The Art Of A Successful Giveaway

In yesterday’s post for the series “Building A Better Blog In 30 Days“, I showed you how hosting a giveaway or contest on your blog would increase your traffic.  So it’s only fitting that today I explain in more detail on how to effectively run a blog giveaway.

There is actually more to running a successful giveaway than sticking a great product on your blog and telling others to comment. At least until you’re very well established among the blogging community.

Here are some simple guidelines to follow and ideas to think about before hosting your next giveaway.

Acquiring Your Giveaway Product

Choosing what it is that you want to give away could possibly be one of the hardest parts of running a giveaway.  Sometimes it’s hard to find someone willing to offer the product you’re interested in giving away, especially if you’re new at blogging and don’t have a very large readership.

But everyone had to start somewhere, and the best way to convince others to offer a product to give away is to act bigger than you are.

Growing up I was always told to dress the part for how successful I wanted to be, and if I did it long enough, I would become that successful.  It’s exactly the same in blogging.  If you want to be as big as Problogger or Shoemoney, then act like you’re that big already.

I’m not telling you to lie to your readers.  I’m simply saying to dress like them (a professional blog theme), talk like you know what you’re talking about, and most importantly work your butt off to get your desired results.

If you want a specific product to give away on your blog, then don’t hesitate to ask for it.  If you ask with confidence and not like your a newbie who really doesn’t know what you’re doing, then your chances of getting that product increase dramatically.

Choosing What To Give Away

Deciding on the right product for your giveaway is a big task.  But discovering what it is that your readers would be interested in, shouldn’t be.

All you have to do is ask.  You can write a post and ask for their suggestions in your comments.  You can have a poll on your blog.  You can use Twitter to ask.

There are so many avenues for feedback using your blog and social media that it shouldn’t be hard to harvest that information.

And if all else fails, at least give away something that falls within your niche.  If you’re niche is how to make money online, then don’t give away a pack of free diapers.  And if you’re niche is about babies, then don’t give away a sex swing.

You’re goal isn’t to gain a quick traffic boost that only lasts a day or two.  You’re interest should be to build a larger amount of traffic for the life of your blog, and to best do that, you want to attract readers interested in your niche.

Deciding Your Goal For The Giveaway

Why are you giving something away?

While some bloggers will host a giveaway simply because they feel like giving back, most have a different reason for their giveaway.  And most of the time that reason is to build traffic.

Before you decide to give something away on your blog, make sure you’ve written out the goals your interested in achieving.

Your specific goal determines what method your readers will use to enter the giveaway, and how it will be marketed.

Here are some examples of goals you may have:

• To gain more subscribers – If this is your goal, then the partcipants should subscribe to your blog to gain and entry.
• To gain more Twitter followers – With this goal, you might have the participants enter the giveaway by following you on Twitter and re-tweeting the giveaway.
• To raise money for a charity – Participants might have to donate a small sum of money to gain entry into this giveaway.

Whatever goal you decide upon, make it the number 1 way to enter the giveaway.  Feel free to have other entry methods, but your goal should be the number 1 way.

And remember to make entering the giveaway easy.  All internet users want is something easy.  If it takes work or some thinking to figure out, they will not participate.

Marketing Your Giveaway

It’s not enough to simply create a blog post outlining your giveaway and how to enter.  You have to let others know it exists as well.

With the numerous amount of tools on the internet, letting others know of your giveaway is no longer as difficult as it used to be.

Places like www.online-sweepstakes.com and www.twiveaway.com are great places to list your giveaway for others to see.  They have a large number of visitors every day, so your giveaway won’t go unnoticed.

Other useful places for marketing your giveaway are social media sites like Twitter.  And adding an entry option to help promote your giveaway on Twitter or other social media sites helps to get others to do your marketing for you.

In Summary

There are many different ways to host a giveaway and with each method, lies different results.  The best way to figure out the maximum return for your efforts is to just do it.  After hosting 2-3 giveaways, you’ll start to notice what works best for you and what doesn’t.

For all of you, I have a simple question:

Which would you be more likely to signup for? $100 or an iPod?  Does cash interest you or a specific product of the same value?  I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.