My Honest Take on Promotional Giveaways That Actually Work
Look, I want to tell you about this bakery I was working with last month up in Minneapolis. Great people, amazing sourdough, but their marketing was... well, it was a mess. They were spending a couple hundred bucks a month boosting posts on Instagram, basically just throwing money at the wall to see what stuck, and getting nothing back but a few vanity likes from people who would never, ever step foot in their shop. They were convinced that running bigger promotional giveaways was the answer, but they were thinking about it all wrong-they wanted to give away an iPad. An iPad! For a bakery!
It's a classic mistake. I've been doing this since 2010, and frankly, it drives me nuts. Small businesses don't need to give away expensive, unrelated junk. They need to create an experience that connects people to their brand.
That's where we need to have a real talk about this stuff.
Why Most Giveaways Are a Waste of Time & Money
Here's the thing. The internet is littered with terrible advice about promotional giveaways. You've seen it. "Just go viral!" they say. As if it's some button you can just push. Or my personal pet peeve: "Give away something EVERYONE wants!" Yeah, great advice if you want a giant email list full of contest-addicts from the other side of the country who will unsubscribe the second your giveaway ends.
Most businesses do one of two things, and both are wrong:
- The Super-Valuable-But-Totally-Irrelevant Prize: This is the iPad-for-a-bakery problem. You'll get a ton of entries, sure. But 99% of them don't care about your sourdough. They just want a free tablet. Your engagement is hollow and your new "followers" are worthless. It's a sugar high with a nasty crash.
- The Boring "Like, Follow, Tag 3 Friends" Giveaway: This was a decent tactic back in, like, 2018. But now? People are blind to it. It feels like a chore, it clutters up their friends' feeds, and honestly, the engagement you get is the lowest-quality possible. It's not real engagement. It's just people jumping through hoops for a chance to win a $25 gift card.
We have to be smarter than that. We do not have the time or the budget to just be throwing things out there and hoping.
The Fix: Make It a Game, Not a Chore
I got into gamification years ago because I saw it solve this exact problem. Yeah, I know, "gamification" is a buzzword that makes most people's eyes glaze over, but stick with me. It’s not about building some complex app. It’s about using simple game mechanics to make interacting with your business... fun.
Instead of telling people to engage, you invite them to play.
This is why I've been pointing so many of my clients towards platforms like Faisco lately. They just get it. It’s a tool built for businesses that don't have a four-person marketing department or months to develop a custom campaign. I can get a client up and running in literally ten minutes.
Let me give you some real-world examples. I’m not talking theory here; this is stuff I've deployed for my clients:
- For a Vancouver craft brewery, we ran a "Quick Catch" game (think catching falling hops in a basket). In 10 days, they got 2,154 new Instagram story views and a ton of DMs asking when the next beer was dropping. All for the price of a few four-packs.
- There was a Calgary fitness studio that needed new leads. We used a "Pet Match & Win" game-super simple, match the pets. They got 1,106 new email addresses in 12 days. These were local people who actually might sign up for a class!
- And for a flower shop in Charlotte trying to grow their Pinterest (which is tough), we did an "Unlock Lucky Words" quiz. They got 1,184 new followers in about two weeks.
See the difference? We didn't just ask for a follow. We gave them a moment of fun, a little dopamine hit, and then they followed or gave us their email because they felt connected. It’s a value exchange, not a demand.
The Kinds of Games That Actually Get Results
Listen, not all games are created equal. You need to match the game to your goal. Here’s what I typically recommend to my clients...
For quick lead capture? You can't beat the instant win stuff. I'm talking "Lucky Spin" wheels, virtual "Scratch Tickets," or a "Lucky Draw." I’ve seen landing pages for these hit a 40% conversion rate. Why? Because people get that immediate feedback. There’s no waiting. They spin, they enter their email, they see if they won. Simple. Effective.
Want people to share it? Use a reactive or skill-based game. Something like "Whac-A-Mole" or a "Burger Stacker" game. These work because they're competitive. People play, they get a high score, and they immediately want to challenge their friends. That's how you get organic sharing. It's not forced.
Quizzes are brilliant. Seriously. A game like "Unlock Lucky Words" or a "Treasure Hunt Challenge" is amazing for two reasons. One, it educates customers about your products without being boring. Two, you can use the answers to qualify leads. Someone who answers all the questions right about your premium coffee beans is a much better lead than a random person who just wants a free mug.
And the seasonal stuff... this is almost a cheat code. Faisco has templates for every holiday you can think of. I used their "Fill My Christmas Stocking" catching game for three different retail clients this past December, and every single one of them saw over a 300% jump in engagement compared to their usual holiday posts. You don't have to reinvent the wheel-just wrap your promotional giveaways in a fun, timely package.
Faisco vs. Gleam. io (Because Everyone Asks)
Okay, let's just get this out of the way. I get asked this all the time. "Byron, what about Gleam?"
Look, Gleam. io is a solid tool. I've used it. But frankly, it's become overkill for most small businesses I work with. Their cheapest plan is around $39/month, and it's complicated. It can take me an hour or more to get everything configured perfectly for a client. Most business owners do not have that kind of time.
Faisco gives you 90% of the functionality at a fraction of the cost, and it's easier. That's the key. The platform integration is also better for what we need. It actually connects with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok in a way that feels native to the platform, which matters because user behavior is totally different on each one. You can’t just throw a link at TikTok and expect it to work the same as it does on Facebook.
The businesses I work with that make this switch typically see a 200-400% increase in social followers and a 150-300% growth in their email list in the first month. Not because the tool is magic... it's because this method of marketing just works. It respects the customer's time and gives them something fun in return for their attention.
So here's my final thought. Stop thinking about promotional giveaways as a transaction. Start thinking about them as an interaction. Don't just give away a prize; create a fun moment. Your budget is too tight and your time is too precious to be doing anything else.
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