How Giveaways Can Make YOUR Business A Winner
December 31st, 2008 | Blogging, General
Over the past month or so, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for the Womenwise Marketing e-mail newsletter. Around the same time, Antonia Chitty of the Family Friendly Working Blog held some fabulous giveaways and competitions on her blog and e-newsletter.
I’ve always operated under the mindset that if you don’t ask, you won’t receive. So I asked Antonia if she would offer some tips on how she operates these giveaways.
She generously responded with the following information, and told me I could share it with you—my readers. (Aren’t women in business awesome?)
A shameless plug, before I turn it over to Antonia: if you want to participate in some fun monthly giveaways, don’t forget to sign up for the Womenwise Marketing e-newsletter at right. It only takes two seconds, and you’ll get access to exclusive Womenwise Marketing resources and other valuable freebies.
Antonia Chitty On Competitions
I aim to have a competition every month in my newsletter. It gives subscribers an added incentive to read the newsletter. I also like the fact that it encourages people to interact and not see the newsletter as simply something to read and discard. Getting people to click the links in your newsletter increases your chance of taking them to your website too.
A competition also gives you a better reason to promote your newsletter every month. Instead of saying ‘subscribe to our newsletter for news’, how much more of an incentive is it to say, ‘subscribe to our newsletter and win a chocolate making kit’.
How She Does It
I mention the competition on around 10 sites for women in business and parenting websites too which encourages new subscribers. I send a quick reminder at the end of each month before the closing date for each competition, which allows me to send out any brief news that has come in since the last full newsletter too.
I use a mix of sources for prizes. Because I write books I can often get promotional copies from the publishers—I recently offered a selection of parenting books from White Ladder Press.
If I see a press release about a new product or book that would interest readers of my newsletter and blogs I email and ask for a review copy. I explain how the prize donor will benefit from promotion in my newsletter, how many people it reaches, some of their characteristics, and where else I will promote the competition.
December’s competition is for a chocolate kit from ChocChick: I contacted the business as I was after a treat for the Christmas competition. Next month I am aiming to review a book on Personal Social Responsibility and one on Raising Your Potential, and will offer those together with a small business classic, Anyone Can Do It, as I think that bundle of books will appeal to many of the small business owners and entrepreneurs who read my newsletter.
Why Giveaways Can Be Great Marketing
If you are looking to attract consumers to your newsletter, it is to your advantage to get your competition mentioned on sites like Money Saving Expert or Loquax. These sites are visited by people who enter lots of competitions each month.
You may sometimes feel irritated to see your prize won by someone who has entered in this way, especially if they simply eBay it afterwards. However a mention on this sort of site always leads to a flurry of entries and can be a good way to get a real mix of people visiting your website.
In order to maximize the effect of any competition you may want to:
• Ask a question that encourages people to browse your site, or the site of the prize donor
• Use a form that automatically collects competition entrants details
Make sure that your terms and conditions for the competition allow you to use entrants’ details for marketing afterwards. I have written about more of the legalities of running a competition here.
Antonia Chitty created a family-friendly way to work for herself after having her daughter Daisy in 2002. In addition to writing about her experiences on the Family Friendly Working Blog, she also writes nonfiction books and runs her own PR Agency, ACPR.
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