How Most Brands Run Giveaways Wrong

Hey it's Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

I hate when brands run giveaways…

Most do it completely wrong and cause more harm than good.

Most brands look at the opt-in count, see thousands of new emails on the list, and assume the giveaway worked!

The problem is though that opt-ins are NOT buyers…

You're growing the list while stalling your own revenue at the same time…

The Giveaway Trap

Giveaway opt-in subscribers consistently underperform every other lead source we see across our 200+ clients. They convert worse than people who came in through urgency, discounts, or even regular pop-up forms.

Because, say you're giving away a $2,000 chair, and someone opts in on June 5th hoping to win it…

They're not buying anything from you for at least a few weeks because they might win it for free!!

So why would they buy from you and pay full price right now?

So, you end up with a bigger list, lower deliverability, lower revenue per opt-in, and a 3-week stall on everyone who's actually real.

The Post-Opt-In Flip

Here's the move that fixes this.

The second someone opts in for your giveaway, try to upsell them…

Use something like this:

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"We're expecting over 20,000 people to enter this giveaway. The odds of winning are extremely low.

Because you opted in we want to give you $250 off, expires in 3 days. You'll still be entered into the giveaway.

If you do happen to win, we'll refund you in full and ship the chair anyway."

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Now look what just happened.

You kept the giveaway hook intact, but now you handed them a real reason to buy NOW and not wait.

You introduced urgency that runs on a tighter timeline than the giveaway itself. And you removed the risk of them missing out on the prize.

The conversion rate on this flow is significantly higher than letting them sit on the list for 3-4 weeks doing nothing.

Plus you still get the list growth, brand awareness, and viral upside of running a giveaway.

If you're running giveaways without an aggressive post-opt-in flow, you're leaving most of the revenue on the table and training your newest subscribers to wait.

Build the flow first. Then run the giveaway.

If your giveaways are growing your list without growing your revenue, our team builds these post-opt-in flows for our 100+ clients across email and SMS. We've done $250M in email sales across 300+ brands the past 2 years. Book a call here »

Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
HOPR

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hTn5cu20adMVgVJY-g5KxpIyO-p_Uvhn/view?usp=sharing

Notes:
HOPR walks you through the 30-second ritual of opening their drink. The email is more cinematic than most beverage commercials this year.

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max Sturtevant

P.S
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