Promote your brand by giving away seasonal products
Let’s start with something simple. You’ve got the perfect product to share for the winter months – and you know that email is the best way to generate leads. So you can organize a prize draw for everyone who registers their contact details.
This is what Kneipp, the German lifestyle and wellness company that creates natural bath and body care products, herbal medicines, and dietary supplements, did. To help users start the new year with vitality and energy, they ran this Entry Form Giveaway, where users only had to enter their first and last name, email address, and Instagram account handle to enter. Two lucky winners won a wellness kit containing a variety of the brand’s vitamins and minerals.
Treat your followers to an experience
If you want to catch the consumers’ attention, you need to think outside the box. As well as products, you can share experiences: family days out, a romantic dinner, branded events, and more.
Here’s an example from the Catalonian Railway company’s tourism department. They offered free entry to the outdoor ice skating rink in Lleida for 25 winners, who could bring along family or friends for a joyful day of winter fun. All users had to do to have a chance to win was to sign up with their email address, name, last name, and phone number, and say how many people they would like to take ice skating with them. The winners were picked randomly with the Easypromos platform.
Everybody loves getaways, winter getaways, too! If your brand is associated with the tourism or travel sector, you have an easy task. Simply organize a contest that participants enter for a chance to win a mini-holiday!
An example of a winter escape giveaway is this one from Cairngorms National Park. In this Entry Form giveaway, users simply had to enter their name, last name, and email address. Registering means automatic sign-up for the organizers’ newsletters. The brand carried out the random prize draw with the Easypromos platform to select the winner of a 3-night winter break with Caledonian Escapes, Landmark Forest Adventure Park & Highland Wildlife Park tickets!
Run a winter photo contest to collect user-generated content
Next, let’s think beyond leads and email lists. Once you are in touch with your customer base, you can start collecting user-generated content.
UGC has been a very popular trend in winter marketing and beyond. When you ask your followers for content, you can reuse their comments, videos, and photos in your own marketing strategy. So, as well as saving time and resources, you’ll demonstrate that you care about your customers’ contributions.
In this Winter Photo Contest example, users are asked to share a picture of how they celebrate or survive Winter, or that shows what Winter means to them. Users first identify themselves and register, and can then upload their photo. Users can vote for their favorite photo in the gallery.
Want to run a winter photo competition? You’ve got options! Create a classic gallery, connect with Instagram, and collect social media entries with a Mention & Hashtag Contest.
Or if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, you can ask users to decorate their photos with seasonal frames and stickers! Invite your audience to enter a Scenes contest. Simply ask your online community to create their own scenario using your branded stickers.
Here’s an example from TravelUp, a travel agency from the United Kingdom. They asked their audience to decorate Christmas trees!
The Christmas tree with the highest number of votes was the winning one, and its author won a getaway to Iceland! By enabling the voting system, the organizers encouraged social media sharing, therefore making the promotion and brand go viral.
Give prizes to incentivize participation
Remember to offer something in return for the users’ effort. The more you ask for, the more you have to offer, if you want users to participate. Direct prizes are a great incentive because users wil know instantly if they’ve won a prize. In the case of contests, where the winners are chosen by public voting or by a jury, it’s not as easy.
But you can still offer something upon participation, for example a discount coupon, that you can also send to the users’ email addresses. You can create different coupons for users who participate with a photo and for users who vote. Coupons and promotional codes are always popular with shoppers. And they can provide a massive sales boost.
Do you need more winter competition ideas? Head to our Winter Hub to discover tips, ideas, advice, and free resources for your winter campaign!
Challenge your followers to a winter-themed quiz
Finally, let’s think about quizzes and surveys. These are all contests where you start by asking a question, and in return, you could get consumer insights, feedback, and valuable information to qualify leads.
For example, you could use a Knowledge Quiz to test how much people know about your brand and tell them more about your story. Or you can quiz them on their winter knowledge in a Quiz with Timer, like in the example below, where the top 5 participants win a prize. This example is pure entertainment, but it can still give you some clues as to what you could focus on in your communication and marketing.
With a Survey, you could find out more about shopping habits and product preferences. Or a more gamified type of survey, like this ‘Pick your Favorite’, where users pick their favorite Winter beverage and get a discount code for 50% off on their next hot beverage purchased at the establishment. A survey like this is visually attractive for the audience, and it still gives the business insight into their audience’s preferences.
Winter contests can also mean Christmas contests
Winter also means Christmas marketing in the Northern Hemisphere, and Christmas competitions are a great way to stand out among the many Christmas campaigns. An option is to hop on the Ugly Christmas Sweater trend and ask users to share pictures of themselves in their ugly sweaters.
This is what QuadReal Property Group did; they hosted a photo contest for the residents in some of the communities they manage. The winner was chosen through voting and won a $100 Visa Gift Card. The real estate investment, development and operating company furthermore matched the prize amount that went to a charity organization chosen by the winner.
Design your own winter marketing campaign
Ready to get started? Then you can create an Easypromos account and draft your promotions for free! And if you’re interested in Christmas campaigns, don’t forget to check out our festive inspiration.
