PPC
5 Strategies to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency in 2020
Whether you are an already established agency or you are just getting started, there is always room to try new strategies in an effort to grow your business, your team, and your client roster.
Read on to learn how to learn how to acquire new leads to fill your funnel and convert into clients, methods of sourcing and acquiring new talent to add to your team, and the reasons and ways you can focus on specialization.
Client acquisition tactics
Without leads, we don’t have clients, and without clients, we don’t have much of an agency. Straight forward—however, even if you are at capacity, it’s crucial to always feed your funnel with new leads and foster those relationships so they can evolve into clients now or down the road.
At AKvertise, we always take the call, the meeting, the conversation, to talk to a prospect. After all, you never know what can transpire from a conversation until you have it. Even if the timing isn’t on our side to work with someone right away due to availability, more often than not, this results in the lead wanting to work with us even more, even if they have to wait a month or two to do so until we have bandwidth open up. If it’s still not a match for us, we keep a small network of trusted agencies we refer to if it is not the right mutual fit in terms of timelines, goals, expertise, budgets, or availability.
While there are many ways to acquire new clients, most come from referrals. In fact, according to WordStream’s State of the Agency report, 51% of surveyed agencies consider referrals their main source of acquiring new clients, followed by 20% said upsells from other products or services.
If you’ve been in business for some time, the above sources may be familiar to you. But keep reading on as we have some additional ones to share and there may be some methods you and your team have not yet explored that could be effective in further growing your client roster. If you’re a freelancer or small agency owner looking for more clients to add to your roster, try these lead-generating, client-acquiring tactics.
1. Be your own publicist
Unless you are a large agency and already have a publicist on speed dial, that is. Otherwise, it’s worth doing some publicity work. Seek out opportunities to get your name, your team, and your services out there. Submit pitches to speak at events, attend events and share online that you plan to and want to connect with others, get in touch with podcast hosts (like Mikayla Wyman of Goal Talk, for instance), and ask if you can join as a guest for an episode that would be interesting for their listeners and relevant to your expertise, contribute to external industry blogs and publications, and be active on social media to build your own personal brand.
Does that truly work? It certainly does. For example, Akvertize has been in business for over five years now, and we still have yet to do any advertising for our own agency. The above tactics have brought in leads to our funnel and helped us convert many into clients. Being front facing, active, helpful, and having your name displayed across various mediums while sharing tactics, tools, ideas, and content can have a rewarding effect. Regardless of whether you’re the CEO, a paid media manager, or a junior level staff member, it can help your agency tremendously, as well as boost morale and further education, if everyone can act as a publicist on behalf of your agency.
2. Share your availability
If you’ve tried the above and you still have room for more work, simply share that you are accepting new clients along with the details of your areas of expertise. These types of posts tend to get shared on social media.
If there’s room, mention the type of clients and industries you prefer to work with and have experience with. If you’re possibly concerned about optics of doing this, as I once was, worry not. The first time I put this out on Twitter, I thought it would come off that we were failing and short on work, however, others told me the contrary, that it looked like we were growing. From time to time, we still do this, and it always brings in leads whether it’s a light month or we’re looking to scale further. Don’t be shy—let people know that you’re available to help.
Expand your team
Looking to take on more clients but limited on bandwidth? You need to expand your time, either by collaborating with other agencies or hiring new talent to join your team as employees. If the latter makes more sense for your agency in the long run, that may be easier said than done. Talent acquisition can be challenging, and it may take several hires to find the right fit, but good, diligent working marketers are out there.
3. Hire more employees
Posting to job boards can be effective, but there’s nothing quite like getting a personal recommendation. When we look to add to our team, we’ve found success by reaching out to industry contacts to see if they or someone they know is looking for work. In addition, we post to our personal and business social channels as it’s an easy way to share that you’re hiring. If you’re looking to scale your paid search and/or paid social team this year, one very effective way to reach marketers and advertisers is via Twitter and using the #ppcchat and #fbadschat hashtags.
Posting publicly to LinkedIn can be fruitful as that platform has significantly grown and increased in activity over the last few years. Have your current team members share details about a position opening and link to a job description on your website so potential candidates can learn more before applying. As an advertising agency, you could also take that a step further and use that audience for remarketing ads.
There are also a number of job boards out there, such as Indeed. If you’re strapped for time, delegate this process by hiring a recruiter in an effort to help find you the right fit for your digital marketing agency.
If you’re comfortable in doing so, expand your search by offering remote opportunities, especially if you’re located in a smaller city where the talent pool may be smaller. According to LinkedIn, 40% of millennials say that having flexibility and working remotely is a priority.
4. Join forces with other agencies
Not in a spot to hire employees at this time? Connect with another competitive or complementary marketing agency. If you offer paid advertising services, reach out to other ones that may be short on bandwidth and you can offer your expertise to their clients. Some agencies tend to be transparent about this and others may want to white label you, so it’s up to your preference on how you want to work.
Connecting with complementary marketing agencies can also bring you exciting and new client work. For example, reach out to some SEO agencies to see if they have any clients that are interested in paid search or paid social advertising. This can be beneficial to you, to them, and their clients. In a sense, you would collectively be creating a more holistic marketing strategy to the client while being close to a full-service agency and driving more revenue to your business. We’ve found great success in taking this approach over the years and becoming an extension of other agency teams. You can, too, with these types of strategic partners.
Refine your offerings
Combining forces with an agency that offers complementary services is a great way to expand your team and your offering while staying competitive with other digital marketing agencies.
But sometimes it’s worth rethinking your agency’s own offerings to find the best strategy for growth.
5. Scale back to grow more
It doesn’t hurt to scale back services in order to grow. If you’re able to be a full-service agency and be successful in doing so, keep at it. If you’re smaller, specializing could be a great alternative. When we first launched AKvertise, we offered paid search and paid social, but around the time of our third anniversary, we decided to scale back on our advertising service offerings and focus on the thing we enjoyed most and thrived in, in an effort to further excel and to distinguish ourselves fully as a social media advertising firm.
There was some hesitation in that we could lose business and have fewer leads coming in; however, we decided that it was worth the test. If it didn’t succeed, we could always revert and offer more services. It’s been more than two years since this refinement and specializing was the best thing we could have done for our business. It’s brought in more clients and helped us grow and could help you as well. Become the expert in your specialized field and in turn, you may evolve into a go-to agency for your particular service.
Set your agency up for growth in 2020
This year, treat your agency like a client campaign. Look at your business objectively, take your own recommendations, test some of the above tactics that you haven’t yet and see if they work for your agency. Market yourself in order to build awareness for your agency by seeking out opportunities in an effort to bring in new leads, clients, team members, and partnerships as you scale. Don’t be afraid to test something new as you can almost always revert. Happy testing and may this year bring you success.
PPC
How to Use Search Audiences in Google Ads to Lower Costs
Audiences are one of my favorite topics when it comes to paid advertising. I’ve always been a huge fan of how useful they can be when trying to optimize campaigns to reach the right group of folks.
But one thing has always confused me: Most advertisers only pay attention to audiences with strategies like display, YouTube, or social. Meanwhile, search audiences seem to get overlooked.
I’m hoping to remedy that with this post. Below are my favorite ways for leveraging audiences in Google Ads search campaigns to optimize and grow your results.
Table of contents
How can you use search audiences?
Let’s first review your options for using search audiences in your campaigns.
🚨 Could your campaigns benefit from using search audiences? Find out with our free Google Ads Grader!
1. Observation layering
The first usage of audiences is the least invasive to an existing paid search strategy. Adding audiences as observation layers lets you create a data segmentation in your search campaigns without limiting your end audience.
In all search campaigns, you can edit the audiences you have applied by going to the Audiences portion of the navigation on the left and click Edit Audience Segments.
Here you’ll see that all audiences in search campaigns start on “observation” by default. (We’ll get into strategies for “targeting” in just a minute.) As Google says, observation targeting doesn’t narrow the reach of your campaigns, but it does give you the option to adjust bids for different segments.
Let’s talk about targeting first. The audience selections for search campaigns are the same as any other campaign on the Google network. You can choose from in-market or affinity audiences, remarketing, YouTube Engagement, detailed demographics, and more. All you need to do is check the box next to the audiences you want included and they’ll be applied to the campaign.
Here’s where my particular kind of usage comes in: I add just about every audience available as an observation layer to my campaigns.
Remember, I’m not limiting my targeting at all, so even if an audience like “financial services” isn’t the right fit for my target audience based on our persona documents, I’m still able to see how it performs in comparison to all other audience segments on Google.
Then, depending on the bid strategy I’m using, I can adjust the bids for each audience based on its performance. With a Target CPA of around $400 in this account, I might adjust the bids as you see in the image above. Anything with CPAs well below the target may get a bid boost and ones over that mark get a discount.
The only limitation here is the bid strategy you’re using. As you can see in the chart below, only the manual and enhanced CPC strategies will allow for bid modifications of audiences. If you’re using any other strategy, these bid modifiers will be ignored.
But that doesn’t mean bid modification is the only reason we may want to have observation layers. If you notice a particular audience has very high or very low performance, it may be worthwhile for you to think about segmenting that audience to its own campaign for more granular optimization, or excluding it altogether.
While the other bid strategies don’t allow for bid modification, they do allow for exclusion. You would just need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Exclusions section, then click Edit Exclusions to add the audiences you want to avoid.
2. Targeting and remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA)
If we want to start getting a little more creative with our audiences, we can switch from the “observation” setting and shift into “targeting.”
This means we’ll be focusing ONLY on the audiences applied to the campaigns. All other users will be excluded. While that might sound restricting, and it is, limiting the audience you’re using opens the door to many other strategies within search that might not be in the best interest of your account without those audience restrictions.
The biggest challenge is going to be ensuring you meet the audience minimum of 1,000 active users in the last 30 days. If you’re struggling to meet this minimum, you may need to stick with the observation options above until you’re able to drive higher volumes of users.
💡 Set your search campaigns up for success with our free guide to the perfect Google Ads account structure!
The benefits of targeting vs. observing search audiences
Let’s start to explore the benefits of using the targeting focus and what that means for your options.
Opportunities for highly customized ad copy and keywords
Narrowing your audience to only those users you want, you can now start to customize campaigns more specifically based on what you know about those folks.
Let’s say you’re targeting people who have been to your website before. You likely don’t need to spend as much time telling them who your brand is and what you offer as much as differentiating yourself from the competition.
The above image is a good example from Facebook. Forgive the mismatch of platforms, but the customized search ads based on audiences are hard to find. But that means that you’ll stand out from your competition if you’re able to create customized messaging!
Here, LinkedIn is targeting me on the Facebook platform to come back and make more B2Brilliance, their way of boasting about their great B2B targeting. Since I’m a regular on the advertising platform, they likely want to redirect my attention from Facebook and get back into spending money on their platform. Makes sense!
But think about how you can use this for your potential customers. If they’ve been to your site before and are still searching for services similar to yours, you could use your ad copy to offer a promotion, use specific benefit statements you don’t use for first-time customers, etc.
But this also applies to your keywords. Maybe your regular search campaigns are focused on your core services, but if someone has been to your site before, you may feel comfortable extending to new terms that promote your less popular services or things that are reserved for returning customers.
🔍 Get instant keyword ideas for more targeted and personalized ads using our Free Keyword Tool!
Improved call-to-action strategies for funnel movement
Furthermore, the same theory applies to calls to action. I work with several software companies that have a fairly long sales cycle. For them, we may use our prospecting campaigns to promote video views or content downloads as the call to action, but for Remarketing Lists in Search Ads, we will shift to demo requests or something else a little further down the funnel as that user is already familiar with our offerings and may be ready to take the next step.
Remarketing lists can be created based on the actions users have taken on your site. You likely are already creating lists based on those actions for campaign exclusions. What’s to say you can’t recreate the same ones in Google Ads and apply them to search campaigns to promote the next call to action in the buyer cycle? Answer: only the minimum audience size!
Tighter Dynamic Search Ads
In addition to manual keyword expansion, remarketing lists are also a great way to limit the reach of Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs).
Dynamic Search Ads function differently than regular Search campaigns because you provide Google with your website URL or a page feed of your website, then Google will dynamically match to search terms that are relevant based on your site content and craft ad headlines for you.
The benefit of using Remarketing Lists means that you can likely avoid most restrictions on the Dynamic Search Ads themselves as the audience will do most of the qualifying work for you. Any time a relevant search is conducted by someone who has engaged with your brand before, a Dynamic Search Ad will show up with customized headlines and landing pages.
Using more broad match keywords successfully
In an expansion step beyond DSA, you could also start to leverage broad match keywords with remarketing lists as well. All of the same practices apply to the strategies above, but our tool for increased reach will be match type rather than targeting type.
You can learn more about the match types here, but suffice it to say, broad match is indeed, the broadest of the options available. With broad match keywords, you’ll find yourself matching to terms outside of the typical ranges you get with phrase and exact, but assuming Google’s machine learning is as smart as they claim, these terms should still be relevant to your business and with the remarketing list layers included, you’ll have more chance to interact with known users.
In many instances, broad match keywords might not be the right fit for regular prospecting search campaigns, but with audiences layered in, they’re a great way to find additional scale.
Whether you observe or target, don’t sleep on search audiences for Google Ads campaigns
Audiences might mostly be talked about with sisplay, YouTube, or social advertising strategies, but that doesn’t mean that’s all their good for. Whether it’s observing audience performance to gain insight or adjusting your keywords, targeting strategy, messaging, or call to action, audiences can be a great tool for search campaign improvement as well. For more audience insights, see how our solutions can help you maximize your search campaigns!
PPC
17 Content Distribution Strategies to Try in 2024
Creating content is great, but it’s only the first step in your marketing strategy. When you write articles, put together reports, or record videos, you need to make sure you promote them effectively, too. That means testing out new content distribution strategies whenever you can.
Today, we’re sharing 17 content distribution strategies you can try and test this year. But first, let’s go over what counts as content promotion.
What is content distribution?
Content distribution, or content promotion, is the process of distributing your blogs, articles, infographics, webinars, and more to reach a wider audience than its initial publication.
Here’s a strategy we used as an example. We published a blog post covering the biggest content marketing trends in 2024. The blog is the initial marketing channel for this piece of content, and this initial audience includes website visitors and blog readers. It’s also optimized for on-page SEO, which encourages ranking on organic search. That’s another channel. Posting about the blog on LinkedIn is another channel. That’s coordinated sharing of a single piece of content across multiple channels. That’s content promotion.
By sharing or even repurposing your content in multiple ways throughout your marketing strategy, you can increase its visibility and reach among your target audience. This has benefits beyond a single piece of content, including increased brand awareness, a stronger competitive edge, and even more conversion opportunities.
If you’re investing the time, effort, and (often) budget to create high-quality content, you want to make it as beneficial to your business as possible.
📣Free guide >>> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website (Fast!)
17 content distribution strategies to start testing now
Here are 17 content promotion strategies that will help you distribute your content, reach a wider audience, and build your brand. Whether you’re working to put a content promotion plan together or already have a solid strategy, take a look and see what you can test out this year.
1. Repurpose in another format
Content repurposing is the first strategy we’re sharing because it’s the most fundamental and presents the most opportunity. If you have a blog post, turn it into a video for YouTube. If you have a longer video, splice that up into shorter, bite-size clips for social content. If you have a data-packed report, pick out the most compelling headlines to make shareable graphics.
Shopify has two versions of this content: a YouTube video and a blog post that explains drop-shipping.
Creating content takes a lot of time—ideating, researching, developing, editing, finalizing, and launching. That’s why content promotion across as many channels as possible is so important. The best way to create even more possibilities for promoting and sharing your content is by repurposing and repackaging it in another medium.
This extends both the reach and the life of your content. By turning blogs into videos or long-form videos into short clips, you can distribute across different channels and reach new audiences. When you repackage, it takes less time than creating pieces from scratch, but you’re also creating fresh content, which keeps yours new for longer.
This, of course, has its limits. You don’t want to seem like you’re repeating yourself constantly to your community. And it’s not always feasible or effective to repurpose a blog into a video or a guide into podcast episodes. That’s what the rest of the strategies here are for.
2. Brand all of your visuals
If you ensure that all of the visuals in your whitepapers, articles, or blog posts are branded, you can share those graphics elsewhere. You can share these as eye-catching posts on social media to increase brand awareness, use these elements in other pieces to create internal links, and even optimize your image SEO for organic reach with the graphics alone.
Take this example from Semrush. It’s a simple but effective graphic of the elements of a content marketing strategy with the brand’s logo in the corner. It’s also the first result in an image search for content marketing strategy.
This is something you bake into your content creation process. Like the Semrush example above, it doesn’t have to be extensive. Make sure graphics feature your brand colors. Include your logo at the bottom of any charts or tables. Take the time to optimize for SEO, which leads to our next strategy.
3. Optimize content for SEO
Organic search is an opportunity for content promotion. If you’re writing a blog post, publishing a report, or even releasing a video series, getting your content on the SERP offers you the chance to reach a wider audience through another channel.
Take advantage of this by improving your SEO strategy this year. Whether it’s spending more time considering long-tail keywords during your ideation phase or focusing on improving your local SEO site-wide, it’s an opportunity to get your content out there.
4. Include links in relevant blogs or guides
Internal linking is important for your SEO, but it’s also a chance to promote your content to interested readers who already trust your brand.
This Etsy blog post about using the color black as a wedding theme links to a blog on trending wedding colors. Relevant research for event planning.
But in-context linking is only one way to help promote content with internal links. You can link to high-value content from your company’s educational materials, add call-outs to your blogs, or add clickable links to your whitepapers. To learn more about getting creative, check out this guide to internal linking. (See what we did there?)
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5. Post on social platforms
Promoting your content on social media is important. Even if you don’t have a large following, posting can broaden your reach and grow your audience. This could be as simple as writing a quick intro and including a link to your post on X (formerly Twitter) or Threads if you’re on there. You can also use major takeaways to record a quick video for Instagram or create a slideshow with major takeaways on LinkedIn.
Example of a LinkedIn slideshow.
The most important thing is to start sharing and pay attention to the responses. Figure out what works for your brand, your audience, and your typical content production.
6. Plug content on a podcast
Podcasts are excellent places for sharing recommendations and plugging content naturally. You’re not dropping a link (except in the show notes), but you can reference thought leadership, share data and findings, or use a case study as an example. The spoken medium feels more authentic, and if your content comes up naturally on your brand’s own podcast or during a guest appearance, that’s another great way to promote it.
You can run podcast ads if you’re not running a podcast or looking to take on guest spots. These still offer the same benefits. In fact, in a study by Acast, 72% of podcast listeners reported that they visit an advertiser’s website after hearing a brand’s spot, and 62% of listeners reported making a purchase after hearing a podcast ad.
7. Syndicate your blogs
Some publications syndicate content, meaning they republish blog posts or articles as excerpts or in their entirety. How this works will depend on the publication. Some will automatically republish all of your content, while others ask you to submit it for syndication.
For example, this article in Fast Company includes a “republished with permission” note.
Here’s how to find sites that might syndicate your content: In a search engine, enter “republished with permission,” plus a keyword related to your brand or content. The results are sites that likely syndicate content in your area of expertise.
8. Share with your email mailing list
Your subscribers have already indicated an interest in your brand and offering. Send them your content, too. This could be a regular newsletter to share links to new releases if you have a full and varied content calendar or a one-off email if your content creation is slow and steady.
Email is an effective content promotion method. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 69% of B2B marketers distribute content through their own newsletters and 67% share content in other emails.
👋 Use these email marketing templates to write better emails faster.
9. Pitch your content to related newsletters
You should definitely send emails to your own audience, but that’s not the only way to get your content into newsletters. There are many regular newsletters that aggregate industry content or share a variety of links with their audience. Pitch your best content—think high-value articles penned by an industry leader or an annual report with compelling data—to include here.
10. Share on forums
Forums like Quora and Reddit are potential channels for your content distribution, too. If you have a free course or helpful guide, you can share that. Look for people asking questions about your topic, then answer with a helpful explanation and the link.
A link to a tool that seems helpful, not purely self-promo.
Keep in mind that no one wants to be spammed. Make sure you’re sharing relevant content and doing so selectively.
11. Partner with influencers
If you have the budget to promote your content, try working with influencers in your industry to get your content in front of more people. Here’s a great example. In the video below, marketing influencer Laurie Wang breaks down the fundamentals of digital marketing. She also shares templates from HubSpot, which is the sponsor of the video.
It’s also worth noting that this influencer has 15,000 subscribers on YouTube. That’s closer to a micro-influencer, which can be more affordable.
12. Promote with banners, pop-ups, or sidebar CTAs
Your content promotion doesn’t always need to be focused on reaching a new audience. It can also be a push to engage people who are already visiting your site further, whether they’re warm leads checking out cornerstone content one more time or new contacts who landed on your top-of-funnel blog post for the first time.
In those cases, you can promote your content to your website visitors through pop-ups, banners, and sidebar calls to action. The key is to promote high-value, relevant content in a compelling but non-intrusive way. Take a look at the example banner below from audiobook platform Libro.fm.
The black-and-white images with the bright background are eye-catching without being overwhelming. Very clickable.
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13. Credit and tag your sources
If your content contains references to other people’s work, try tagging them in your social posts, especially on LinkedIn or Instagram. Mention found a compelling correlation between tags and engagement for Instagram posts.
More engagement will help more social media users find your content. If you quote an expert in your industry or use photographs from someone with a social following, try tagging them.
14. Encourage your employees
Another channel you can tap to promote your content is your employees. Some companies have formal employee advocacy programs, which incentivize sharing content and more online. But even if you don’t have a formal program yet, you can still encourage your team members to post your high-value content.
In its report on employee advocacy programs, Hinge Marketing found that the biggest benefits of these programs include increased visibility and increased inbound traffic.
The key is to make it easy for employees to share content. So post graphics and messaging in your shared channels, send out emails with links to new content when it’s available, and let people know it’s a good thing to post.
15. Let your community know
If your brand runs a community, make sure you’re sharing your content there. Community-led marketing takes a lot of investment to get started and maintain, but once you’ve established a group, it’s incredibly effective. These members are engaged with your brand and with each other. If it’s a community listserv, send a quick email. If it’s a Slack or Discord group, set up a channel for distributing new content.
Pro tip: If you have a community, this is also a great place to get ideas for content. Check out which threads stay active and which questions keep coming up time and again.
16. Write a guest blog post
Writing a guest post can be a good way to distribute your content—as long as you’re approaching it the right way. This works best if you have a big, in-depth piece of content, like a benchmark report or survey. You can focus on one finding to create an original guest post for the publication’s audience, which will hopefully be new to you. And you’ll be able to include any branded graphics there, too.
It’s worth noting that, in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual survey, only half of B2B marketers reported using guest posts as a distribution strategy this year.
This is only a slight decrease from last year, and it could be because guest posts work to promote specific kinds of content—original reports or data. If you have those, identify some target publications and give it a try.
17. Run paid ads
Most of the content promotion strategies we’ve talked about here are organic. But if you do have the budget to promote your content, run ads this year.
Here’s a LinkedIn ad that I saw at the top of my feed while I was working on this post.
Braze is a customer engagement platform that offers email marketing, in-app messaging, and more. Marketers are the target customers, so LinkedIn is a great platform, and this is a compelling piece of content.
Figure out where the best place to reach your target audience would be, like LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or maybe TikTok.
Try these content distribution strategies
We covered a lot of methods for getting your blogs, reports, graphics, and more out there, so let’s recap.
Here are 17 worthwhile content distribution and promotion strategies:
- Repurpose in another format
- Brand all of your visuals
- Optimize content for SEO
- Include links in relevant blog posts
- Post on social platforms
- Plug content on a podcast
- Syndicate your blogs
- Share with your email mailing list
- Pitch to related newsletters
- Share on forums
- Partner with influencers
- Promote with banners, pop-ups, or sidebar CTAs
- Credit any influences—and make sure to tag them
- Encourage your employees
- Let your community know
- Write a guest blog post
- Run paid ads
If you’re creating great content for your brand, then it’s worth spending a little more time promoting it to as many people as possible. So this year, try some of these promotion strategies to get more eyes on your content and grow your business with more customers.
PPC
31 Best Giveaway Ideas (+Tips to Make Them Successful)
Here’s a hill I’m dying on: giveaways are one of the most versatile and efficient marketing strategies available. They work on any channel, are easily scalable to your budget, and create their own buzz (we all love free stuff!).
But the best part is they are endlessly variable—there are infinite giveaway ideas.
I want you to get a feel for what a good giveaway can do for your business and find a few versions to try. So I’ve listed over 30 ideas, a handful of examples, and some things you can do to make sure your giveaway delivers what you need it to.
Table of contents
Why should you run giveaways?
Giveaways produce results across your entire sales funnel, from early awareness to customer evangelism. Here are some of the most popular ways I’ve seen giveaways used in marketing:
- Boost brand awareness: When people don’t know or trust your brand yet, a giveaway will help you break the ice.
- Support a product launch: Giveaways capture attention fast, which is exactly what you need for a new product.
- Introduce a new location: A little free gift will build rapport quickly with new neighbors.
- Grow your social media and email following: It’s crazy how well tag-a-friend giveaways multiply social networks.
- Clear out seasonal merch: Turn a sunk cost into a wildly effective marketing strategy.
- Capture UGC: Make sharing user-generated content a sweepstakes entry, and watch the awesome customer images pour in.
- Get customer referrals: Incentivize customers to become your best salespeople.
- Recover abandoned cart sales: Put all those “almost-won” sales over the finish line with free shipping or by throwing in a gift card or trial size.
🛑 Free guide >>> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website (FAST!)
How do you make a successful giveaway?
The type and scope of giveaway you manage depends on what you have available, who you’re trying to reach, and what you hope to get out of it. Follow these steps so your giveaway makes a huge splash.
Set a goal
The goal of your giveaway is the first piece of the puzzle. Everything else snaps in around it.
Say you want to blow up your Instagram follower count. The platform, set of rules, and promotional plan supporting your giveaway should all align to make that happen.
Choose the prize
This is trickier than some people realize. Ideally, you want a prize aligned with your brand and right-sized for your goals.
A brand-aligned giveaway helps you focus on attracting ideal potential customers. If you sell baby monitors, giving away running shoes will attract lots of people who don’t need your products.
Choose a gift that matches the size and goal of your giveaway.
Likewise, a huge prize for a simple entry method (like tagging a friend on Instagram) is going to bog you down with so many entrants outside of your core audience. Pick a prize just large enough to make it worth the effort to get it.
Pick your platform
Here, I’m talking about in-person, social media, email marketing, etc. Where can you find the people you want to reach? Which option makes it easy to achieve your specific goal?
If you’re drumming up brand awareness for a new dentist’s office, handing out travel toothcare kits at a health fair is perfect. However, an email campaign would be better if you’re looking for new patient referrals.
Schedule appropriately
Timing matters a lot in giveaways for several reasons. Seasons, competition levels, and your own internal needs all factor in.
For example, a brand awareness giveaway that would triple your TikTok follower count in June might get drowned out by holiday marketers in December.
Create the rules
There are two questions to answer here:
- What do people have to do to get the giveaway?
- What laws and platform rules do you need to follow?
To set the rules of entry, match the ask’s difficulty to the prize’s value. The better the prize, the more you can ask. It’s fair to ask someone to buy one shirt to get another similar shirt for free. Or to register their email address for a chance to win a weekend trip. But if your giveaway is an inexpensive branded pen, you won’t get many people registering (those are great handouts at conferences, though).
Make sure you’ve listed all giveaway rules clearly.
Laws and platform rules can vary. Instagram has its own rules, for example. In general, you want to clearly and fairly describe the prize, give a minimum age to participate, list the rules, and give the odds of winning if it pertains to your type of giveaway.
Hype it up
Before and during the big day(s), use social media posts and popups on your website to get more attention. Email your subscribers and offer your loyalty members early or extra entries. Look for influencers or related businesses to partner with. If it’s a really big deal, consider spending on paid search ads or boosted social media posts.
Follow up
After your giveaway is over, there’s plenty of attention and excitement to be had. Announce the winner (if it was a contest) and tag them in the social media posts so their network can see them. Let people who didn’t participate or win know what they missed, and tell them to stay tuned for future events.
You could end up gathering more email addresses with the promise of a future giveaway than the original giveaway itself.
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Best giveaway ideas for businesses
These are your tried-and-true giveaway ideas that have proven to generate buzz, leads, and sales.
1. Sweepstakes
You’re probably pretty familiar with this one. You give up your email address or some other information, and you’re entered to win a prize. Unlike a gift-with-purchase, your free gift isn’t guaranteed, which adds a little anticipation to the game.
Sweepstakes are useful for all types of brand awareness and lead-generation campaigns. They’re less often used to generate direct sales since requiring a purchase to enter can be legally tricky.
2. Customer loyalty giveaway
Customer retention is a critical business growth strategy. This giveaway aims to keep your best customers happy and returning for a long time.
Use exclusive giveaways for your loyalty members to keep them active longer.
The actual giveaway can take on many forms. The important part is to talk up the exclusivity of it. Only your best customers get the gift, discount, or entry to win. That’ll help cement the feeling of community, which strengthens brand loyalty.
3. Holiday-themed giveaway
Holiday-themed giveaways come in many variations. Black Friday doorbuster deals are a very popular one, but you can get pretty creative. For example, you could offer a self-care giveaway for singles as part of your Valentine’s Day marketing.
4. The year’s supply giveaway
There’s some psychology behind our desire for abundance, even for everyday products. Think of having a pantry full of mac and cheese or all the laundry detergent you could use for a year. It’s more exciting than it should be.
That’s the motivation behind giving a year’s supply of a product. The bonus is that you can make this highly relevant to what you sell, attracting future customers.
5. BOGO
Buy one, get one free deals are among the most popular giveaways for both the giver and the receiver.
Use BOGO deals for a big boost in sales and awareness.
Your customers get double the product for the same price, and you make a sale every time someone takes advantage of your offer.
Giveaways like this can also be great loss-leaders—products that don’t generate much profit on their own but drive lots of new customers to your store to buy additional items.
6. Free upgrade
This is a nice option if your product or service has pricing tiers and you want to attract more customers to the higher tier.
Say you sell software with entry, pro, and executive plan options. Run a promo where anyone who buys the entry plan gets the pro version for the first month. Some of those users will get hooked on the expanded capability and upgrade at the end of the giveaway period.
You can use this for physical products, too. Offer the premium product at the standard price for a limited time. Then gather as many reviews of the higher-end version and use that social proof to sell it after the promo is over.
7. Free product with purchase
I love these types of giveaways, especially for two specific purposes:
- You have seasonal or excessive stock you need to turn
- You’re introducing a new product
Make the free product as relevant to the purchased one as possible. Socks with a pair of shoes is a perfect example. You could also throw in something that often causes friction when forgotten, like batteries with a battery-powered toy.
8. Product bundle giveaway
Grow your add-on sales by bundling several complementary products and running a sales promotion giveaway to demonstrate how they all work together.
Bundling products for a giveaway is a great way to promote complimentary products.
9. Surprise discount or coupon code
Here’s the gist. A customer opens a promotional email with their secret code. They click through to a sales page and enter it to learn they’ve been given a 20% discount. That little bit of intrigue and anticipation makes a much bigger impression than simply getting 20%.
This giveaway works best when you can give away something valuable—you might disappoint people if they go through the motions for 5% off.
10. Branded swag giveaway
This is a standard and useful tactic for in-person events. Hand out pens, t-shirts, ball caps, or fidget spinners (remember those?) to get people to your booth or table.
A slight modification here is to buy fewer, more expensive items and only give them away to people who talk with your team. That shifts the focus from brand awareness to a lead generation campaign.
11. Refer-a-friend giveaway
There is no better salesperson for your business than happy customers. Use a little gift to give your customer referral program a big shot in the arm.
Use giveaways to get more customer referrals.
You’re asking people to discuss your business with their friends, and the leads you get will be very high-value, so make sure the gift is a good one.
12. Influencer giveaway
If you don’t already have a big audience, partner with an influencer to get more eyes on your giveaways.
Pick an influencer with a smaller, niche, engaged audience. So find a holistic health professional with a few thousand dedicated followers over Selina Gomez for your essential oils giveaway. That’ll deliver higher quality traffic which leads to more future sales.
13. Buy a gift, get a gift
This is such a great variation of the holiday giveaway or buy one, get one promo. When someone orders a present, give them something for themselves.
Gift cards work well here, so the buyer can choose what they want. But you can also create a cool version where both people get the same gift, especially if your product is great for friends—like bracelets.
14. Appreciation giveaway
Use this type of giveaway for milestones like business anniversaries or getting your first 100K followers on TikTok.
You can make this about the individual, too. For example, you could send an extra gift or discount to people one year after their first purchase.
15. Reengagement giveaway
Now, for those customers or prospects who haven’t made a purchase or opened an email in a while, a re-engagement giveaway is just the trick.
Start by segmenting your email list to pull out subscribers who haven’t done what you want them to do (click a link or re-order a product) for a set period. Send them an email with a concise, compelling subject line announcing the giveaway.
If reordering is the goal, an extra discount or BOGO offer is a good giveaway to use here.
Giveaway ideas for small businesses
Every penny counts for small and growing businesses. These giveaway ideas don’t require a lot of money or time to manage but can still net a really nice return.
16. Co-sponsored giveaway
Co-sponsored giveaways are events managed and promoted by two or more businesses. I purposely put them at the top of this list because they’re such a smart way to share the load of running a giveaway while multiplying its effect.
Giveaways work great as co-promotional events.
With multiple businesses involved, you’ll be able to afford a larger prize or gift. But even better, your brand will get exposure to the existing networks those other businesses have built.
Co-sponsored giveaways are a good social media marketing strategy, but they can also be effective in person or even via email.
17. Tag us in your post giveaways
This giveaway is a UGC-gathering powerhouse. Ask followers to tag you in their social media posts using either your handle or a branded hashtag in exchange for entry into a sweepstakes, then share the content on your account.
These events are easy to run. Just make sure you explicitly mention that tagging a post is consent for you to reshare the image. And don’t forget to highlight the winners so everyone knows the contest was legit and to get an extra splash of attention for your brand.
18. Tag-a-friend giveaways
If you scroll Instagram or TikTok for about five minutes, you’re almost guaranteed to stumble on one of these contests. That’s simply because they’re so good at exponentially growing your social network.
Use tag-a-friend giveaways to grow your social media following quickly.
Try to keep the instructions simple. If you ask someone to follow three accounts, like two different posts, and share the post to their network, they might keep scrolling (unless you’re offering a monster prize).
Combine this with a co-sponsored giveaway for an extra boost in online presence.
19. Giveaway for feedback
Online reviews do a lot of heavy lifting for your business. Buyers trust reviews, and Google uses them as a local search ranking factor so you show up in more searches.
You can use giveaways to get more reviews in a hurry. Just make giving a review a requirement for entering the giveaway.
Caution is warranted here. You don’t want to come off as buying reviews. And some platforms, like Yelp, don’t allow this tactic. Plus, you need to start with an excellent product and service, or you’ll just get more bad reviews.
20. Free information giveaway
This one is nice for small businesses because it leverages your valuable expertise instead of a costly product.
To launch this type of giveaway, create an ebook, template, or some other form of content that your target audience would love to have. For example, if you’re a chiropractor, you could create a PDF showing 10 daily habits for a healthy back. Then use a popup, or lead magnat, which asks visitors to enter their email address in exchange for the guide.
Not sure what to create? List out the five questions your customers most frequently ask and start there.
21. Free trial
An old sales trick says that if you can put a product in a prospect’s hands, your chance of making the sale will increase dramatically.
A free trial giveaway does just that. Let people who register on your website try your product without cost. They’ll gladly pay to keep using it when they fall in love.
You’ll see this strategy used for software sales a lot. But you can also send a sample size of a consumable product. Make it a gift with the purchase of another popular item to get it in more hands.
22. Free quote
This might be the most underrated giveaway on the list. Especially if your competitors regularly charge to price out a job.
Don’t sleep on the value of a free quote.
Besides attracting new potential customers, you’ll also create a cost barrier that makes it more likely people choose to work for you. Once they have your quote, they’ll be less likely to pay another business for theirs.
Cool giveaway ideas
Here are several fun giveaway ideas your customers and followers will love (and you’ll love to run).
23. Quiz/trivia
Ask your customers to answer a question about your business or industry. Tie it to your unique selling proposition so as people search for the answer, they learn what makes you different.
Here’s an example. Say your long history and wide range of services set you apart. Ask people to reply to a Facebook post with the year your company was founded and the number of services you offer. Then, pick one winner out of the replies and give them a nice giveaway.
24. Choose your own gift
I used to love it when my mom handed me a little cash and told me to pick out one toy I could take home. I had a blast prowling the isles for my special treat.
Give your audience that same thrill by letting them pick their prize from a list of options.
Let customers pick their prize for an extra exciting giveaway.
Ideally, the prize list will be a curated selection of things you sell. But it could also be from a list of your favorite seasonal products or any other themed group of items.
25. Scavenger hunt
This one is a lot of fun. Create a list of little details from your website pages (or on multiple pages if it’s a co-sponsored event). People who register get questions to answer, each requiring them to visit different pages. Then pick a winner from all of the completed entries.
These are best done over a short time period to limit answer sharing. So, make sure to create a lot of hype before the event so you have as many people playing as possible.
26. Photo or video contest
Here’s a twist on a UGC giveaway. Instead of simply collecting tagged images, offer a prize for the best one(s)!
By making it a contest, you’ll encourage people to send in their absolute best pics and videos. Plus, you’ll get a double dose of engagement when everyone checks back in to see who won.
27. Nominate a hero
People love to work with businesses that give back. This giveaway lets your audience spotlight their local heroes while you get to give back to people making a difference.
The hero nomination giveaway requires more work, but it pays off in many ways.
To run a giveaway like this, ask your followers to nominate someone they believe is a true hero and explain why. Then pick one (or more) to receive the prize and promote the event. If possible, get a video of the hero accepting their prize. You could also create a landing page listing all the nominated heroes.
Unique giveaway ideas
One of the defining characteristics of a great giveaway is that it stands out against all the other messages and ads people are exposed to. These interesting and unique giveaway ideas grab attention, even in a crowded space.
28. Gamified giveaway
A gamified giveaway adds gameplay elements to your offer. If you’ve ever spun a wheel to get a freebie or discount, you’ve seen a gamified giveaway.
Spinning the wheel is one of many ways to add engagement-boosting gameplay to your giveaways.
Digital “scratch-off” tickets add a fun element to a standard sweepstakes giveaway.
Try creating digital scratch-off tickets that give customers points for making a purchase that they can spend on future products. Anything that ups the ante by asking people to play in order to win instead of simply getting a freebie is worth consideration.
29. Caption this photo
A photo caption giveaway is great for a quick engagement boost. Post a picture on your social media platform of choice and ask your followers to write a caption for it. You pick the most creative caption and send a prize to the winner.
The game is fun, so you can expect decent participation, even with minimal prizes. Just closely moderate the replies so you don’t accidentally post a caption that isn’t safe for work.
30. Brand ambassadorship giveaway
Instead of just partnering with a brand ambassador, create a contest where people can win a chance to become one.
Who wouldn’t want to be a B.A.R.K Ranger?
Make this as big or as small as you want. You can give away a little gift to everyone who completes a task to become an ambassador. Or sponsor a huge contest where the winner spends a year using what you sell and gets paid (in products or cash) to share their experience with the world.
31. Do a good deed giveaway
This is a play on the pay-it-forward theme. Ask your followers to do something kind for a stranger (or maybe volunteer for a non-profit), document what they’ve done, and submit it for a chance to win a gift for themselves. Double the impact by offering a second gift people can give to a loved one.
This type of giveaway drums up lots of good feelings while also doing something positive for the world.
The best giveaway idea is up to you
There is no one perfect giveaway idea. What works best will be the one that matches your brand, achieves your goals, and you actually enjoy running.
Remember to be extremely clear on the rules and follow through on your promise. Missed expectations can turn a great giveaway into a public relations hassle.
Here’s a recap of the best giveaway ideas:
- Sweepstakes
- Customer loyalty giveaway
- Holiday-themed giveaway
- The year’s supply giveaway
- Buy one, get one free
- Free upgrade
- Free product with purchase
- Product bundle giveaway
- Surprise discount or coupon code
- Branded swag giveaway
- Refer-a-friend giveaway
- Influencer giveaway
- Buy a gift, get a gift
- Appreciation giveaway
- Reengagement giveaway
- Co-sponsored giveaway
- Tag us in your post
- Tag-a-friend
- Giveaway for feedback
- Free information giveaway
- Free trial
- Free quote
- Quiz/trivia
- Choose your own gift
- Scavenger hunt
- Photo or video contest
- Nominate a hero
- Gamified giveaway
- Caption this photo
- Brand ambassadorship giveaway
- Do a good dead giveaway
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