You’ve probably seen your fair share of branded contests over the years. This is for a reason. Contests, when properly executed, can be one of the most effective marketing strategies.

Marketers have known this for years, and as a result, branded contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways have worked wonders for decades.

1. Ineffective Giveaway Strategy

The most serious mistake a company can make when running a giveaway contest is a lack of strategy. Most businesses often launch giveaways without first defining contest goals and objectives. This increases the likelihood of miscommunication and other technical issues that a comprehensive giveaway marketing strategy would otherwise eliminate.

A good giveaway strategy enables businesses to avoid low entry rates and ensure effective contesting to achieve the desired results. A strong giveaway strategy has the advantage of providing a standard for what a successful giveaway will look like. This way, you can reduce squabbles and get your team on the same page to meet specific objectives and achieve your desired level of success.

2. Unspecific Calls to Action (CTA)

The main goal of marketing your giveaway is to have a prominent CTA. Make it clear what the entry requirements are and use text and buttons to entice people to join.

3. Relying Solely on the Giveaway Publisher for Promotions

Create a contact list and send them an email about your giveaway. Be careful not to irritate existing customers by offering your product at a lower price than they paid for it – instead, offer them a free upgrade. Send out e-mails and follow-ups announcing the progress of your giveaway to give it the appearance of a real-life event, which it is.

4. There Are no Official Rules

Establishing official giveaway rules and regulations may require additional work, but it can often mean the difference between a successful giveaway contest and a failure. Without clear rules in place, your giveaway may confuse or, worse, expose your company to reputational harm, legal action, and complaints.

As a result, you must publish your official giveaway rules a few days before the contest to allow time for participants to review them.

When establishing rules, you must define participant eligibility by specifying residency and age requirements. Excluding your employees, affiliates, and their family members from the contest also ensures objectivity and avoids backlash from neutral participants. To avoid confusion and legal trouble, you should also specify how the winner will be chosen and notified, as well as how you will use the personal data you’ve gathered.

5. Unappealing Awards

Another reason most giveaways do not have a higher participant turnout is that the prizes are unappealing and irrelevant. Most people have no idea what giveaway prizes are, what they do, or how much they are worth.

When potential participants are not sold on the idea of your prize, they are more likely to participate without feeling completely convinced or to avoid the contest entirely. One way to avoid this is to come up with several social media giveaway ideas and determine what initially drew your audience to your brand.

As a rule, use your product as a giveaway to generate buzz and gauge customer interest. Using your products in giveaway contests gives the winners a taste of what they can expect if they continue to do business with you, ultimately increasing your conversions and sales in the long run.

6. Running Competitions for Too Long

Businesses frequently run giveaways for extended periods in the hopes of generating and maximizing traffic. This strategy, however, can backfire and result in participants completely forgetting about your contests. On the other hand, if you don’t run it long enough, you may limit the number of people who can enter.

Although there is no one-size-fits-all story when it comes to running giveaways, the sweet spot for a typical contest duration is two to four weeks. This is enough time to ensure that your marketing strategies mature, but not so long that it becomes tedious, and participants begin to complain.

Establish an appropriate contest duration to maintain a sense of urgency and entice people to enter sooner than later.

7. Registration Is Difficult

Many marketers make the mistake of requiring users to go through multiple registration processes and fill out multiple forms to participate in their contests. While this is a great way to collect relevant data, it may discourage potential entrants from converting and participating in your giveaway.

According to data, 74.3% of people despise forms because they take too much time and effort and provide little value. As a result, utilizing powerful marketing technologies such as a giveaway software solution is critical in reducing participant frustration and ensuring a successful contest.

It easily integrates with social media platforms and a dynamic giveaway software platform makes it easier for your customers to participate. The participants can easily log in using their Twitter or Facebook accounts.

Experts at RewardPort can also guide you with several such initiatives to ensure a high-performance Giveaway campaign for your brand.

8. Poor Reward-to-Effort Ratio

The purpose of a contest is to put in a little effort in exchange for a chance to win a large prize. Otherwise, you could save money and buy the item yourself.

This is true in any contest, but it is especially true when trying to get user-generated content in the form of essays, photos, videos, and other media.

Unfortunately, too many contests make this mistake and ask participants to do a lot of work for a small reward. As a result, even if you spent a significant amount of time and money executing the campaign, you may receive very few entries.

Here are some common signs that you’re asking too much of your audience:

• High entry barriers: If users require specific equipment to make submissions, such as a microphone or a camera, they will not accept low-quality prizes, such as cheap gift cards.
• Too time-consuming and/or labour-intensive: If you’re asking people to put in hours of work, you should make it worthwhile.
• The prize is too specific: Assume you sell photography and video equipment. A lens may appear to be a good prize, but it is meaningless to those who do not own a compatible camera. Prizes like this are inferior to those that can be used by anyone.
• The cost is low: Money cannot buy happiness, but it can purchase contest entries. The less expensive the prize, the less interest you will receive.

9. Arriving at the Worst Possible Moment

There’s nothing worse than missing out on a contest you’d love to enter because you don’t have the time, money, or energy to do so. Or, even worse, you simply didn’t notice it.

This type of error can turn off people who would otherwise enter your contest. That is a major issue.

Choosing the Incorrect “Location” (i.e., Poor Targeting)

We are all aware that location is important in the real world. You don’t want your contest to attract people who aren’t interested in your brand. While there are no “places” in the traditional sense on the internet, there is traffic – and various traffic sources.

Sometimes you must make a tradeoff: do you want hyper-targeted entrants, a mix, or are you willing to go crazy and accept anyone for the sake of expanding the campaign’s reach?

There are several things you can do to keep things more focused:

• Exclude advertising to specific demographics using Facebook Ads targeting.
• Make the prize specific to a specific demographic.
• Increasing traffic from websites that contain your target audience

Avoid Giveaway Mistakes & Ensure Success

For businesses that lack the tools needed to automate specific processes like contest duration, fraud protection, and contest creation, preventing giveaway mistakes can be difficult. Using a dynamic marketing software platform to manage your giveaways is one way to ensure a successful giveaway.

Alternatively, connect with RewardPort’s award-winning strategists to design and execute a custom Giveaway campaign for you.