveaways or blog contests to attract more people enter into your contests.
Bonus tip: use paid ads
Google AdWords, Facebook and Twitter ads can help you reach millions of users with your giveaways. But you have to spend money across these platforms to increase your reach. If you are running a giveaway to boost your product sales then using paid ads to boost your giveaway reach is definitely worth the money. After all, you are turning those giveaway participants into paid customers with the help of your email sales funnel. Hot tip: Successful marketers such as Noah Kagan built a multi-million dollar online businesses (AppSumo, SumoMe) majorly by running giveaways. He uses paid ads such as Facebook and PPC ads to attract more people to participate in his giveaways. Then, he uses his participants list to sell or promote his products to make money.
Why should you run giveaways or blog contests?
By now, you know the most effective promotion strategies to promote your blog contests or giveaways. But if you are wondering why should you run giveaways, here are 3 strong reasons to consider them.
Giveaways can help you get NEW blog audience. More audience means you can find more ways to make money from your blog. It’s as simple as that. They can help you quickly grow your blog’s traffic, links, social shares and email subscribers. Giveaways are also useful for increasing your affiliate product sales. At least 1% of your giveaway participant will usually buy your affiliate products that can increase your ad income.
All in all, giveaways are highly recommend if you quickly want to grow your blog’s brand awareness, traffic and sales. Browse more Blogging Resources:
How to Start a Blog in 2023 [Step by Step Process] How to Get Your Blog Noticed in 2023 A Powerful Blog Setup Checklist How to Promote Your Blog for Free in 2023 What is Personal Branding with Personal Brand Examples in 2023 Top Ways to Interlink Your Blog Posts Like a PRO Best Blogging Tips and Tricks for 2023 Best Blog Examples of 2023 for Your Inspiration
Final Thoughts
Hands down, running giveaways is an excellent way to grow a blog. If you are looking to promote your giveaways and blog contests, make sure to first define your primary goal for doing them. Don’t run giveaways without setting goals. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even know whether your contests became successful or not. The #1 thing to consider while running giveaways is to increase their exposure to reach wider audience. Pick a product to giveaway, set the giveaway rules, pick a date, choose how many winners your giveaway needs and use free tools like Rafflecopter to run your giveaways easily. So what do you think about running giveaways? Have you done them already? If so, what are your suggestions on promoting a blog contest or giveaway to reach more people online?
