How to Grow your Travel Blog with Online Giveaways
If you have taken initiative to read this post, I am assuming you already have your own travel blog. If you do not and would like to know how to get started, go to this post and scroll all the way to the bottom for a step by step guide. So you have started a blog, written some content, and you're thinking: 'Now what? How do I make people aware of my blog?'
Online Giveaways are an effective yet low cost marketing method to promote your blog around the internet, generate traffic, grow your social media presence, strengthen your SEO, and ultimately get new loyal readers.
In comparison to other Marketing campaigns, they are much more affordable and lead to a higher conversion and long-term readers. Just to give you an idea in terms of numbers, if you have an optimized designed Giveaway form, a great eye-catching title and intriguing copy, a decent prize, with the right promotion you can easily generate several thousand targeted leads within 4-6 weeks, several thousand social likes and followers, and many great high quality links to your website, not to mention the thousands of new prospects that will visit your website and potentially turn into customers (with any services you may offer).
Maximum Results
The giveaway's purpose is not only to raise brand awareness, but also to generate website traffic, grow social followership, grow your e-Mail subscriber list for future engagement, generate targeted leads and ultimately increase sales.
To enter, people at minimum must provide their name and e-Mail address; this is customizable, you can also collect their phone number, address, and other data. So for every person who enters the giveaway, you will receive all of that information.
Once they complete this basic entry, they can complete other "activities" to gain more entries and thus increasing their chances of winning.
These should be customized based on your business, your objective, and your target audience, and can include but are not limited to:
Liking tyour Facebook page, thus growing your Facebook fan base
Leaving a blog post comment (great for SEO)
Following your business on Twitter
Writing a post about the Giveaway and sharing it with a link back to your website (fantastic for SEO and traffic generation)
Following your business on Pinterest
Joining your e-Mail list, thus growing your subscriber base of people who express interest in your products/services that you re-engage with anytime in the future
Browsing on your website and for example selecting their favorite item (which you can later use in a personalized offer to increase conversions to sales)
Sharing a tweet that will have a link to your website. So each time someone will share the tweet, they will share your website URL with all of their followers, leaving your business with the potential to being exposed to tens of thousands new people
Another entry method can be sharing pre-determined pins on Pinterest. The Pinterest pins that people can pin on their wall that will be seen by all of their followers should have an optimized description and include a link to your website. This generates traffic to your website Furthermore, your followership and engagement will grow.
People could earn more entries by sharing videos from your business's YouTube channel further raising awareness
Giving the site a Google + (very valued by Google for SEO)
Referring others to the Giveaway and your website
The great thing is that the results will last much longer than the Giveaway itself:
Your site may rank higher in search engines
due to the stronger social links
higher page authority from website engagement (e.g. comments)
and get a lot more organic traffic
Furthermore, people will keep spreading the word and sharing the Giveaway, reaching even more people who will come in contact with your brand and your business as well.
When I work with clients on setting up their online Giveaway, I make sure everything is optimized:
Giveaway creation
Design
Optimized Copy
HTML Links within the copy
Setup of all entry methods (as described in the options above)
Automatic configuration of entry tracking methods
Weekly updates sending you all leads and a report with current stats
After the Giveaway ends
Generating random winners
Publication of winners within the form
An e-Mail report containing the winner's information
Promotion
Submission to many linkies (amount based on the plan you choose) with 100,000+ total readership reach
Submission into several Giveaway Directories
e-Mail inclusion to 11,000+ subscribers
Facebook Fanpage Tab integration
Social Media Promotion
And much more customized to your business's needs
If you are interested in having me set up and manage your Giveaway, contact me and I will provide you with more information and pricing.
Optimal Giveaway Length
The recommended length for a Giveaway is 6 weeks, with weekly promotion for best results. It is a fantastic opportunity to grow your social presence significantly in a short period of time, inexpensively, and lay a foundation of viral natural further growth.
The Prize
The prize would be recommended to be something that is targeted towards your audience, which would establish interest among all who are exposed to and enter the Giveaway and allow you to build an e-Mail list of qualified leads that you can nurture over time and reconnect with to gain more customers and convert those leads into sales.
For example, for a travel blog, a good prize would be either $100 gift card to an airline or to use to get some travel gear. This will lead only people from your target demographic to enter the giveaway. The bottom line is, you will end up with highly targeted leads whom you can continue to engage with via social media, send period newsletters to, and foster a relationship to gain them as long term readers as they have expressed an initial interest in your site.
Contact me to request more information about my Online Giveaway Marketing Campaigns.