7 Simple Ways to Promote Contests & Giveaways

Running blog contests and giveaways can be a game-changer for your blog. They help boost your reach, grow your email list, and even get more backlinks.

But here's the catch—it's not as simple as just hosting one. Without a solid plan, you might miss out on all the benefits.

The good news? There are plenty of ways to promote contests effectively, ensuring you get the attention and participation your blog deserves.

In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to make the most of your contest promotion so you can see real results. Let’s check it out!

7+ Best ways to promote Contests Or Giveaways:

There are several ways to promote your blog contest or giveaways, but here are some highly recommended ones.

Before you start running contests or giveaways, it's important to be clear about your objectives. Take time to plan and list your goals so you can clearly define what you want to achieve and measure the success or failure of the contest afterward.

For instance, a blogger might run giveaways to:

• Boost sales,
• Increase brand awareness,
• Drive targeted traffic,
• Gain more social media followers,
• Grow email subscribers,
• Collect user-generated content, etc.

Choose a contest goal that aligns with your sales and marketing objectives. Having a clear goal will make it easier to run a successful contest and help you achieve the positive results you're aiming for.

A teaser is a brief, engaging promotional video or ad designed to spark interest and draw attention to a film that will soon be released in theaters.

Teasers work wonders in piquing viewers’ curiosity. When a teaser goes viral, it can capture the attention of millions within just a few days.

However, 99% of bloggers don’t create teasers or trailers when launching a giveaway, which is why most giveaways don’t achieve the success they hope for.

So, make sure to tease your audience before launching your blog contest or giveaway!

How can you tease your audience?

There are several ways to do this. Here are a few ideas:

• Use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to reach your audience. Create a detailed post about:
  • When the giveaway will launch,
  • How to participate, and
  • How someone can win.
• If you have an email list, send out emails to your audience, letting them know about the contest with the start and end dates.
• To make your blog contest go viral, you can get inspiration from other successful bloggers. Ask them how they managed to run winning giveaways.

The third important point to keep in mind is choosing a product that excites your audience to participate in your contest or giveaway.

To do this, remember this key idea:

Offer products that are relevant and appealing to your audience, ones that will motivate them to take action and join your giveaway.

The reason for this is simple: if you offer a product that doesn’t interest your visitors or hold any value for them, they won’t be motivated to participate.

For example, if you run a book review blog, you could offer a book giveaway along with an Amazon gift card.

However, this doesn’t mean that any product will work. While people may appreciate a variety of items, the prize should be something valuable and attractive, like a highly-rated product that grabs attention.

Here are some of the most popular prize ideas for contests:

• Money
• Gift cards
• Gift certificates
• Free products or services

To attract a bigger audience, you need to give your giveaway more visibility.

Here’s the best way to do that:

Start by letting your loyal audience know about the giveaway by posting dedicated blog articles on your website. Your blog readers should be the first to hear about the contest, as they’ll be your initial source of participants.

Make sure to focus on your giveaway blog post while the contest is active.

During this time, try to avoid publishing too many regular blog posts, as it could reduce the attention on your main giveaway post.

Additionally, you can promote the contest more effectively to both your existing and new audiences.

The fifth point is to set clear rules based on your goals. But before deciding on the rules and methods, you need to choose the right type of contest that aligns with your objectives.

There are many types of contests, such as:

• Photo contests
• Video contests
• Photo caption contests
• Comment-to-win contests
• Sign-up contests
• Product customization contests, etc.

Choose a contest type that helps you:

• Collect email addresses from your participants.
• Get people to follow your social media accounts.

Traditional giveaways are easy to run because people can enter without submitting anything, making it more likely that they’ll participate.

However, for online contests or giveaways, you’ll need to set the following:

• Start and End Dates: How long will the contest run?
• Entry Rules: Who can enter? Are there any age or country restrictions?
• Winner Selection: Will you use a tool to pick the winner randomly?

Pro Tip:

Make sure the entry methods align with your goals.

For example, if you want to grow your email list, make sure that submitting an email is required to enter the contest.

To run an effective giveaway or contest to promote your blog, it's a good idea to use a reliable tool.

We suggest using some of the best WordPress plugins, as most bloggers use WordPress as their site platform.

Here are a few options:

• RafflePress
• Rafflecopter
• Gleam

Our top recommendation is RafflePress.

According to many bloggers, RafflePress is the best WordPress plugin for managing giveaways and contests, especially when compared to other plugins. It’s designed with users in mind, offering a comprehensive solution for everyone. Plus, it's very user-friendly, even for those with no coding experience.

You’ve probably heard of social media marketing, where digital marketers use different social platforms to reach a larger audience and capture attention.

To promote your giveaway, make sure to share your posts on:

• All your social media platforms,
• Blogging-related Facebook groups,
• Your YouTube channel,
• Telegram channel and group,
• Quora, Reddit, and other Q&A sites.

Over half of the world’s population, about 59%, uses social media today. By sharing your giveaway on social platforms, you’ll reach more people.

As your contest gains traction, viewers from different social platforms will visit your blog to check out the exciting prizes and see if they can win them. This helps increase your blog’s visibility and brand recognition.

People tend to focus on themselves, and when they are individually recognized or praised, it makes them feel happy and more likely to return that appreciation.

Now, imagine this:

You give gifts to a few selected people, mentioning their names, complimenting them, and wishing them good luck.

These actions will create a positive impression on the winners, and they’ll be more likely to return and check out your future blogs. Plus, other participants will be curious to know who won.

Overall, your audience will feel valued, knowing that every person matters. This will increase engagement with your blog and brand.

Make it simple for visitors to enter your blog giveaway so that everyone can participate.

You can ask them to follow a few easy steps to enter, such as:

• Leaving a comment,
• Subscribing to your social media channels (like YouTube or Telegram),
• Joining your email list,
• Sharing the giveaway contest.

By keeping the steps simple, more visitors will join your contest, and you’ll also increase your blog’s exposure.

Why Get More Exposure to Your Blog?

Today, 90% of blogs get very little traffic, which is why they struggle to generate conversions and sales.

Want to know why this happens?

The main reason is a lack of exposure. Many bloggers focus only on:

• Creating content,
• Doing SEO,
• Building backlinks.

But the issue is, 90% of bloggers are doing the same things and still getting little to no traffic.

So, it’s clear that we need to try new strategies to drive more traffic. Here are some strong reasons why you should give your blog more exposure:

• Giveaways help attract a new, often targeted audience to your blog.

They increase:

• Blog traffic
• Backlinks
• Social shares
• Email subscribers
• Audience engagement
• Brand awareness and brand recognition

Giveaways make your brand more memorable, so when people need products, they’ll think of you. They also make your content more engaging and likely to be shared on social media.

Now, let’s explore how to promote your blog and get massive exposure.

How to Get More Exposure to Your Blog Quickly?

First, let’s clarify what exposure means:

• Gaining traffic,
• Attracting a targeted audience,
• Increasing your online presence,
• Building connections with other bloggers,
• Boosting brand awareness, etc.

Just focusing on creating content alone won’t give you exposure.

Instead, offering fun, exciting, and engaging content will attract a wider audience and help your blog get noticed more effectively.

You can promote your blog and gain exposure no matter what industry or niche you're in.

There are also some proven, effective ways to help you get massive exposure for your blog. While these methods don’t cost much, they do require time and effort.

Here are some smart ways to increase your blog’s exposure:

• Keyword optimization,
• Creating great content,
• Guest blogging,
• Running giveaways and contests,
• Commenting on popular blogs,
• Promoting on social media,
• Using social networking sites,
• Crafting catchy headlines and titles.

How to Promote Your Blog Contests Or Giveaways?

Giving exposure to your blog through a contest or giveaway is an exciting way to engage your audience, especially since they get to win great prizes for free.

As a blogger, you should definitely run giveaways or contests because:

• Cost-effective: It's a more affordable and efficient method compared to running ad campaigns.
• Targeted traffic: It attracts an audience that is genuinely interested in your blog.
• Social Media Followers: It helps expand your reach and grow your followers on social media.
• Subscribers: Giveaways and contests are great for building your email list and boosting your blog’s authority.

Bloggers in almost every niche or industry run giveaways and contests to make them successful. For example:

• A gadget review blog might give away a mobile phone,
• A WordPress blog could offer a free domain or hosting giveaway.

Bloggers usually tailor their giveaways to their niche.

However, many bloggers make the mistake of rushing through the process, thinking:

• Once they run the giveaway, the audience will flock to participate,
• They’ll collect emails, grow followers, increase sales, and so on.

Sadly, they often use the wrong approach and end up with poor results, wasting their time.

If you learn how to run successful giveaways or contests and avoid common mistakes, this can be a goldmine for boosting your blog’s exposure.

Quicklinks:

• Best WordPress Plugins for Affiliate Marketers
• Best Autoresponder for Affiliate Marketing
• Best Affiliate Programs for Bloggers