Giveaways are a terrific way to create a buzz around your brand and reach a wider audience. But running giveaways (especially on a big scale isn't easy). To be specific, you need exceptional technical support to increase reach, manage data, and measure return on investment. 

Having an omnichannel marketing platform can help you run giveaways on the scale. In this post, we will look at 8 popular ideas for a giveaway and how to execute them well. 

1. Free product with purchase

Giving a free product with every purchase is one of the popular marketing giveaway ideas to promote a new product or any underselling product. You can create a small bundle of the new product with your existing ones or offer a free sample for a minimum purchase amount.

Example of free product with purchase giveaway

Ashley & Co, a luxury brand, offered free samples of their products for all purchases above $50. This move was to make customers familiar with all ranges in product lines.

Tips to run effective free products with purchase giveaways

Choose the best-selling products

Give complementary products with your existing best-selling products for maximum reach. These are the products for which you have already established trust, and anything coming with it will look credible.

Select the product bundles wisely

Create product bundles that complement each other and intrigue customers. For instance, a user purchasing hair shampoo may be interested in getting a complimentary conditioner or serum.

Set a minimum order condition

To avoid heavy losses in such giveaways, you can set a minimum order condition. Let's take the example discussed above. If you are offering free conditioner, you can offer it for all orders above a certain amount or only shampoo bottles above a certain size. 

This way, you are making enough profit from the order to offer anything complimentary.

Promote the offer

Promote the offer across all your marketing channels, clearly highlighting the free item.

Set a limit of one free product per customer

These promotions are mostly for free trials, so set a limit so that a customer can avail of the offer only one time. This step ensures you are not running out of inventory and reaching more customers. 

2. Buy one get one free (BOGO)

Buy one get one free (BOGO) or Buy two get one free offers are great campaign giveaway ideas for eCommerce businesses to boost sales. It is also an excellent strategy to clear out the inventory and attract more customers.

This strategy works particularly well with fast-moving products that customers use regularly, such as clothing, accessories, and more. For high-priced items, you can also run "Buy three get one free" campaigns. 

Example of buy two get one free giveaway

P&Co, a clothing and lifestyle brand, ran offers on its T-shirts. Customers could buy two and get one free. 

Tips to run effective BOGO giveaways

Choose high-demand products

Choose the products that customers need in bulk and would like to make the best of BOGO giveaways.

Create a sense of urgency

Run limited-time offers and send alerts if inventory is running low to boost purchases.

3. Brand partnership bundle

Brand partnership giveaways are strategies where two brands come together to create a product bundle. This approach helps both brands to tap into each other's audience and gain more visibility. 

Example of brand partnership giveaway

Crate and Kids (a baby products brand) and Monte Design (a future brand) partnered together to run a giveaway. They promoted a nursery chair, which was relevant to both brands' audiences. 

Tips to run effective brand partnership giveaway

Identify the right brand to partner with

Partner with a brand that has a shared target audience and the products complement each other. For instance, a vegan food brand complements a fitness product brand well.

Set a goal first and design the campaign backward

Identify what you want to achieve with the giveaway and then work backward. For instance, if the goal is to get trials done for a new product, then design a product bundled with that product. 

If the goal is to reach a wider audience, you can run a collaboration and give the product to one of the lucky winners.

Cross-promote the products

The main goal of brand partnerships is to reach each other's audience. You can plan giveaway promotions on all marketing channels of both brands. 

4. Seasonal and holiday-themed giveaways

Seasonal and holiday-themed giveaways are campaigns where businesses offer free products for specific seasons or holidays. Customers keep the spending budget to shop around the holidays, making it a great time to run a promotion. 

Example of seasonal and holiday-themed giveaways

NOBULL, a footwear brand, ran a giveaway on Black Friday, and the lucky winner would get a pair of shoes. 

Tips to run effective seasonal and holiday-themed giveaways

Choose products that align with the holiday

Offer products that customers need the most on holiday. You can check your past order history around similar times last year to identify a pattern and also tap into online conversations to find what's trending. 

Keep the messaging festive

It's not a regular promotion but a festival promotion. Keep the messaging festive to create an emotional connection with customers and live up to the holiday spirit.

Start planning in advance

Plan the campaign in advance to get more time to run promotions and execute it strategically. 

Keep something for last-minute shoppers

Some customers are also looking for products at the last minute, and you can plan flash offers to capitalize on this rush. 

5. Tag-a-friend giveaways

Tag-a-friend is another common giveaway where brands ask participants to tag their social media connections in the posts, and randomly chosen participants get the prize. 

This is a great idea for generating brand buzz as it's simple to execute for brands and easy for customers to participate in. 

Example of tag-a-friend giveaway

Tips to run effective tag-a-friend giveaways

Keep the rules simple

Make it easy for users to participate in the giveaway by keeping the rules as simple as possible and adding detailed descriptions.

Create a sense of urgency

Run limited-time giveaways to encourage quick customer participation.

Collaborate with influencers for promotion

Collaborate with influencers to promote the giveaway for maximum reach.

6. Product bundle giveaway

A product bundle giveaway is another promotional strategy where you can create a small collection of relevant products and give any product for free. It helps in two ways. 

First, it increases the average order value as customers buy bigger bundles to get the free item. Secondly, it also helps in the promotion of the items you are giving for free. 

Example of product bundle giveaway

Tips to run effective product bundle giveaways

Choose a theme for the product bundle

Take related products that are exciting together as a bundle for the customer.

Allow flexible product bundling

Give customers the option to add or remove products from the bundle as per their choice so they don't drop the bundle for 1-2 products that don't match their interests.

7. Gamified giveaways 

Gamified giveaways are different from regular giveaways. It engages customers by using game-like elements. 

For example, customers are required to enter the giveaway by participating in a quiz or a mystery box challenge and more. It is one of the cool giveaway ideas for engaging with customers. 

Example of gamified giveaways

Tips to run effective gamified giveaways

Use common game mechanics

Keep the giveaway rules simple, like spin to win, mystery box, etc, which customers are familiar with. It reduces friction and boosts participation.

Make it shareworthy

Make the rules of the game interesting and encourage participants to share them on social media to gain more visibility. 

8. Influencer giveaway

An influencer giveaway is one of the campaign giveaway ideas where you can collaborate with influencers to promote giveaways. Influencers' followers participate in the giveaway based on certain rules. You can discuss the rules with the influencer in advance. 

The best part of this type of giveaway is that influencers have massive reach, so you don't need another big promotional strategy to make the giveaway a hit. 

Example of influencer giveaways

Tips to run effective influencer giveaways

Choose influencers in your target audience

Choose influencers whose followers lie more in the demographics you are targeting. Also, check if the influencers' usual social media messaging aligns with your brand persona.

Keep the giveaway rules simple

Make it simple for participants to take part in giveaways for maximum reach. 

Create interesting content around giveaways

The good part about collaborating with influencers is they can create interesting content around your products, which will make both your products and giveaway enticing. 

Promote giveaways using Plivo CX

Creating a giveaway is only the first step. Promoting it well to ensure it reaches the maximum and the right audience is the main part. With Plivo CX, you can easily promote giveaways via SMS, email, and WhatsApp campaigns.

For example, you can launch giveaway campaigns with pre-built templates or create new campaigns and personalized content quickly with our AI-powered copywriter. Our Audiences feature also helps segment customers based on their online behavior, engagement levels, and purchase history and target the right audience for the giveaway. 

You also get comprehensive analytics dashboards to help you understand how the giveaway is performing.

‍Sign up for a free trial to run exciting giveaways and boost the reach of your brand.