Writing giveaway emails is often overlooked because other tasks—like designing the campaign, setting up landing pages, or selecting the perfect prizes—tend to take priority. However, email marketing is critical for driving engagement and participation in your giveaway.
In this article, you'll discover how to craft effective giveaway emails. Keep on reading!
What Is a Giveaway Email?
A giveaway email is a marketing message sent to promote a contest, sweepstakes, or promotional offer in which participants have a chance to win a prize. The purpose of these emails is to encourage participation and build excitement around the brand or product offering the giveaway.
A giveaway email campaign is a sequence of carefully planned emails sent over a specific time frame to promote a giveaway. This consists of the announcement email, reminder emails, last call email, winner announcement email, and follow-up emails.
Why a Giveaway Email is Important
A giveaway email can increase website traffic by directing recipients to visit a landing page or specific product pages to enter the giveaway.
As traffic increases, conversions are more likely to follow. Once visitors are on the site, the excitement of the giveaway can motivate them to explore products or services, sign up for newsletters, or make purchases.
Additionally, offering incentives like discounts for non-winners can further encourage conversions after the giveaway ends.
Key Elements of a Successful Giveaway Email
Learning the key elements of a successful giveaway email is important because it helps you create an effective and engaging campaign that drives results.
Attention-Grabbing Subject Line
An attention-grabbing subject line creates curiosity, urgency, or excitement and encourages recipients to open the email.
What is the best subject line for a giveaway email? In the context of a giveaway email, an effective subject line might mention the prize, use action-oriented language, or highlight a limited-time offer. All of these make it irresistible to ignore.
Here are some examples:
- Mentioning the prize: "Win a Free iPhone 15 – Enter Now!"
- Action-oriented language: "Claim Your Spot in Our $500 Gift Card Giveaway!"
- Highlight a limited-time offer: "24 Hours Left to Enter – Don’t Miss Out!"
Personalized Opening
A personalized opening in a giveaway email addresses the recipient by name and tailors the message to their interests or past interactions with your brand. It helps create a connection and makes the email feel more relevant and engaging.
For example:
- Generic Opening: "We’re excited to announce our latest giveaway!"
- Personalized Opening: "Hi [First Name], we’ve got something special just for you!"
Personalization can also include mentioning recent purchases, browsing behavior, or past entries in your other contests. This approach increases the likelihood that the recipient will feel valued and motivated to participate in your giveaway.
Giveaway Details
Giveaway details are important in a successful giveaway email because they provide recipients with the essential information needed to understand, enter, and participate in your giveaway. This ensures that participants know exactly what to expect and how to take part.
Giveaway details include the prize description, steps on how to enter, eligibility requirements, deadline, winner selection and announcement, and terms and conditions.
Look at this example from Joggy:
The email contained all the important giveaway details, including the prize, mechanics, and end date.
Visual Appeal
Visual appeal is a key element of a successful giveaway email because it captures attention and enhances engagement. Well-designed visuals make your email more attractive and help convey the giveaway's excitement and value.
Important components of your giveaway email design include:
- Eye-catching design: Use vibrant colors, appealing graphics, and a clean layout to draw attention. The design should reflect the theme of the giveaway and be visually consistent with your brand.
- High-quality images: Include clear, high-resolution images of the prize to make it look appealing. Visuals of the prize can make it more tangible and desirable to potential participants. (Read more: How to Choose Images for Your Contest Landing Page)
- Visual hierarchy: Arrange elements so that the most important information (like the prize and CTA) is the most prominent. Use headings, bullet points, and white space effectively to guide the reader’s eye.
Consistent branding: Ensure the email design aligns with your brand’s visual identity, including colors, fonts, and logos. This reinforces brand recognition and trust.
Deadline and Urgency
By setting a clear deadline and creating a sense of urgency, you prompt recipients to act quickly rather than postponing their decision. This helps to boost participation rates and ensures a timely response.
Social Proof
Social proof is a powerful element in giveaway emails because it taps into the psychological tendency for people to follow the actions and opinions of others.
Showcasing positive feedback, testimonials, or endorsements from past participants or influencers can increase credibility and reassure recipients about your giveaway’s legitimacy.
Clear and Enticing Call to Action (CTA)
A clear and enticing call to action (CTA) directs recipients on what to do next and motivates them to take immediate action. You can emphasize the benefits of participating and provide clear instructions on how to enter the giveaway.
Here are giveaway message examples:
- "Enter Now for Your Chance to Win!"
- "Claim Your Prize."
- "Refer a Friend, Earn Extra Entries!"
Types of Giveaway Emails
There are different types of giveaway emails, and each serves a different purpose and is tailored to a specific stage of your campaign:
Giveaway Announcement
The giveaway announcement email’s purpose is to introduce the giveaway and generate excitement. In this email, you will see details about the prize, how to enter, eligibility, and deadlines.
Email to Encourage Participation
A reminder email reminds recipients about the giveaway and encourages them to enter before the deadline. It includes a summary of the giveaway details, a reminder of the deadline, and a call to action.
Referral Thank-You Email
A referral thank you email is sent to participants who successfully refer a friend to your giveaway or promotional offer. This email acknowledges their effort, thanks them for their participation, and may provide additional information or incentives related to their referral.
Take a look at the example above. Terry Mitchell, co-founder of Sew Much Easier, sent the thank you email to people who entered his giveaway. It includes a message encouraging participants to boost their chances of winning.
Engagement Emails Throughout the Campaign
Engagement emails throughout the campaign are designed to keep participants actively involved, maintain excitement, and drive continued interaction with the giveaway. These emails are strategically sent at various points during the campaign to boost participation and sustain interest.
For example, mid-campaign updates provide participants with updates on the campaign's progress and remind them to stay engaged. Countdown emails create urgency as the giveaway deadline approaches. Lastly, thank you emails contain a thank you message and a request for feedback or a survey about their experience.
Bunkie Life sent the following follow- up email during their giveaway which resulted in 34,297 Leads and $300,000 sales:
In this email, they told participants how to earn more points to get more chances of winning the giveaway.
Giveaway Winner Announcement Email
A giveaway winner announcement email is sent to announce the winner of the giveaway and inform all participants of the result. This email not only celebrates the winner but also thanks all participants for their involvement and can provide information on what to expect next.
How to Write a Giveaway Email
Writing a giveaway email is one of the important parts of promoting your campaign and maintaining interest. Here are the steps you can follow:
Define Your Goal and Target Audience
Whether your goal is to increase brand awareness, boost engagement, or drive sales, a well-defined objective ensures that every element of your email aligns with this purpose. Establish measurable targets related to your goal.
For example, “Increase email list subscribers by 20%” or “Generate 1,000 new social media followers.”
Moreover, understanding your target audience allows you to tailor your messaging to their preferences, interests, and behaviors. This increases the relevance of your email and improves the likelihood of engagement.
Gather information about your audience’s age, gender, location, and income. Understand their interests, values, and lifestyle. This insight helps in crafting a message that resonates with their preferences and motivations.
Craft the Subject Line and Preview Text
The subject line and preview text are often the first elements recipients see in their inboxes. They create the initial impression and can determine whether your email gets opened or ignored.
Aim for brevity and clarity to quickly inform recipients about what they can expect when writing the subject line.
Here are some examples of giveaway email subject lines:
- “Win a $500 Gift Card – Enter Our Giveaway Now!”
- “Don’t Miss Out: Your Chance to Win [Prize Name] Ends Soon!”
- “Exclusive Giveaway: Enter to Win [Prize] and More!”
For the preview text, provide additional details or context that enhances the subject line and encourages opening. For example, if your subject line is “Enter Our Giveaway Now!”, the preview text could be, “Get a chance to win a $500 gift card – hurry, time is running out!”
Write the Body Copy
Writing the body copy of a giveaway email is essential for conveying all necessary information and persuading recipients to participate.
Start with a friendly greeting to establish a personal connection. Then introduce the giveaway and highlight the main prize to grab attention.
Provide clear instructions on how recipients can enter the giveaway. This could include steps like filling out a form, sharing on social media, or referring friends. Clearly state the start and end date of the giveaway to create a sense of urgency.
Finally, use a clear and compelling CTA to prompt recipients to take action. If relevant, include testimonials or past success stories to build credibility.
Design Your Email
Aside from the body of the text, your giveaway email design also plays an important role in attracting the attention of your email recipients.
You can use templates, as these often include built-in design elements and layouts that are optimized for readability and engagement. Select a template that is mobile-friendly to ensure your email looks good on all devices, including smartphones and tablets.
Use high-resolution images of the giveaway prize and any related visuals. This helps draw attention and makes the email more visually appealing. Use images and graphics to guide the reader’s eye to key information, such as the prize, CTA, and deadlines.
Test Your Email
A/B testing is a powerful method for refining your email campaigns by comparing different versions to see which performs better. This involves creating two or more variations of an email and sending them to different segments of your audience to determine which version yields the best results.
By comparing the performance of these variations, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance your email campaign’s effectiveness.
For example, you can experiment with different subject lines to see which one has a higher open rate.
- Example A: “Win a $500 Gift Card – Enter Now!”
- Example B: “Don’t Miss Your Chance to Win $500!”
You can also test your CTAs, email designs, content, frequency, and send times. Divide your email list into segments to send each variation to a different group. Ensure that the segments are similar in size and characteristics to avoid skewed results.
Using UpViral to Write Your Giveaway Emails
When you’re running your giveaway through UpViral, you can also use the platform to manage all the email communications throughout your giveaway campaign. Here are some features you can try:
- Sign-up confirmation: When participants sign up for the giveaway, UpViral can send an automatic confirmation email. This email acknowledges their entry and provides important details such as how to earn more entries and the timeline for the contest.
- Referrals: UpViral also allows you to set up referral-based giveaway campaigns, so you can reward participants for referring others. After a successful referral, an automated thank-you email can be sent to participants, and this can encourage them to keep referring.
- Double Opt-in: Moreover, to help you maintain email list quality and reduce fraudulent entries, UpViral offers a double opt-in feature. When participants sign up, they receive a confirmation email asking them to verify their email address.
- Fraud Detection: You can monitor suspicious activity to prevent referral abuse. For example, if the same IP address is used when someone signs up through the participant's unique referral link, the UpViral system flags this as "suspicious" activity. When this happens, an email will be sent to the suspicious participant.
- Winner Announcement: Once the giveaway ends, UpViral allows you to automatically send a winner announcement email to the chosen participants.
Conclusion
Giveaway campaigns are often fast-paced, and in the rush to launch, you may skip email communication in favor of other tasks. However, giveaway emails are important to the success of your campaign, because it helps keep participants engaged throughout the campaign.
UpViral makes it easy to set up your giveaway, from designing it to writing your giveaway emails. If you’re interested, you can try it today!
