Marketing psychology always comes in handy in any campaign. And yes, that includes contests or giveaways!
But why is psychology important to marketers? Does it help increase conversions? Most importantly, how can we leverage it to boost your giveaways?
I’ve prepared this helpful guide for you. After reading, you should be able to effectively use marketing psychology techniques to your advantage.
Keep reading.
What is Marketing Psychology and Why Should You Care?
It’s really simple: Marketing psychology is when you incorporate psychological techniques into your content or message.
Because once you understand what motivates people to take action, you can tweak your giveaway campaign to make it 10x better!
A lot of giveaway hosts fail to see results with their campaigns despite their best efforts.
They notice that even though people signed up for the giveaway, only a few end up staying until the winner announcement date or becoming customers (if there’s a sale at the end of the giveaway).
The problem could exist on their landing page. Perhaps it’s their copy or image. It could also be their promotional strategies.
But without knowing why your campaign isn’t working, it’s nearly impossible to trigger the right emotion and action from your audience.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into the top marketing psychology tricks you can use during a giveaway.
5 Marketing Psychology Tricks to Use During Your Giveaway (With Examples)
1. Create a sense of urgency.
One of the best ways to get people to enter and share your giveaway more often is to spark a feeling of urgency.
Create some “pressure” by letting your audience know that your giveaway runs for only a limited time. Don’t give people a chance to talk themselves out of participating in the giveaway.
Set a deadline. You can do this by including a countdown timer on your landing page. Another option is to tell people when exactly your giveaway will end through email or social media!
Take a look at the sample email below and notice how it specifies the duration of the $500 treat - from October 18 to November 1.
2. Tell a meaningful story.
People are curious beings by nature, and a good story satisfies that curiosity. A story can effectively turn dull information into interesting information. Meaningful stories draw people in!
One of our referral campaigns at UpViral was about a feel-good charity cause.
Entrepreneur Nicholas Kusmich’s goal was to increase his book sales. Each book costs only $4. But here’s what made the difference in Nic’s campaign:
He told the story of how he needed to sell his book to be able to provide clean water for a village. He explained that 100% of the proceeds would be donated to that cause, and he even calculated how many books he needed to sell to make it happen.
People wanted to be part of this story. It compelled them to actively participate by referring their friends to buy the book.
If your giveaway doesn’t involve a feel-good cause, here are other ways to use storytelling:
- Share how you started your business and find a way to tie it to your giveaway. Perhaps your giveaway would be a way of celebrating your anniversary!
- Share your customers’ successes with the product that you’ll be giving away, and that you want one or two winners to experience the same thing. (Bonus tip: Offer a sale at the end of the campaign.)
3. Give your audience something that they want first.
Did you know that when you give people what they want, they feel compelled to return the favor?
In marketing, this is called the principle of reciprocity. It may seem like you’re on the losing end, but the reality is that you gain more by giving something valuable away.
Here’s a common example of reciprocity:
A business owner offers a free fitness resource. Because that free resource has provided a ton of value to readers, they’re on their way to paying for the business owner’s premium membership.
Reciprocity can be a powerful tool to use in a giveaway. Why don’t you try it?
Dave Statler of Max Rhymes did and was amazed by people’s response. Here’s how he used reciprocity:
In his giveaway, he offered everyone who entered a “FREE GIFT” if they reached 200 points.
(Note that it was very easy for giveaway entrants to accumulate 200 points since Dave assigned huge points to actions that benefited Max Rhymes. One of these actions was to tag someone with a kid or grandchild who’s 0-7 years old!)
This strategy resulted in more sign-ups and helped the giveaway gain more reach!
<<Learn How Max Rhymes Went from Zero to +7,800 Leads>>
4. Show credibility.
When you put together a giveaway, do you make it easy for people to trust and believe you? Sure, having an amazing landing page design is good. But credibility goes beyond great visuals.
Here are some things you can do:
- Partner with an influencer in your niche who can help spread the word about your giveaway.
- Add customer or client testimonials on your landing page.
- Show the size of your user base or how many followers you have.
- Add links to customers’ success stories or case studies (if you have them)
- If you’ve been featured in a publication, website, or podcast, display their logos on your landing page.
5. Use loss aversion.
Help people make a decision to buy your product by letting them feel the pain of not having it. This is what loss aversion is about.
Loss aversion is a psychological phenomenon in which people act based on the fear of losing something or facing a consequence. In this case, punishment becomes the motivator rather than a reward.
So you already understand what loss aversion is. But how do you use it in your giveaway??
Take it from our Bunkie Life case study.
David Fraser, owner of Bunkie Life, leveraged loss aversion by holding an epic 2-day sale at the end of his giveaway.
People who didn’t win his $6000 bunkie were given the chance to buy it for $1000 off + free shipping. It was a rare opportunity. Because of this, people hurried to call David and make their orders on the last day of the sale!
Over to You
Are you already using these marketing psychology tricks in your campaign? If not, it’s time to give them a try. You can copy the specific strategies in the examples above or think of other ways to implement urgency, storytelling, reciprocity, and more.
If you’re still looking for a tool that will help you create referral or giveaway campaigns to generate more leads for your business, give UpViral a try! ?
