Giveaways as marketing events are bad

Giveaways as marketing events are bad

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read on rasmus.beehiiv.com

What's up, buddies and trippers? Giveaways as marketing events are bad. Well, only if you do it like many brands seem to be going about them.

Today at a glance:

• why hosting random giveaways isn't always the best option and what to keep in mind

The thin line of paid giveaways

Brands and companies hosting giveaways have always been a thing. Even more so in the cryptocurrency space, but they're mostly very inefficient. Why? 

Here's an example from Facebook I always loved to use with my clients while working at an agency. Imagine that you're scrolling through your news feed and suddenly you see a company giving away a brand-new iPhone to whoever follows the page, shares the post, and tags some friends.

Takes just a few moments to earn a chance to win yourself a new phone! Woohoo, awesome. And the brand gets visibility, engagement, and new followers. Sounds like a perfect gig, doesn't it?

But in reality, this very example is a very artificial and ineffective way to go about it.

Unless! Unless you're a company in the mobile phone industry (e.g. phone repair shop, Apple, or an Apple reseller). Get where I'm steering with this?

In the previous giveaway example, the company hosting that event was actually a Facebook page of a brand that sold fishing equipment — giving away an iPhone. Doesn't really make sense when you think about it, right? 🤔

What is the problem with random giveaways?

You now have hundreds, if not thousands of new followers and skyrocketed engagement rates. Looks good on paper, and definitely looks good in the monthly marketing report. 📈

But where it isn't looking that good is the actual benefit. You now have a big chunk of new followers who isn't your target audience. That's not good.

Sure, some of the people who followed you might actually be interested in fishing and might become a customer, but the majority doesn't give a damn about what you actually do or sell. They just wanted to win an iPhone.

And long after the giveaway has been forgotten and champagnes have been popped to celebrate a successful (at least on paper) marketing campaign, your engagement is for some reason plummeting and your posts are not reaching a lot of people.

You're now stuck with thousands of followers without any interest in you (and you can't remove them), and your fishing content isn't resonating with the audience you've built.

Algorithms are punishing you because not a lot of your followers seem to care about your content. And they don't. You're building the wrong audience.

Okay, smartie pants, but what then?

When you're running giveaways, ensure the incentive relates to your brand. 

If you're a fishing company, host events where you give away equipment related to fishing. That attracts your target audience and gets you seen by your preferred user segment. Don't raffle fish food and expect to build an audience interested in natural nutritional supplements, for example.

Recommendation ZoneThe Saturday Solopreneur Newsletter by Justin Welsh. His sharings often pack valuable and practical ideas."Every Creator needs an enemy. And by an “enemy”, I don’t mean it in the traditional sense, like an evil villain or even a specific person. An enemy can be an ideology, narrative, or set of principles. It just needs to be something that you vehemently disagree with. Having an "enemy" means being very specific about what you're for, and what you're against." Find the post here with a full overview. 👇

Jamming Zone

What I'm reading?Still "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg with just a few chapters remaining. It covers all 19 traction channels one by one with many successful examples and high-level case studies. I'll jot them down with a few bullet points and share a document in the next newsletter.

The next in my reading list will likely be "Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making" by Tony Fadell.

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Any and all feedback is appreciated! Just reply to this e-mail or DM me on telegram: t.me/hapukoor. 🙌