I was really excited when Meagan asked me to come visit and share a giveaway How-To guest post with you. The timing couldn’t have been better! Our March theme on Oh My! Handmade is Business & Blogging Ethics so I already had giveaways on my mind for my own giveaway guidelines post + free download and my post on 5 examples of great giveaways to inspire people to think about what the key elements of a successful giveaway are.

I am going to assume that before you are thinking you are ready to start offering giveaways you have an established site that is building a reputation and has a dedicated readership. You have Facebook and Twitter accounts with followers for both.  You should have subscribers to your blog and have solid traffic statistics that you can share. Google analytics is a great source for putting together a little sheet on your readership. If you have a blog, understanding your statistics & who your readers are is vital. Your posts should be engaging your readers and you should have more then a handful of comments on them regularly. If your blog still only gets a few comments on every post then your job right now is to build your readership by offering great content and making connections with social media. Ask yourself all the questions I share in my Giveaway Guidelines post and if you can’t say confidently that you are ready, that’s okay! There are lots of fun ways to connect with your readers and give them a little something extra like hosting craft challenges or by giving away something you bought or made yourself. Offering giveaways where you give something away just for the joy of it is a perfect way to “practice” hosting a giveaway and to build trust and a connection with your readers.

If you want to try your hand at offering a larger giveaway and you think your blog has enough traffic to support it, try putting together a proposal to send to a larger company. For example if you run a designer fabric blog consider contacting a large notion manufacturer to offer a $50 gift certificate to your readers. If the giveaway gets 20 comments then their budget wont suffer the same as the little handmade shop owner who needs to also buy groceries.

If you have put in the time to build your blog & readership to the point where people have contacted you to offer giveaways for them and you can answer their questions (which I hope they are asking!) then try these 5 steps to running a great giveaway.

Step 1

Set a clear start and end date, make sure you will have the time for the week or month you are running the giveaway to promote it daily-or multiple times a day.

Make sure you are clear on the giveaway item, who can enter the contest, and where the business wants to direct traffic (Twitter, Facebook, blog rss etc…). Let your readers know when and how the winner will be notified and how the winner will be chosen (random.org, drawing a name out of a hat, based on comment).

Step 2

I never just publish a giveaway-I make it a feature or include an interview so that the post will always be great content on the site and a resource for readers. I show off lots of products and talk about the company/artist. That way the giver can add the post to their press page also and use it for marketing in the future.

I like to have readers comment about something in the post or the interview that they enjoyed or to tell me something about themselves. This giveaway Mayi Carles offered on Oh My! for her Life Is Messy Planner is a great example of how you can learn more about your readers & tell a business more about their market through giveaway comments. While it might not have as many comments as these giveaways, 5 Great Giveaways: Their Keys to Success, I think the quality of the comments makes it an example of a great giveaway.

Step 3

Don’t just put up a picture of the giveaway item with the contest rules, make your giveaway a visual showcase by putting together pretty image spreads and showcasing the work of the giver. If you are looking for free or cheap resources to make your blog pretty check out Pugly Pixel and Aviary or Picnik if you don’t have Photoshop or another photo editing software.

Step 4

As soon as you publish your giveaway start spreading the news, share the giveaway on your Facebook page and be sure to tag the page of the business offering the giveaway so it shows up on their wall. I use Twitter more then Facebook and will Tweet about a giveaway at least once a day. Remind people when the giveaway is closing and switch up your wording. Don’t tweet 5 times that “so-and-so is giving away such-and-such” over and over again. Tell your followers a little bit about the business or what the giveaway is all about to keep it interesting.
If you are hosting a giveaway featuring an Etsy seller you can also share the info on the Etsy Giveaways blog.

I hope these steps are helpful to you and that your giveaways are the talk of blogland because they are so fabulous!

About Jessika:
Jessika Hepburn is the editor of Oh My! Handmade, a growing resource for the handmade community. Featuring posts from over 20 high profile monthly and guest contributors, Oh My! Handmade shares daily posts about what we know and love. Jessika can also be found working with Noisette Marketing as a graphic designer and marketing consultant when she’s not crafting up a storm for her Etsy shop Say O Happy Day or chasing after her two little girls.

You can also find Jessika on Twitter @ohmyhandmade and Facebook