How To Use Email Giveaways To Nurture Your Audience [2024]

Even though emailing has been around for ages and is seen as an outdated marketing tool by some, email marketing remains a powerful promotional method, along with social media, paid ads, and SEO.

On their way to business growth, many e-commerce brands offer subscribers free stuff or information that shows they value their support to increase engagement and customer loyalty.

In this guide, we’ll focus on the importance of email giveaways and explain how to prompt your customers to subscribe to your list, engage with your marketing campaigns, and share your information with their peers for maximum exposure.

What Is A Giveaway?

A giveaway involves the distribution of free products or services for promotional or marketing purposes. Website owners and entrepreneurs hold contests where a participant is picked from a pool of entries to receive a reward.

There are no hard and fast rules: you can be as creative as you like. Sometimes the host selects more than one winner. Plus, people can sometimes improve their chances of winning by earning bonus points or coupons for sharing the giveaway on social media or referring a friend.

Apart from essential information, such as the starting and end date of the contest, you can also set up giveaway emails as extra marketing touchpoints to inform users about products or events that might interest them.

Why Are Giveway Emails Important?

Here is why you should consider adding these email types to your existing strategy:

• Brand awareness: They help you reach a wider audience faster and showcase some of your best products/services.
• List building: They enable you to put new customers and prospects in your mailing list and nurture them with great content.
• Conversions: Email giveaways receive high open rates when sent in a timely manner.
• Customer loyalty: They re-engage active customers and introduce them to new products/services.

Therefore, there are main benefits to reap at different stages of the customer journey, so consider including giveaways in your newsletters.

Types Of Giveaways

Let’s see some giveaway types you can plan to attract new customers and prospects:

• Sweepstakes – Customers enter into a lucky draw by completing a certain task, such as signing up for your email list. Check this example by Universal Studios:

• Contests – A contest prompts customers to create something and submit it to you for review. You can run it using hashtags or photos, and the winner(s) receive a cool surprise reward. Here’s a social media contest example by Pop-Tarts:

• Discounts – These giveaways are usually sent when new users subscribe to your mailing list. For example, Kapten & Son gives a 10% discount to new subscribers based on the popup form on their website. Gift cards and coupons are viable options, too.

• Survey giveaways: This is a great way to do market research while increasing exposure through a giveaway. Give your customers a chance to win a free prize by providing you with valuable feedback. Look at how Grammarly did it:

The giveaway type you choose for your campaign should be appropriate for your target audience, but you can think outside the box when it comes to the prize. Essentially, you need to ensure that it entices your followers into participating.

Ready to send your first giveaway email campaign? Sign up for a Moosend account today, choose one of the ready-made templates, and design a beautiful newsletter to boost conversions.

Join Moosend

How To Set An Email Giveaway Strategy From Scratch

If you’re new to email giveaways and want to set the groundwork successfully from day one, here are the essential steps to follow:

1. Set Realistic Goals

First off, you need to sit down and map out precisely what you wish to gain from running the giveaway. Doing this makes your job much easier because there are different methods for different goals. Project management software such as Monday or Asana can help lay out the campaign goals and track its performance.

For instance, if you want to grow your email list, it wouldn’t make sense to send the giveaway email to your existing audience. You need to go out and appeal to new subscribers by running a contest on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Once you have a clear goal in mind, you can start planning the steps toward executing a successful giveaway. There are also a number of useful tools you can use to run your giveaway emails, like KingSumo and Woorise. These platforms usually automate the process for you, and you can integrate it with email marketing platforms like Moosend or Mailchimp.

2. Choose The Appropriate Giveaway

As you understand, selecting the right type of giveaway for your target audience is essential. Your reward needs to be something your followers desire so that they fully engage in the contest. Depending on your industry, it can be anything from a year subscription to a popular software tool or an exclusive pair of earrings.

For example, if you sell scuba diving gear, you can pick a pair of quality fins as a prize. This will engage current buyers and prospects more and will increase the product exposure – it’s a win-win.

On the other hand, choosing the wrong type of giveaway could harm your contest. Think of the scuba gear example again. Your customers who know you as a business that sells the best scuba gear won’t be thrilled to see a pair of rollerblades as a prize as they aren’t necessarily interested in this hobby. Therefore, you’ll end up with no engagement from your target audience and an email list full of rollerblading enthusiasts, which is counterproductive.

3. Create The Rules And Guidelines

It’s important to set out the giveaway rules and guidelines from the start so that your contestants know what they need to do to have a chance to win the prize. Inform participants about the steps they need to follow to enter the competition, whether that’s subscribing to your newsletter, sharing your post on Instagram, or tagging friends.

You also need to determine the duration of the giveaway. In general, if the competition is very short, not many people will join, and if it’s very long, they’re likely to lose interest after a while. A week or ten days are usually the best way to go. You can also mention how many times people can enter and give a sneak peek of how they can get more chances to win.

Overall, the rules and guidelines should be straightforward and easy to follow. Finally, make it a fun process for everyone to maximize performance.

4. Promote Your Giveaway

Once your giveaway logistics are ready, you need to get as much exposure as possible. So how to do that? First of all, use your website, email, and social media to tell people about your latest giveaway with an effective call to action (CTA). Provide them with an easy-to-follow link via promotional emails leading to a landing page to sign up in seconds.

Source

Secondly, create a rule prompting each contestant to share the giveaway landing page link at least once. Better yet, entice each entrant by making a rule that for every referral they bring, they enter the draw once more. On the other hand, if you ask participants to share the giveaway without any incentives, they’d act against their own self-interest.

Thirdly, if you are part of any business event, you’ll get your prospective email subscribers there. Placing a QR code with a call to action can help you gain subscribers more interactively. This way, your giveaway gets the attention it deserves, and you reach your goal.

5. Track And Analyze The Results

If you have a massive email list, it’s not always possible to keep track of who shared your link or post and how many times they did so. Therefore, using giveaway tools will make your life much easier. These tools track giveaway participants upon their registration, add them to your email list, calculate their entries, and in the end, use a random name generator to choose a winner.

When the giveaway is over, it’s time to look at the data to learn more about your customers, such as:

• Customer demographics and psychographics
• New prospects to qualify and add to your email list
• Customer pain points

How To Grow Your Email List Through Giveaways

If the main goal of your giveaway is email list building, here are some best practices to follow:

1. Use Lead magnets To Entice Opt-ins

In general, nobody wants to share their personal information for free. Using lead magnets can help you overcome this barrier. In brief, they are marketing tools offered to prospective clients in exchange for their personal data, such as full name, email address, phone number, etc. In most cases, they’re free resources such as whitepapers, checklists, and e-books recipients can easily download.

Another interesting lead magnet example would be custom clothing featuring your brand, such as a hat or shirt with your logo, given in exchange for contact information. This results in acquiring a new subscriber and free brand promotion.

2. Leverage Social Media

Social media is the most widely used source to gather information in today’s world – knowing how to leverage it to promote your giveaway campaign and brand is absolutely essential for your growth.

Hence, you should actively promote your giveaway contest to succeed. Create posts considering the following:

• Announcement of the giveaway with essential details and the giveaway link.
• Make multiple organic status updates inviting people to join the giveaway.
• Use the posts to promote your business and increase brand recognition.
• Congratulate people for joining the giveaway and use social proof by posting how many people have already joined the giveaway.

Regular posting is crucial for promoting your giveaway and brand. Utilize tools such as Hootsuite to plan and pre-schedule all your social media posts. This helps maintain audience engagement and expands your reach to potential customers.

3. Nurture Your New Audience

After collecting the new email addresses, you need to take certain actions to appeal to your new email subscribers and gradually convert these leads into customers. You can achieve that by sending personalized email newsletters addressing their pain points.

For example, you can schedule tailored emails with discount codes for their first purchase in your store. However, overwhelming them with numerous and irrelevant email campaigns might scare them off. That’s why it’s important to add an unsubscribe button at the email footer to give them the opportunity to opt out if they wish to maintain a good brand reputation.

Check this example by McDonald’s to better understand:

Source: Reallygoodemails

4. Employ Email Automation

Carrying on from what we discussed above about the fine line between promoting and over-sending, email automation makes this a piece of cake.

In a nutshell, automating your emails allows you to send personalized and timely email campaigns to the right people at the right time. This means that those who engage with your emails will receive more, and those who don’t seem interested will get into reactivation mode.

To leverage the benefits of automation, you need a dedicated platform like Moosend to streamline it successfully. Sign up for a Moosend account today and try our amazing features!

5. Test And Optimize Your Strategies

Testing and optimizing your email strategies is critical for your growth. The better you get at connecting with your audience, winning their trust, and invoking certain emotions, the more successful you will be as an email marketer.

The best way to test email strategies is through A/B testing. This method enables you to try different versions of an email campaign, and the winning option is sent to most of your subscribers.

You can also include additional elements to induce a sense of urgency with cues, such as countdown timers to motivate your readers to act fast.

Email Giveaway Campaign Examples

Let’s explore some giveaway email examples from notable brands to inspire you:

1. Apto Skincare Giveaway Email Example

Subject line: Win all of our masks 💆

Why it works: Apto Skincare created a massive giveaway to demonstrate its amazing products and boost customer loyalty and interest. Starting from the subject line, the goal of the campaign is straightforward and indulges subscribers to open it. Then they land on a catchy design with a clear image of the products the winners will get.

Finally, the copy clarifies all the essential details and guidelines of the contest, including the dates, so that all giveaway participants know exactly what to do.

2. Snif Email Newsletter Example

Subject line: Free Presents Inside.

Why it works: Snif invites subscribers to an Instagram giveaway contest to win their amazing candles. The words “free” and “presents” on the subject line are attractive for readers, and so is the email content.

Apart from beautiful images of the candles followed by amazing copy, they included a clear CTA, and the only rule to join this amazing giveaway, which is to drop an emoji at the post.

3. Postable Valentine’s Giveaway Email

Subject line: $100 Valentine Card Giveaway! ❤

Why it works: If you want to make the most of seasonality, you can also plan a giveaway to remind current and prospective customers that your offers are perfect for presents.

That’s exactly what Postable aimed for when they planned this Valentine’s giveaway. Everyone is looking for a beautiful card for their loved ones that day, so why not allow them to win one while showing them the rest of them?

Email Giveaway Template Example

Overall, an excellent example of a giveaway email has a compelling subject line, informative content with powerful words, and a straightforward call-to-action to sign up for the giveaway.

Let’s look at a giveaway email example mentioned earlier for the scuba fins:

Subject Line: We’re giving away a pair of customizable scuba fins to one lucky winner!

Pre-header text: Join our exclusive giveaway and win now.

Hi there [First Name],

Yes, you read that right! We’re giving away a pair of customizable scuba fins from Brand X to the person who comes up with the best design.

All you have to do is:

1. Register for the giveaway
2. Share your design on Instagram with the hashtag #scubadoobydoo
3. Like our most recent post on Instagram about the giveaway

Once we’ve chosen a winner, we’ll announce it on Instagram and send the fins with the winner’s design!

Sound good? Sign up for the giveaway on our [website link].

Good luck!

The Scuba Team.

The Takeaways

Giveaways give you the opportunity to engage with your customers and delight them with a reward. They enable you to increase brand awareness and improve your brand reputation.

If you truly want your business to thrive, use the strategies discussed in this article. Once you get the hang of them, giveaways become second nature in your journey to grow your business.

Looking for an email marketing platform with easy-to-use features to promote your giveaways? Sign up for a Moosend account today and start a free trial!