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How To Successfully Host & Promote Your Blog Giveaway [Ep. 49]

Do you want to host a blog giveaway, but aren’t sure how to set it up?

Well, you’re in luck, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we’ll be going over how to successfully host and promote your blog giveaway — workflow included!

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

  • how to set up a giveaway on your blog
  • important pre-launch tasks to see success
  • how to get more eyes on your giveaway
  • an idea for monetizing your blogger giveaway
  • how to reach out to potential prize sponsors
  • and more!

Note: This episode on blogger giveaways contains affiliate links to trusted partners!

Blog Giveaway 101 [Podcast Episode Audio]

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Free Travel Blogger Resource Library

To help you really jumpstart your blogging success, I’ve added 55+ blogging resources like printables, video tutorials, and workbooks into a FREE resource library for travel bloggers.

These resources are meant to help you grow your traffic, community, and income faster and with less overwhelm!

The library includes in-depth workbooks on creating a profitable blog brand, content strategy, business plan, and more. You’ll even find a giveaway outreach template to help you see success with this episode’s strategy.

Powerful Blogger Giveaway Tools

The following tools can help you see success with blogger giveaways:

Gleam. Gleam is my go-to viral giveaway tool. Not only does it help you create beautiful giveaway widgets, but it offers loads of actions people can take to enter your competition — like subscribing to your email list, sharing a Tweet or liking a Facebook post.

ConvertKit. A feature-rich yet user-friendly email marketing platform made by bloggers for bloggers. My affiliate link gets you a 30-day free trial — no credit card required! Alternatively, you can join their free plan here.

Beaver Builder. I personally use both their theme and plugin. The plugin allows you to create beautiful landing pages using a user-friendly drag-and-drop page builder. This is actually what I use to create my giveaway landing pages!

Canva. This graphic design tool can help you create graphics and assets that bring your giveaway landing page to life. For instance, you might create pretty graphics to promote your giveaway prizes.

promote your blog giveaway podcast

How To Successfully Host & Promote Your Blog Giveaway [Episode Transcript]

One fun way to reward your community while simultaneously growing your blogging business is to host a giveaway. This strategy can really help you become a full-time blogger if you aren’t one yet.

There are many different kinds of giveaways – from one-time giveaways to recurring events. For instance, I host a monthly giveaway where I choose one person at random to win the blogging masterclass of their choice.

The way people can enter is by leaving a review for The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast on iTunes – so if you haven’t left a review yet make sure to do so and then send an email to [email protected] to enter.

There are also numerous platforms you can use to host your giveaway, from social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok to robust giveaway widgets like Gleam and Wishpond. Also, if you’re looking to grow your TikTok account or another social platform, a giveaway can help.

In this episode, I’ll be sharing how I organize an annual 14-day giveaway where I give away one prize per day to a different winner. We’ll be going over everything from the planning to the execution to the follow up so that you have a complete step-by-step blog giveaway strategy.

Feel free to use the workflow I share as is – or tweak it to fit your unique goals.

Step #1: Determine the goal of your blog giveaway

Why are you hosting the giveaway in the first place?

Is it to increase your social media following or grow an email list as a blogger? Or maybe you want to gain visibility and increase brand awareness.

Basically, you want to pinpoint what your blogging goals are and how to design the giveaway to help you reach them.

Step #2: Choose your blog giveaway prizes

Personally, I always like to have a giveaway theme so that people know exactly who it’s for.

For instance, last year I did a spring giveaway called “Spring Into Success” where I gave away 14 prizes meant to help travel bloggers grow quicker and easier.

Keep in mind, while expensive prizes can lead to more entries than inexpensive prizes, you ultimately want to make sure that the people who enter your giveaway are your target audience.

This means it’s best to focus on niche prizes that serve your audience. Giving away the new iPhone as a travel blogger will really just lead to a lot of random people entering for the chance to win an expensive new gadget.

Step #3: Reach out to potential sponsors

Outreach is a great way to grow your blog — including giveaway outreach. For me, this means pitching brands that might want to donate a prize to the giveaway. If you have relationships with any brands, start there as typically it’s easier to get a positive response from someone you know.

Moreover, it’s helpful to make it clear in the pitch exactly what they’re get out of donating a prize. This includes noting where they’ll be featured during the giveaway and how many people you expect to reach through the giveaway.

I’ve actually added a giveaway outreach template to my free Travel Blogger Resource Library if you’d like to grab it.

You might also try to find paying sponsors. For instance, you might have different levels of sponsorship that allow them to gain added visibility if they pay.

Step #4: Design your giveaway landing page

I personally like to create a giveaway landing page and link all of my different giveaway widgets onto it. This also helps me drive website traffic.

Pro tip:

Decide exactly what you need from sponsors and how you’ll collect it. Be specific, too.

For instance, if you need an 800×800 product image and a 120-word description, have a workflow that allows you to collect this in the easiest possible way with the least back-and-forth, such as by using a Google Form with a Dropbox folder.

Step #5: Create your giveaway widget.

Personally, I use and love Gleam for my giveaways. There are a few reasons for this:

First of all, you can include numerous ways to enter, from having people follow you on Twitter to subscribe to your email list or podcast to view a specific post on Instagram. This allows you to really set up your giveaway to help you meet your specific growth goals.

Additionally, it’s a viral giveaway widget – meaning that you can award points to people when they share about the giveaway on social media or refer friends. What is great about this is it can help you get completely new eyes on your giveaway.

Gleam also keeps up-to-date with giveaway laws, so if a certain platform doesn’t allow a specific type of entry, they won’t let you do it. For instance, at the time of recording, YouTube doesn’t allow you to ask people to subscribe to enter a giveaway due to their Fake Engagement Policy. You’ll need to use other tactics as part of your YouTube for bloggers growth strategy.

Finally, Gleam gives you the emails of the entrants so that you can follow up with them. More on this later on in the strategy.

Now, with my annual 14-day giveaway, I actually create 14 different widgets, each with its own unique prize, deadline, and winner. I then link each of these to my landing page, as you can see here:

My Spring Into Success blogger giveaway landing page
A visual of my Spring Into Success blogger giveaway landing page

Step #6: Pre-schedule your promotional emails.

This should include at least one pre-giveaway email, as well as a few reminders throughout the giveaway.

Depending on how long your giveaway is, you’ll at the very least want to send an email on the first and last day of the giveaway.

Leading up to the giveaway, it’s also wise to start building up your email list with people who would benefit from the prizes being offered. You might do this by promoting a relevant opt-in offer or by creating a waitlist for the giveaway itself.

Step #7: Have a social media strategy.

Of course, email shouldn’t be the only way you promote your giveaway. Consider what channels you’re active on and make sure to let your audiences know.

Additionally, you might run some Facebook ads or reach out and collaborate with other bloggers in your niche to organize a promo swap – meaning you’ll promote something for them if they help promote your giveaway.

There are also loads of giveaway-themed Facebook groups and Reddit forums, though if you can share in niche groups that is even better to, again, help ensure you’re attracting your actual target audience.

One thing I also like to do is create Instagram Story templates to announce each day’s prize during the giveaway with a link to click to enter. It helps keep the momentum going and gets people excited to enter for the day’s prize.

Additionally, it’s an extra place I can mention the prize sponsors and provide an added benefit.

Step #8: Provide all entrants a virtual goodie bag.

This is personally how I monetize my travel blog through my annual free giveaway. I run a membership called Travel Blog Prosperity, and I’ll usually offer entrants a free month of the membership along with a few other relevant bonuses.

You might also offer a free trial or limited access to one of your products.

Or you might reach out to your affiliate partners to see if they’d like to offer a discount or free trial, which can help you increase your affiliate income. Just make sure to disclose to people when you’re promoting an affiliate offer. This is one of the best ways to promote affiliate programs for free.

Final Blog Giveaway Tips:

1) Make sure to actually deliver your prizes. Hopefully this goes without saying, but just in case, make sure you provide the prize sponsor with the winner’s shipping information or ship it yourself in a timely manner.

2) Look up necessary legal information. This is especially true if you’re hosting a giveaway directly on a social platform like Instagram or Facebook. You want to make sure you know all of the necessary rules for hosting a giveaway the right way.

3) Discuss shipping rules with sponsors. Don’t assume your prize sponsors will ship anywhere. Discuss with them where they’ll ship a free prize or offer to cover the shipping to farther away destinations. Just keep in mind that international shipping can get expensive, especially with a physically larger prize.

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to host your own blog giveaway.

Don’t forget to grab access to the free travel blogging resource library.

Or, if you’re in the US or Canada, you can text the word “blogger” to 1-833-818-0342 to have it sent to you by text message.

There are a ton of resources in there on growing your community and increasing your blogging profits.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

 

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Grow Your Blog With These Past Helpful Episodes:

Grow Your Blog Fast: 12 Quick Wins For More Traffic & Income

14 Best Digital Products To Sell Online As A Travel Blogger

How To Pitch A Brand Collaboration Proposal With Confidence

Create A Free Challenge That Grows Your Email List & Income

Monetize Your Email List With 4 Smart Strategies

Create A Profitable Automated Email Sequence (With Template!)

How To Grow Your Travel Blogging Income With A Tripwire Funnel

Making Money With Webinars: 10 Do’s + 3 Don’ts

A Powerful TikTok For Bloggers Strategy

The Ultimate Guide To Twitter For Bloggers

What blog giveaway tips would you add?

How do you host and promote your blog giveaway?