WFMW - Hosting a Giveaway

No, silly. I'm not hosting a giveaway.

Not today at least. Just wait though...I've got something big planned for the beginning of August.

However, I do host them from time to time and have had increasing success each time I do it. I am learning how to attract more and more people and therefore bring more attention to my site.

Here is how I do it.

FIRST OF ALL, you need to know a little something about your own site. How much traffic do you get? Do you have any idea? If not, use either StatCounter or Google Analytics to look at this kind of info. You will probably need it because companies often are interested in this type of information.

And don't worry if you don't have big traffic. Some companies like to use small, intimate blogs to market.

SECONDLY, create a disclosure policy. It isn't something that you can never change as your site develops, but you need to cover yourself while hosting giveaways. I discussed how to do this in a previous WFMW post. You can find those details here.

THIRDLY, you need to get a company interested in hosting a giveaway at your site. The first thing I did was join My Blog Spark. I have had companies contact me randomly through that affiliation. However, they were unexpected and did not flock to me initially. However, go ahead and sign up and wait.

However, in the meantime, I have a company that wants to use more bloggers to market itself. When I hosted a giveaway for CSN Stores it brought a lot of traffic to my site, so I would think it would be a great one to start with! Just leave your email and blog address in my comments (or attached to a profile where they can be located) and I will forward that info along to them as requested. I will do this on Monday the 26th, so make sure you leave the info by the end of Sunday, July 25th to make sure you get included!

NEXT post your review and/or giveaway. Decide on the details. When will it run? How many entries are allowed? How will the winner be contacted? How long does the winner have to respond? Make sure the rules and clearly posted with the giveaway. And make sure you follow up on your end of the deal too!

LASTLY market your giveaway. Go to this link at Mommy Snacks to find a list of giveaway linkies across the web. It is sorted by the day the linky is posted and includes my Tuesday Free for All. Each new day of your giveaway, go to the newly posted linky on each of those sites and post yours for good exposure. Get blogger friends to promote for you if you want.

There are other ways to market yourself and get more opportunities, but this is a good place to start.

HERE ARE SOME TIPS that I have learned personally along the way:

• Don't require people to follow your blog in order to enter. It will just alienate people. You can offer it as an additional entry if you want and the people who want to do it will, but if you require it as an entry, I will just click off of your blog. Seriously...I don't want to follow people when I am not interested in their site. Sorry, but that's just the truth. And chances are a lot of those people will just drop you as soon as the contest is over.
• Make sure the company sponsoring the post is doing the shipping. Don't let them send you two copies of the product so that the shipping charges are on you.
• If you find a company you want to do a giveaway for, contact them and ask. It never hurts and you might just hit the jackpot!

That is my not-so-short tutorial on how to start hosting giveaways.

To see what works for other people on various topics, visit We Are THAT Family and look around!

Photo credit: arte_ram