Giveaways are like a secret weapon for businesses — they amp up brand visibility, get customers excited, and build a strong sense of loyalty. By offering prizes, you can generate buzz and create positive vibes around your brand. But you might be wondering, “Do giveaways increase sales?”
In this article, you will learn how giveaways attract customers, and how real businesses use them to increase sales. Keep on reading to learn more.
Do Giveaways Increase Sales?
Yes, giveaways help in increasing sales. First, giveaways utilize referral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing by requiring participants to refer their family and friends to the contest for more chances of winning.
This is important because 92% of consumers trust referrals from friends and family.
Moreover, giveaways allow you to grow your email list by offering an incentive in exchange for participants' email addresses. This is beneficial because 70% of email readers look for discounts, coupons, or deals when they open emails — which could be used to purchase your products.
Other than that, email marketing also generates almost 180% more conversions compared to social media.
Giveaways also allow you to promote your social media platforms. This can help increase sales because 87% of buyers say that social media can be helpful in their shopping decisions. Not only that, but 43% of customers learn about new products through these platforms.
How Do Giveaways Attract Customers?
Now that you're aware giveaways contribute to increased sales, let's explore how it happens.
Before that, one question you might ask is, “What are the benefits of a giveaway?” Giveaways offer advantages that end up attracting more customers to your business. These advantages include:
Product Exposure
Giveaways attract customers through product exposure by introducing your brand’s offerings to a wider audience.
When you offer free products or services, it creates an opportunity for potential customers to become familiar with your brand. This in turn sparks interest and lays the foundation for increased customer engagement and potential future purchases.
Trial and Experience
Giveaways offer potential customers a chance to try your product or service for free. For instance, you can offer a sample or a trial version of a product so they can experience the value and quality firsthand.
Positive experiences with the product can create a sense of confidence, making them more likely to consider and make future purchases!
Perceived Value
You can attract customers by making them feel that something special is available for free. For example, when you offer something unique, exclusive, limited edition, or not easily accessible elsewhere, the perceived value of the reward is also enhanced. The concept of scarcity makes the prizes more coveted.
Desirable prizes improve the image of your brand. Participants, even those who may not win, develop a positive perception of your business, making them more likely to consider future purchases. Offering valuable prizes also shows that you commit to providing quality products or services to your customers.
Discounts and Special Offers
By offering discounts and special offers as contest prizes, you're likely attracting participants who have a genuine interest in purchasing your brand.
One strategy is to grant participants early access to upcoming sales or promotions to give them a head start on discounted offers. This creates anticipation and encourages participation.
Another tip is to implement a strategy where participants can earn additional discounts by referring friends or family to the giveaway. This expands the reach of your contest and attracts new customers while rewarding existing participants.
Email List Utilization
Giveaways can be instrumental in building an email list for your business. Ask interested participants to provide their email addresses in exchange for entering the giveaways. This ensures that they willingly share their contact information for the chance to win.
Another tip is encouraging participants to refer friends or family to the giveaway and share their email addresses. Offer additional entries or bonuses as incentives for the referral.
Once you have grown your email list, you can send exclusive content or special offers to subscribers. Consistently engaging with your email list helps build a relationship, increasing the chances of turning them into loyal customers over time.
Social Media Growth
Promote your giveaways on social media platforms to reach more participants. Create visually appealing and sharable content by using attention-grabbing graphics, captions, and hashtags.
You can also integrate social media actions as entry requirements, requiring participants to follow your page or share your giveaway post.
After the giveaway, continue engaging with participants on social media. By using social media effectively, you can attract a wider audience, including potential customers who may convert in the future.
Word of Mouth Marketing
Giveaways leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing because they require participants to share the giveaway with their family and friends. When you offer referral incentives, this further encourages participants to extend the reach of the giveaway within their networks.
Word-of-mouth marketing is powerful because your giveaway participants can act as brand ambassadors. This contributes to brand visibility, trust, and curiosity among potential customers who may be interested in trying your brand’s offerings.
Examples of Giveaways That Generated Sales Using UpViral
No matter what industry or niche you are in, you can generate sales with giveaways when you use it as a tool to attract attention, generate interest, and create positive associations with your brand.
To answer a common question, “Do giveaways help you grow?” below are real-life case studies of businesses that experienced growth after using UpViral.
UpViral is a marketing platform designed to help you create viral marketing campaigns, such as giveaways and referral programs.
Friendly Rugs: 4,500+ Subscribers and $4,775 in Sales
If you’re a new business looking for an audience, you can take inspiration from how Friendly Rugs grew their audience through a giveaway.
Friendly Rugs is a brand that sells washable rugs marketed to pet owners and families with young children. Their main goal was to create an email list that they could build a relationship with. To attract the right participants, they gave away one of the rugs from the brand. The person who referred the winner would also win a $100 certificate.
In addition to these, they also offered additional prizes that can be unlocked:
The photo above shows that participants could get discount codes that can be unlocked after reaching a certain number of points. These points could be earned by completing certain actions, such as sharing the giveaway on social media.
A product showcase of their rugs was also included on the giveaway opt-in page to let participants know about their products. This is one of their strategies to encourage people to unlock the discount codes. Participants can then use the codes to purchase a rug they want.
Bunkie Life: 180.6K Leads and Over $1.5M In Sales
David Fraser founded Bunkie Life, a company that specialized in small log cabins (a.k.a. bunkies).
In 2020, he conducted 3 UpViral contests that resulted in massive leads and sales. He chose to give away three log cabins, which earned him qualified leads. This was because he knew his target market and understood their needs — people with growing families, those who desired to earn extra income through Airbnb, or had a backyard.
To build interest in his products, David used UpViral’s Custom Actions feature. This feature allowed him to provide participants with incentives in exchange for completing actions. This way, he could showcase to participants what a bunkie is, how to get the most out of it, and others!
David used the feature to pre-qualify potential buyers. For example, the action “Answer the Questionnaire” can be done for 300 points. This helped him learn who was interested in purchasing a bunkie.
At the end of the contest, David held a sale for those who didn’t win. In the end, he was able to sell 200 bunkies with the help of the three campaigns!
Legion Beats: Over 41K Leads and $200K Sales
Gabe Schillinger is the CEO of Legion Beats, a California-based music production company that makes beats for singers and rappers. He regularly used UpViral to run a contest.
In one of his contests, he decided to give away a package that included the following prizes:
These prizes attracted the right target audience to his business. Aside from the main prize, Gabe also offered a smaller prize of a collection of 10 free beats in exchange for referring 3 friends to the giveaway. Participants were also allowed to upgrade their beats, which is a great strategy to increase sales!
Before the announcement of the winner, Gabe also made one of the prizes available for only $17, for a limited time only. This earned him $200,000 in a week!
Final Thoughts
Giveaways might not be your first option when you think of increasing sales, but they can help you reach this goal when you do them right. These contests can help you expose your product or service to a wider audience, help you find qualified leads, and so on. All these things can help you attract customers and boost your sales in a short time.
If you want to run a giveaway using UpViral, click here to get started.
