Giveaways are a great way to grab the attention from your current user base, as well as being a valuable tool for attracting new users. While most giveaways are focused at acquiring new users, leads, fans, subscribers, etc. it’s also important to reward your loyal customers with a chance to participate. When you are attracting new users to your website or business what you are getting in return is typically quite clear (new, potential clients, customers or readers). When you are promoting a giveaway to your existing audience or client base you should also have a clear goal in mind for what you’re hoping to achieve.
Your goals for promoting to your existing client base are likely to based on around re-engaging those who may have lost some interest in your product or those who have not purchased in a while. It may just be to get your open rates up with your existing subscribers. It is a hard truth that an email list that is stagnant will not have a stagnant open or click rate. It is going to drop over time. When your current subscribers catch on to the fact that you’re giving something away for free is quite likely to give your open rates a boost.
In the sample below, from New Trent, they do an excellent job of combining their giveaway with their current deals, new products and website content.
Email content
Subject line
Their subject line (Have you signed up New Trent’s official Giveaway? will end soon…..) grabs your attention with their mention of the giveaway but also adds a sense of urgency by letting you know that time is running out to enter. It’s particularly engaging because they leave out the end date/time so the reader should have a bit of anxiety that makes them not want to miss out and therefore will open the email right away and click through.
Deals, specials & coupon codes
The email begins with a great offer. This is not their highest priced product that is available but it’s a good deal and even offers a coupon code to purchase the item. This is particularly great placement due to the audience. Users that opened the email strictly for the giveaway may be enticed enough by this great deal to click through and make a spur of the moment purchase.
Giveaway
The giveaway is the main content of the email so you don’t feel cheated when you read through it. It’s also a significant prize with a broad target audience, so an email of this sort can be sent to a full, non-segmented list of anyone in the US, CA or UK. They don’t waste a lot of copy or make the user think about anything when getting to the giveaway portion. The image makes it perfectly clear what the prize is and how to obtain it.
Product related content
They have also included recent content from their blog to round out the email and ensure that it feels like a full, content rich communication vehicle.
Follow up with a consistent message
Because users are likely to skip over some of your content when their mindset is focused on entering the giveaway it is ideal to follow up your message after they’ve entered. You can do this by including the same (or different) deals, links and images in your Customized Thank You message within your PromoSimple giveaway’s entry form. Check out these tips on Engaging your giveaway entrants with a thank you message.
Communication with your subscribers
When crafting your re-engagement email it is important to decide what actions you’d like your subscribers to take (entering the promotion, a spur of the moment purchase, etc.) but be sure to focus on what your goal for this campaign is — re-engaging the users. Keep your messages short and sweet but be sure to communicate what they should expect in the future as well. Will you be running additional sweepstakes in the future? Do you have a big sale coming soon? Are there new product launches in the future? Now that you’ve got their attention explain to them why they should remain active and excited to receive your future emails.
