Back to School is one of the highlights of the shopping calendar, especially for brands with a direct connection to the school, students, and stationery products. So making your business stand out is key to success.
Here are just a few of the marketing objectives you can achieve with a successful Back to School giveaway:
- Raise brand recognition and awareness
- Inform consumers about your products and offers
- Grow engagement on social media and increase reach
- Boost sales, online and in-store
- Reinforce customer loyalty and retain clients
When you sit down to plan your Back to School giveaway, there are three things to bear in mind. Who are you targeting? What channel are you going to use? And what prize are you going to offer?
No matter what stage of the planning process you’re in, we’ve gathered some fantastic examples of Back to School giveaways -including Instagram giveaway examples- organized by brands from various sectors. Check out these successful giveaways and get inspired!
Back to School giveaway ideas: boost social media engagement with comment giveaways
Giveaways are now the most popular type of social media promotion. Brands from different sectors turn to Instagram to reach potential and existing customers. What is the best thing about organizing “comment to win” giveaways? They’re super easy to enter, and the entry criteria often make them go viral. The Back to School season is perfect for organizing comment-based sweepstakes that boost social media engagement, cultivate a loyal following, and create buzz around your brand.
The weeks leading up to the return to school are especially prosperous for stationery shops, as kids and parents are out and about looking for new notebooks, cute markers, and new pencil cases. During this busy period, the main focus of stationary brands is convincing their target audience to become their brand of choice. Here’s an example of how to better position a stationary brand on social media.
The Gifted Type ran a comment giveaway for their followers, in which all they had to do was mention two besties in the comments. Can you see how the organizer reinforced brand and product awareness, while also boosting engagement, attracting new followers, and showcasing trendy products?
Planning to launch a Back to School giveaway? We prepared ready-made templates for a Back to School Instagram Giveaway to save some time and hassle.
The majority of school kids simply want to be cool, and the first days of being back at school are about showing off the new fashionable apparel. That’s why fashion brands should take the Back to School campaign seriously, as it’s the time of the year when parents look for new shoes, backpacks, t-shirts, jackets, and pants! Benaiah Clothing organized a comment giveaway for their followers. To double the reach they asked the entrants to tag a friend in the comment section.
Reach your audience with Facebook Back to School giveaways
Brands launch Facebook Giveaways for exactly the same reasons they launch giveaways in other social media channels; they help in boosting engagement, improving brand awareness, and recall, while they also engage online communities.
Let’s remember that Back to School is not only about school kids. University students also make their way back to lectures and student halls.
Every year the Ball State Alumni Association organizes a “Homecoming Week” full of fun activities. To generate extra excitement among the students the association launched a giveaway for all participants that liked and commented on the post.
If you’re planning to hold a Facebook giveaway as part of your Back to School campaign don’t forget to use our ready-made template! It’s fully customizable and it might save you up to 70% of production time!
Energize your followers with a Back to School giveaway on Twitter
Twitter Giveaways require minimal design elements but they can bring about valuable and desired results. Back to School Twitter sweepstakes are very quick and easy to set up, enter, and finalize. Their simplicity attracts many online users who willingly enter for a chance to win. Take advantage of it for your Back to School campaign.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: any brand can organize a Back to School giveaway. And to back up that statement here’s an example from Gardiner Family Apothecary. To celebrate kids going back to school they launched a Twitter Giveaway promoting skincare products for juniors.
In order to participate Twitter users retweeted the promotional post and followed the organizing brand. It was a great activity to boost brand engagement.
We’ve mentioned the students, the parents… But let’s not forget that Back to School is also a big thing for students and professors! Quizalize, an online learning platform wanted to give back to schooling professionals. They ran a Twitter giveaway to raffle a new laptop for one lucky teacher!
The brand asked the participants to retweet the giveaway and tag a fellow teacher. This was a fantastic opportunity for Quizalize to strengthen the previously established customer relationships.
Back to School giveaway ideas: Convert social media followers into sales leads
Do you have an active social media following? Do you think your followers are good potential customers? It might be interesting to convert them into qualified sales leads for your brand. All you have to do is use our Back to School Entry Form Giveaway template, come up with a prize, and share some convincing and inviting messages on your social media channels. Then, wait and see how social media users willingly share their contact details for a chance to win a prize.
Remember, that some users might be reluctant to share their contact details. This is why it’s important to make sure that the prize you’re raffling is worth the hassle. Give away something that is attractive and appeals to the majority of your social media followers.
Back to School Giveaway with additional prizes by Instant Win
Add more value to your Entry Form Giveaway by using the Instant Win application to distribute instant prizes among participants who register in the application. Users will register to enter the grand prize draw and will also instantly find out if they have won any of the other prizes.
For example, we see how a shopping mall gave away a laptop among all registered participants. Additionally, they gave away €5 and €10 discount vouchers that were awarded immediately after filling out the form.
We hope you find these Back to School giveaway ideas helpful to get your campaign going and if you need a hand with your giveaway, we you can always contact us through our live chat, we will be happy to help!
