The holidays are right around the corner, so companies everywhere are gearing up to run fun holiday deals and giveaways. You're in luck if you need fresh ideas for your holiday giveaways. I've put together 8 holiday giveaways to spark joy in your customers and simultaneously boost revenue.
8 Holiday Giveaway Ideas to Drive Sales and Delight Customers
- Promotion-A-Day Giveaways
- Host Giveaways on Your Website
- Buy-1-Get-1 Free
- Free Gift Cards With a Purchase
- Social Media Contests
- Refer-A-Friend
- Offer a Chance to Relax
- Run a Photo Contest
8 Holiday Giveaway Ideas To Drive Sales, and Delight Customers
Here are a few giveaway ideas your business should try this holiday season.
1. Promotion-A-Day Giveaways
During the holiday season, consumers spend more than ever as they book flights and hotels for holiday travel and buy gifts for loved ones. With that in mind, it's a great time to run daily promotions because they give shoppers the chance to save money and boost traffic and sales for your business. Constant promotions can also help clear out inventory in preparation for the new year.
Promotions can include discounts, buy-1-get-1 free deals, money-off purchases, or a free gift with a purchase.
Pro tip: To keep things interesting, run a different promotion each day and have it be holiday-themed. For example, a "12 Deals of Christmas" promotion can include percent-off discounts one day and free gifts the next.
2. Social Media Giveaways
There are many ways to conduct a social media giveaway. You can tell your customers to follow your social media handles to be entered into a raffle to win a free prize or discount on a service. You can also get your brand trending by starting a hashtag your followers can use for a chance to win. For example, you can have your followers on TikTok post videos singing their favorite holiday songs with your hashtag in the video's description.
Pro-Tip: Social media giveaways are great, but you should also complement this promotion by promoting the contest on your website. You'll find out why as you read on.
3. Host Giveaways on Your Website
While social media giveaways are pretty popular these days, they still have drawbacks. Just days after uploading, social media content can get lost in an endless sea of posts — making it hard for your consumers to find them. You can avoid this issue by posting giveaways on your website. Doing so allows you to pin your giveaway at the top of your website's feed without fear of it getting lost in the shuffle.
Pro-Tip: You should still use social media to promote your website's giveaway. It will drive more traffic to your website, and you'll be able to track visitors and their behavior on your site.
4. Buy-1-Get-1 Free
Who doesn't love getting two items for the price of one? Most often, buy-1-get-1 free promotions mean getting two of the same item and only paying for one; however, that doesn't have to be the case. For example, if your customer buys a doll for the holidays, that doll can also come with a free outfit.
Make sure the items in this promotion complement each other, so you can be sure your customer is satisfied with the deal. For example, a free cupcake could pair well with a purchase of coffee or tea.
Pro-Tip: Design unique graphics to promote your giveaway and to illustrate to your customers exactly what they can expect from the deal. In the example below, Starbucks alludes to the kinds of drinks customers can get from the chain's BOGO sale and the text in the graphic break down the rules of the promotion.
Image source: Foodgressing
5. Free Gift Cards With a Purchase
Gift cards make excellent giveaways because they give customers an incentive to return and use the card for future purchases. You can hand out gift cards to customers who:
- Complete a certain task (for example, leaving a glowing Yelp review or following your social media)
- Win a promotional contest
- Purchase specific items within a certain timeframe
Just make sure that the rules for receiving a gift card, and how the card can be used, are clear.
Pro-Tip: People are more motivated by gift cards that are geared toward desired or popular products.
6. Refer-A-Friend
Research shows that 93% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family, so word-of-mouth is incredibly valuable in marketing. One way of using word-of-mouth to your company's advantage is to run a refer-a-friend promotion.
For example, Ipsy is a makeup subscription service that gives points to subscribers who refer their friends to the service. Those points can then be used toward free products and special deals. All friends have to do is sign up. With each sign-up, subscribers get 600 points.
Pro-Tip: To keep track of referrals, send out a particular referral link your customers can send to their friends and give them a time limit. For example, Ipsy subscribers only get 600 points if their friends sign up using the referral link within 24 hours.
7. Offer a Chance to Relax
According to a study by telehealth company Sesame Care, 56% of Americans find the holiday season too stressful — to the point where they'd rather cancel the holidays altogether.
Though you may not have the power to take Christmas off the calendar, you can offer a spa or massage gift card as the perfect giveaway. You can offer the gift card as a thank you for spending a certain amount at your establishment or give it away as a prize for a contest.
Pro-Tip: Collaborate with a local spa or massage therapist so they can help promote your giveaway on their platforms as well.
8. Run a Photo Contest
As people put up holiday decorations, reunite with family and friends, and unwrap gifts — there will be many photos taken and uploaded to social media. So, it's the perfect time to run a photo contest. Ask your followers to post their favorite holiday photos and tag the company in order to be entered into a raffle to win a giveaway. This works even better if they're able to include your company's product in the photo.
Pro-Tip: This idea also generates a lot of user-generated content which can be repurposed for marketing materials like social media graphics and commercials.
'Tis the season to give back to your customers by handing out fun prizes and deals. Now you have a few ideas you can try for your next holiday giveaway.
