Checklist: Everything You Need To Go Viral!

The below checklists are going to show you how to run a giveaway and guide you to viral success.

These tactics, tips and growth hacks have been compiled from running over 148 giveaways and 2 years of viral marketing experience. You can apply all of the suggestions or just one, either way, it will be well worth the 10min read!

I'm sure you have heard the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day"... BUT that's what everyone wants. The silver bullet, the growth hack to take you from 0 to 100. Faster and faster growth, month after month.

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will your business be. How about we build it in 2 days though ??.

These tips on how to run a viral giveaway will help grow your business a lot faster than the Roman empire. We guarantee it!

A Usual Giveaway / Contest Timeline

It usually takes 20-30 days for the average company to run a giveaway. Below you can see the average timeline for planning, creating, launching and marketing a giveaway.

This may sound like a large project but I'm going to show you how to do it easily and get some huge results.

Most companies can 2-3x their existing list (people in the 2-10k range) or start a list and get to their first 1 or 2k subscribers quickly.

Giveaway Planning - Checklist

? 1. Choose a prize that has the highest perceived value you can afford. This means, what is the best possible thing you could give your ideal customer that would make them feel AMAZING!

Some ideas of increasing the perceived value of a prize.

• Services or products you provide. "The starter kit for xxxx"
• The industries top XXXX. "WIN PC Magazines top rated headphones of 2019"
• Large quantities. "Win 12 months worth of razors"

The reason you want to offer a prize that's only valuable to only your potential customers is to maintain the lead quality.

If you offer an iPad, everyone and their dog will enter. If you offer something like "12 months subscription to Photoshop" you have a much higher chance of only attract designers or current users of Photoshop.

? 2. Decided if you want to team up with a complementary brand to split the workload or do it all yourself!

How to decide if you need to team up with another brand.

Yes, team up - If you have zero followers and you're just getting started out.

No, you got this - You don't want to share leads, follows or branding.

? 3. What is the end goal? Emails, sales, social followers, podcast or app downloads etc.

When you are building and marketing your giveaway, keep these main goals in mind. Even though a giveaway allows you to achieve many objectives at once, it's a good idea to still have a "north star" goal.

? 4. If you plan to use influencers or other people to promote your giveaway, make sure you give them dates, creative and instructions prior to the giveaway launch.

? 5. Organize PR dates and plans as early as you can. Are you going to launch your giveaway in a forum, on product hunt, via a media buy or on someone else's website, blog or email list?

Lock in those plans and set dates so you have deadlines to work towards. PR releases or partnerships are not required at all to run a giveaway it just helps get the word out. 

FREE Guide: 6 Key Success Factors For Running A Viral Contest [Download Here]

Giveaway Creation - Checklist

? 1. Make the prizes and how to enter super clear on the signup page.

People are easily confused and need to be able to understand that you're running a giveaway, what they can win and how to enter within 15 seconds of being on the page.

? 2. Use multiple prizes like you can see above. For example, placements (1st, 2nd etc), random winner draw and milestone rewards (based on the number of entries collected).

? 3. Use gifs, they capture attention more than images and text.

You can also say a lot more via images, gifs an video than you can using text. This is extremely useful for decreasing the amount of reading people have to do which leads to as faster conversion rate.

? 4. Use embed video to get a lot of information over quickly instead of writing an essay pitch. We highly suggest you host the video on YouTube or Vimeo then use the embed feature to keep your page load fast.

? 5. Use bonus actions, they are the most important aspect of your giveaway. Identify 4-5 "things" you want to grow and focus on those for custom actions.

? 6. Get creative, there are so many things you can incentivize, they way your giveaway will stand out is if you are creative.

Everyone has like my Facebook page or Instagram profile as a bonus action. Try something a little more valuable to your business, check out some of the ideas below.

• Like, comment, share on this Facebook post, then turn that post into an ad. (increase relevancy score)
• Thumbs up my latest YouTube video. (increase view count)
• Comment on my latest blog post and add your top takeaway. (build blog engagement and force people to read your content).
• Subscribe to my podcast. (notifies people when you have new content)
• Leave a review on my page or product (build reviews)

See these examples in action with this monthly draw giveaway.

? 7. Make sure you have your terms and conditions sorted. Some platforms like VYPER will have a template you can use but also make sure to add any specific requirements for your industry or company.

If you're in the EU and need to be GDRP compliant make sure you have multiple checkboxes to filter out people who opt-out of marketing emails.

Giveaway Marketing - Checklist

? 1. Hit up your direct audiences, they already know who you are so the signup has less friction.

It's important to invite your immediate network. You may already have their email, but they can share your giveaway with others to collect entries. They are likely to share it with people similar to themselves.

• Ask your friends, family, coworkers to enter and share
• LinkedIn connections
• Email your list
• Add giveaway to your website
• Share on your social channels
• Share in any groups or communities your in

? 2. Partner up with influencers, they can help expand the reach of people who find out about your giveaway.

You can also get influencers to share your giveaway for free if you pitch it like this.

Hi XXX, I'm running this huge giveaway (explain prize) and I think you have a good chance of winning as it's a leaderboard based on entries and you have a network that would be interested in signing up. Check it out.

? 3. Send LOTS of emails to giveaway participants. Keep them engaged. Either send them from within your VYPER account or pass all entrants over to your ESP to send from there.

• Welcome & congratulations
• These are all the ways you can earn bonus entries
• Share your referral link to collect more entries
• A new bouns entry has been added to the giveaway
• Referrals are worth 2x the number of entries for the next 48 hours
• Giveaway ends in 48 hours
• etc.

? 4. Run ads. Since you are offering something for free. These ads have a super high CTR and relevancy score. This makes it a great "lead bait".

Make sure to place pixels so you can optimize for signups and run remarketing campaigns.

PRO Tip - Make one of your giveaway bonus entries to "like, share and comment on your Facebook post". Make this post about your giveaway. The use that post as an ad.

? 5. Add the giveaway to your website. Use a hello bar, notification bubble, or popup across all pages. This is an easy place to pick up new entrants.

? 6. Post your giveaway into communities like Reddit, Facebook Groups etc.

Make sure you provide some value first. Post, engage with group and community leading up to your giveaway and connect with the admins. Here's a more in-depth guide on how to do this.

Giveaway Follow Up Checklist

? 1. Most of the selling will be done in your email drips. Nurturing and providing value is the best way to build happy, loyal customers.

Offer multiple prizes in the follow-up. Announce the winners to the entire giveaway list and give everyone a runner-up or random winner prize.

See the example email below that we sent out as soon as the giveaway ended.

? 2. Let people know in the first follow up email they can expect awesome content deals and surprises from you.

? 3. The first email has the highest open rate out of any email you send. Put any important information in there.

• Partnership offers
• giveaway entrant only deals
• Ask them to reply to improve your deliverability and open rates for the future

? 4. Now that you have a huge list of potential customers nurture them until they convert.

Add them to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn audiences so when you have promotions, new content etc you can reach them on multiple channels, not just email.

Giveaways are not only a good way to build an email list but you can incentivize pretty much any online action. This can be extremely powerful if you get creative with it.

In our over-communicated world standing out takes creativity, uniqueness, incentivization, and gamification. These are the main factors that go into creating viral campaigns.

So make your next marketing campaign count. Try something different and reward people for engaging with you instead of expecting or "hoping" for it!

Create a free account at VYPER to unlock a top converting giveaway template.