What if you could increase your email list, sales leads, audience, or followers by 17%.
Would you do it?
Stupid question. Of course you would!
A few weeks back we launched our first giveaway.
Result?
Our giveaway increased email opt-ins by 17%
Could you imagine if every time you gave something away you’re able to reach out and help 17% more people.
In this debrief we’ll go over:
- What crushed.
- What flushed.
- How to create (and crush) your own giveaway
We went through all of the good and bad for you.
Then we created what we believe is the best way to run a giveaway or contest online.
(This 1200+ word article details exactly what went right, what went wrong, and how you can create your own successful giveaway.)
Hope you enjoy it
In this post we’ll go over the “behind-the-scenes” of our first giveaway, and offer step-by-step instructions on how to launch your own:
What crushed 
- Gmail and Facebook Messenger were by far the most effective way to promote the giveaway in the early stages.
- Emailing the giveaway launch out to the email list was successful but not as successful as if we had explained the benefits of what was included. (More on that below)
What flushed 
- In the day or so leading up to the giveaway we failed to communicate the value of the giveaway. I completely left out actually telling people what they were getting, why it’s cool, and how to use it before the giveaway to create a of sense of interest and desire.
- We thought a week would be enough to launch a giveaway. WRONG. Doing research and finding people by directly reaching out takes a ton of time, and without certain automations in place, or a huge email list to leverage, 1 week simply isn’t enough time. In the future, we’ll give ourselves 2 weeks to let the contest run.
How to crush YOUR giveaway 
Based on what we’ve learned from this past launch, these are the steps we would take to have a highly successful giveaway/contest launch, broken out for you step-by-step.
Step #1: Plan it out
Figure out an overarching theme for your giveaway based on your audience (ours was “Crush Your Goals”)
Then, book 1 hour on your calendar every day for the next 3 days so you can work on setting up your giveaway.
After that book 2-3 more weeks to let the giveaway run its course.
Step #2: Product audience match
Search Amazon, Google, and Product Hunt for products that your audience might like.
If there’s a specific high ticket item, then reach out to the manufacturer or creator and see if they’d be willing to sponsor it.
And, if you approach them as a previous customer that loves their product and wants to promote it, often times they’ll be more interested.
Step #3: Set up the giveaway
Choose which giveaway app you’re going to launch with and make it happen.
- KingSumo Giveaway (for WordPress only)
- Gleam (Great for starting out, and social sharing – used mostly by YouTubers)
- Rafflecopter (Another great alternative)
All of the tools above work great.
Check them out, and use one that works best for what you’re trying to achieve.
We used KingSumo, but that’s completely unnecessary – there are tons of great options.
You can’t go wrong–just choose one.
Next, you’ll need to link up your social media accounts, and do some admin level stuff here.
Get everything set up as best as you can and move on to the next step.
We’ll come back to this later.
Step #4: Prepare the share-ables
Use Amazon to grab a bunch of product images.
Then use Canva to create a shareable image.
The goal here is to make an image that you can easily post on multiple social media accounts – don’t over think it.
Step #5: Write the pre-launch email
Write the pre-launch email to your email list telling them about the overarching theme and what to expect inside, then list out each thing with the value, along with the total value of the giveaway
Step #6: Find groups on Facebook
Go to Facebook Groups
Now, let’s say our topic or overarching theme was on Health & Fitness…
Then, scroll through the groups and find one that is similar to your topic.
Next, click “See All” a the bottom to see every group within this topic
Now that you can see every group within your topic, scroll down until you see little profile pics of your Facebook Friends next to these groups.
Scroll over their profile image and click “Message” to DM them.
Click “Message” and in the chat just send a simple casual hello to get their attention.
That’s it.
Rinse and repeat.
Also, consider joining any of these groups that you think fit your topic and/or seem healthy and active.
Step #7: Test the giveaway
At this point you should have a giveaway set up and connected to your accounts.
Run back through things one more time and make sure everything is set up and ready to go.
Launch the Giveaway.
Then test it to make sure it works correctly…this is important
Step #8: Write the launch email
Write and send an email to your email list using the same basic format as your pre-launch email.
Show them the value you’re giving away to them for free.
We did a poor job at this.
And we paid for it.
Step #9: Follow up with Facebook friends
Remember those friends you said “Hey” to earlier?
Respond to the ones that respond to your message. Ignore the ones that don’t.
Over the next week or two they will start to get back to you. (Another reason to run the contest for more than 2 weeks)
When they do, simply tell them you came across their profile in a group you were looking at and that you’re running a giveaway on that topic. Don’t send them the link. Ask if they’re interested first…
Example Conversation: You: "Hey!" Them: "What's up?" You: "Just saw you were a member of a fitness FB group I was looking into. Anyhow, I'm doing a huge contest with a cool fitness giveaway. You interested? Them: "Heck yes!" You: "Here's the link: [Insert giveaway link]. Good luck
Step #10: Share your giveaway
Now take the images you made in the previous step using Canva, and share them across your social media accounts. (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.)
Different social media accounts may require different sized images.
Give yourself at least a few days to set up your giveaway, and complete the steps above.
This will take some time.
BOOM!
That’s it – those are the basic steps you need. If you want more advanced steps then see below!
..If you’re feeling more advanced and want to add in some automation then I’ve laid out some advanced steps you can take to make life easier.
(But I really only recommend using these after you’ve launched at least 1 giveaway/contest, and know how everything works together)
Otherwise, you might get in over your head…
Advanced Step #11: Automate your social sharing
Sharing images to different social media accounts is effective but tedious.
I highly recommend using some sort of automation to leverage yourself.
We use Zapier to create specific multi-layered automations.
But a great (free) option is to use a mix between IFTTT and Buffer to get similar results.
- For example, you can post something from Facebook to Twitter.
- Or, you can buffer additional Tweets throughout the day.
- And if you share something on Instagram, you can add those to your Buffer queue.
Here’s a full list by Buffer of free and powerful automations to leverage yourself.
Advanced Step #12: Automate your personal email
As far as personal Gmail outreach goes, my secret weapon is Mailshake.
It helps me schedule big launches and stay on top of follow-ups for promoting stuff.
Mailshake will let you drip emails, and add follow up emails through your personal Gmail account.
You can only send a few out every few minutes, so this is a slow drip not an open faucet.
People are busy, and Mailshake makes it stupid easy to follow up.