Organizing giveaways is a sure-fire way to build brand loyalty, boost brand awareness, strengthen the relationship with your existing customers and acquire new ones.
While they are fairly easy to organize, it sometimes poses a difficulty to come up with a unique and interesting giveaway idea that would be a perfect fit for both your business and your customers.
If you have decided it’s high time to run a giveaway, but feel you are lacking the ideas to make it stand out, don’t worry! We have prepared a list of 20 engaging, fun, and creative giveaway ideas you can adjust to your own product line or a service, as well as your customers demographic background.
1. Naming a product – This giveaway idea is perfect if you have a new product ready to be launched and want to attract your customers’ attention and create a bit of pre-launch hype. It’s simple – just organize a contest where entrants will have to be creative and come up with a catchy and unique name for your product. Once the giveaway ends and you announce the winner, don’t forget to share the most innovative and original suggestions from other participants as well. As for the prize, the most creative ones can be gifted with the product in question.
2. Online quiz – Quizzes can drive your conversion rates up, but only if you pay attention to the demographic background of the entrants. In other words, you have to know who your customers are; would they be more likely to do a personality quiz? A specific subject quiz? Or maybe they prefer answering general knowledge questions? Once you decide on the most suitable quiz type, include a randomly generated code which will appear when a contestant answers the last question. They can then use the code to enter the giveaway and compete for valuable prizes.
3. Guessing game – Here are two ways you can organize a guessing game:
– Guess the object game is aimed at entrants who are familiar with your product design, and focuses on boosting the brand loyalty. The idea behind it is to take a close-up picture of a particular product (usually a detail which is relatively easy to recognize) and ask the entrants to guess what it is. The first one who gives the correct answer is the winner.
– Guess the number game does not require participants having any particular knowledge about your business, so it is mostly used for acquiring new customers and raising brand awareness. The aim of the game is to guess the exact number of items (designed by your company) which are being showcased in a short video.
4. Photo contest – Asking the participants to submit a photo is a giveaway idea that is not only creative, fun, and incredibly easy to organize, but it also promotes user-generated content and keeps your website visitors engaged. There are a lot of different types of photo contests, but the contest which proved to be the most adaptable and applicable to almost all businesses is “Show us your…” contest. The rules are simple: entrants are asked to submit a photo featuring, for example, their favorite night-on-the-town outfit combo. Crowdsource the voting process and, once selected, the winner gets a clothing item or an accessory designed by your company. You can also give away smaller prizes to the rest of the participants to make them excited about your business, and keep them guessing what the next giveaway will be and how they can enter.
5. Video contest – Similarly to photo contest, entrants’ videos will provide unique high-quality content which can either highlight the products designed by your company, or feature content which is closely related to your business. For example, entrants can be asked to send you a creative/fun/inspiring video of them using one of your products and win a prize in return. They should also be encouraged to include editing, voice overs, photos, special effects, and music, so they can express themselves as artistically as they can. Both, photo and video contests are one of the most interactive giveaways you could organize, and will definitely make your giveaway stand out, facilitate brand promotion, and keep your visitors not only genuinely interested in seeing “real-people” stories, but also more than willing to participate.
6. Reward giveaway – A sure-fire way to keep customers glued to your brand is to gamify your giveaway. Giveaway gamification requires a program designed in such a way to give points for completing specific activities, rewarding the participants whenever they complete the task at hands successfully. The game-like character of the giveaway means that the active users will “level up” on leaderboards, which enables tracking the progress of each individual contestant. Also, the progress is clearly visible for those who are competing, so they can compare their results with others and see where they stand. Each level should be more challenging than the previous one, but at the same time, advancement should bring certain incentives, such as discounts, gift cards, product giveaways, etc. This type of giveaway boosts customer loyalty and keeps the entrants engaged.
7. Scavenger hunt – There are a couple of ways you can organize a scavenger hunt; it can be a real photo contest, where entrants will be required to take pictures of certain objects from their surroundings and submit them once they finish. Another way is to ask the contestants to find hidden images, objects or letters on your website. The first 10 entrants who manage to identify all the hidden objects from the list will be awarded with a valuable prize.
8. Storytelling contest – Ask your entrants to share a specific story with you and your customers. It can be a personalized story, or the one focusing on their knowledge about your business – they can write about the most memorable event from their past, the reasons why they consider they are the ones who should win, the ways they would use the prize, their experiences with using one of your products, etc. Once you decide on the topic and receive submissions, let the voting become public. Share the stories with your customers and ask them to vote on the story they think deserves to win. Not only will this giveaway idea increase interaction and engagement, but it will also give you a valuable insight and information about your customers.
9. Nominees wanted – This contest will require the entrants to nominate people they think are ideal candidates for becoming contest winners. For example, the contestants can be asked to nominate a person who has done something to help the community, somebody who is making a difference and is a great role-model, or a person who has achieved great success. You can organize public voting by asking your visitors to vote for the best candidate, or you can choose the winner yourself, and reward both the winner and the entrant who nominated them.
10. Customize-the-product contest – If your product line has items which users can customize and personalize as they see fit, use that to your advantage. What makes this giveaway idea unique is its potential to be used as a real-time shopper preferences survey which will help make your future product designs as individualized as possible. Organize a contest and ask the entrants to suggest a product redesign or create their own product configuration. Make a selection of the most creative ideas and give valuable prizes to the winner and runners-up. Don’t forget to note down the feedback you received, since you might want to use it for future reference.
11. Slogan contest – This is another contest which can serve as a market research tool and help you find out what your customers are looking for in your business. The contest rules are simple – ask the entrants to come up with ideas for your brand slogan. Narrow down the top slogan ideas, ask the visitors to chose five they believe are the best fit, and give away prizes to the winner and the rest of the participants.
12. Pick the logo – If you are in need of a new logo, or looking to redesign the existing one, you can ask your customers to submit their own logo ideas. Once you receive the submissions, crowdsource the judging process and give a prize to the contestant whose idea gets the majority of votes.
13. Fill-in-the-blank contest – Rules of this contest are similar to those of a popular game called Mad Libs which you might have played as a child. The entrants are given an out-of-context sentence with a missing word, and are asked to fill in the blank with a word of their choice. You are likely to get some hilarious answers, and the most creative person should be chosen as the winner.
14. Pet-related contest – Including pets in your giveaways is a sure-fire way to increase your conversion rates and put your brand under the spotlight, since almost everyone loves to share pet-related content. Chose the topic you would like to focus on (e.g. “Sleeping time”, “My first snow”, Favorite food”, etc.). Ask the entrants to submit the photo or a video depicting their pet in a situation that best fits the marketing idea behind the contest, and invite users to vote for the best submission.
15. Sports-themed giveaway – One of the giveaway ideas ideal when the majority of your visitors are avid sports fans is organizing a sports-themed contest. Whenever there is a significant sporting event coming up, organize a giveaway during which the entrants will be required to predict the winner, the team to be the first to score, the final spread, the coin toss winner, etc. The winners are all the participants whose predictions came true.
16. Trivia contest – When organizing a trivia contest you should think of a trivia question related to your brand, product, or types of services you offer. The reason for that is getting people focused on your business. Since the winner of the giveaway should be the first person to answer the question correctly, ensure that contestants cannot simply Google the right answer – they should come up with the answer on their own.
17. Spot-the-difference contest – First off, find a picture with various details in it (or, ideally, take a photo which includes one or more of your products). Copy the photo and then edit it in such a way you will change just one single detail. You can do that by using a software such as Adobe Photoshop or any similar one. Merge the photos together, either by putting them one above the other, or side-by-side. Ask the participants to spot the difference, and prepare a prize for the contestant who is the fastest to identify it.
18. Timed Giveaway – Timed giveaways are known to increase engagement as they create a sense of urgency, making people feel like they would be missing out if they fail to participate. It is fairly simple to organize such a giveaway – give entrants a deadline (usually around 24 hours) to perform a certain activity. For example, you can ask contestants to solve a short quiz, or answer a question, and give them 3 hours to complete the task. The first 5 entrants to finish in that time frame will be awarded with a prize.
19. Scheduled giveaway – Consider rewarding random people from your mailing list by organizing giveaways at a scheduled time, such as every week or every month. The winners are chosen randomly, and the only requirement is that they are subscribed to your mailing list and are willing to send you a confirmation email if they are the lucky winners. This giveaway idea is great for boosting your brand loyalty, as well as generating new leads.
20. Product launch giveaway – Once you have a new product in store, the best way to build the buzz around it is to organize a promotional giveaway before the actual launching date. You can run a video or a photo contest, or you can ask the participants to leave their email address, and the exclusive group of the luckiest ones will be selected at random. The main reason why pre-launch promotion has becoming increasingly popular is because it is an essential step in helping you build stronger relationships with your customers.
Now it is up to you to try several giveaway ideas that are right up your alley, and see which ones give you the best customer engagement.
Let the games begin!
