IG + Giveaway With A Twist = Cha Ching!

I just celebrated my first month of playing around with IG. It's been a fun ride. I thought I would share something that has done ridiculously well on IG for me. Maybe it will inspire you too?

Warning: If you are an IG pro this is probably very common knowledge and amateurish to you. I make nothing for sharing this (just trying to have fun here). I am a social media retard. I thought IG was for old ladies (my wife) and little girls until a month ago.

On to the share that you probably already know:



So early on I noticed that giveaways on big accounts generate a butt load of engagement. Since I am a little account (really little), I wanted to see how I could fare with a giveaway of sorts. But I wanted to twist the concept a bit.

In every giveaway I see there are a few key points:

1- They only give away one (or a few) item to a lucky drawn winner.

2- They require the entrants to jump through hoops. Usually they have to like the post, comment, share with friends, show their tits, etc.



I wanted to throw a wrinkle into this concept so I did:

1- I gave away something free to literally every person that wanted it and told me so within one week of making the post.

2- All they had to do to get it was leave a comment. That's it. I went out of my way to say that they do not have to do anything in return. Just leave a comment and I would ship them their freebie. I explained that I like to be a "giver", and that this was my way of doing something for fun and sharing smiles with all of my newly found friends. Yada, yada....


The results? Absolutely ridiculous!!!! I didn't know engagement like this was even possible, especially for a baby account like mine.

Return on investment? Embarrassingly good. Let's just say that my new customers from this attempt got me my money back from the "investment" many, many times over. One "whale" customer acquired through this actually paid for this whole project and then some.



So what did I give away? I won't share that, but I can tell you that with shipping it cost me around $1 per person. I can make a stupid makebelive example though if that helps?


Let's say that you have an ecommerce refrigerator store. Instead of giving away one refrigerator that costs you maybe $2k to one winner, give away a small token. How about a refrigerator magnet with a funny slogan that costs you $.25? Add your postage to that and you are under $.75 per giveaway. So instead of giving one big thing away and making one person a happy one that will probably never buy your refrigerator because they just got one for free, you have now made around 2,667 people happy and potentially curious buyers with the same investment budget.

I know for a fact that people love free shit (literally and figuaritively). If you offer a free piece of chewing gum, they will beg you for it.

As an added benefit, the people that registered for the freebie remain very active on my page and comment a lot.


So this has been my experience. It worked incredibly well for me. I plan on making this a monthly feature on my IG account.

Thanks for reading. If you have a spin on this, or an opposite experience, I would like to hear it.

Hi, thanks for share. And where is the money making part?

biagle said:

Hi, thanks for share. And where is the money making part?

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I used to sell paint when I was young. I learned a valuable lesson.

When a customer walked into the door my job was to run up to them and welcome them. I asked if they wanted a drink. When they said yes I would put a quarter into the coke machine and say, "This one's on us!"

Of course the quarter wasn't mine. I was a broke, young punk. The store owner gave me a roll of quarters every morning to make sure the customers weren't thirsty while they shopped.

Guess what happened? Almost every single person that got a "free" coke walked out with paint buckets in their hand. A few would even stop by from time to time just to hang out with us, knowing they would always get a free coke out of the machine.

So where was the money making part in handing out free cokes?

Hey, good post!

I agree that it drastically improves engagement. I have a giveaway for anyone that signs up for my newsletter, and my sales have increased since adding it. Would definitely recommend.

m23 said:

Hey, good post!

I agree that it drastically improves engagement. I have a giveaway for anyone that signs up for my newsletter, and my sales have increased since adding it. Would definitely recommend.

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Thought: giveaway without requiring them to do anything. In the giveaway you can thank them and mention the newsletter. I wonder what would happen?

I'm immune from most giveaways because all I see is the hustle. I don't think I'm alone in this way of thinking.

Now if you can hide the hustle by coming off as genuine and sincere (no requirements), I'll probably be your next sucker/customer.

Thoughts?

gtull2 said:

Thought: giveaway without requiring them to do anything. In the giveaway you can thank them and mention the newsletter. I wonder what would happen?

I'm immune from most giveaways because all I see is the hustle. I don't think I'm alone in this way of thinking.

Now if you can hide the hustle by coming off as genuine and sincere (no requirements), I'll probably be your next sucker/customer.

Thoughts?

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Give it a go, let us know how it goes. I don't think anyone would really have a problem entering their e-mail for a newsletter to receive something for free.

m23 said:

Give it a go, let us know how it goes. I don't think anyone would really have a problem entering their e-mail for a newsletter to receive something for free.

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I did give it a go. I did let you know how it went. That was what this thread was about.

I give up....

gtull2 said:

I did give it a go. I did let you know how it went. That was what this thread was about.

I give up....

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Okay, I'm not entirely sure the intention of your previous post then.

Anyways, I like where you're coming from. I just simply like to build a list while I'm doing it.

Good tip. I just started a new account for my business recently and I think I might try this.

Reciprocity in action, marketing classics.
Frank Kern's classic example:

See, he really was making all that money selling ice cream.

Here's how he did it.

In Amalfi, it gets really hot.

And the tourists just aren't used to it.

So this guy would have his employees "patrol" the area by his shop and just give away these little sample-sized cups of ice cream while he stood in the doorway and waved at everyone with a smile.

They had trays with all these tiny little cups of ice cream on them and they'd just go up to people who were visibly hot and sweaty and say, "This is for you from the Gelato shop over there. It's really hot today and I looks like you could use it."

As they said it, they'd point to the owner standing in the doorway and he'd smile and wave.

That was it!

And here's what I saw.

About 75% or so of the people who tasted the little Ice cream sample would immediately go in and buy a full serving.

And they'd buy a drink. And they'd come back later and do it again.

I tried to count how many customers but it was nearly impossible because there were so many! As best I could tell, he was doing about $6,000.00 a day selling ice cream. That's ...

Over TWO MILLION a year!

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CoolAdvisor said:

Reciprocity in action, marketing classics.
Frank Kern's classic example:

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Enjoyed reading that. Thank you.