7 Blog Giveaway Mistakes to Avoid

Wishpond

Blog giveaways are a great way to generate tons of email leads, but there are many ways to hurt the success of your contest.

In this article I’ll give you 7 of the biggest mistakes I see people make while running a giveaway on their blog – hopefully this way you’ll be able to avoid them.

#1: Failing to understand the goals associated with each type of contest

Do a little research before diving right into a contest. It’s important to note that each type of contest is focused on gathering different results.

Blog giveaways are great a great type of contest to run on your blog because their goal is to get tons of email leads and likes for your Facebook page (we’ll get into that point below).

#2: Neglecting to use a Facebook Like Button Popup

Facebook eliminated like-gated contests in November last year, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to gather likes for your page when you run a contest. You can even get Facebook likes through your blog giveaway.

That’s where the Facebook Like Button Popup comes in:

Before a potential participant enters the contest, a Facebook Like Button Popup will appear.

Users have the option to say “No, Thank You” if they don’t want to like your page. This method also ensures that only people who are interested in your business will like your page (this is better for your Facebook engagement levels).

#3: Forgetting to email your blog readers

Since you have a blog, you most likely have some dedicated blog readers and an email list. Your readers are definitely going to want to know about your contest!

Send them an email with a link to the contest the day before you make it public. Having access to contest before anyone else will not only motivate them to enter but also make them feel appreciated.

Check out how we incorporated email marketing into one of our giveaways here.

#4: Not promoting your blog giveaway on social media

Social media can easily help you expand the reach of your contest. Like your blog readers, your fans and followers are already interested in your blog and/or business.

Make sure that you post more than once – for Twitter you can send out a few tweets per day and for Facebook you can remind your fans with a post every few days.

Sites like Facebook and Twitter have analytics that will let you see how many people see your post or tweet about the contest and the accompanying engagement rate, so you’ll have an idea of the traffic you’re getting from social.

#5: Offering a prize that’s not relevant to your business

This is a giveaway, and without offering a prize relevant to your business literally anyone will enter. Even people who aren’t interested in your business.

Keeping your prize relevant to what you do will eliminate the idea of participants with bad intentions entering. A gift card/certificate is always a safe bet for a prize.

#6: Running the contest for too long

If you run your giveaway for a long period of time, people could lose interest and even forget about your contest entirely.

I’ve seen a giveaway or two that had a timeframe of 10 months – there is no urgency involved with a contest that’s run for almost a year.

There’s also no point to running a giveaway for that long – all entrants have to do to enter a blog giveaway is fill out a form. It would be different if it was a video contest and they had to create a short film in order to enter – that would take time for your entrants to create.

Keep your blog giveaway’s timeframe down to a month or less.

#7: Not posting your contest on contesting websites

Contesting websites feature tons of contests like giveaways. Thousands of people flock to these sites each day to enter contests.

This is a great way for people to discover your contest. All the people that enter your contest will still be legitimately interested in your contest (because you’re giving away a prize relevant to your business, right?).

Here’s a list of the top contesting websites for promoting your blog giveaway.

So now you’ve learned the most important mistakes to avoid when running a blog giveaway. I think these tips will help you increase both the quality and amount of leads you get from your next (or first) giveaway.

Did I miss any of the important “don’ts” of running a blog giveaway? Let me know in the comments section below.

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