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Refer-to-Win giveaways
Refer-to-Win giveaways

Boost referral performance and add urgency with Refer-to-Win giveaways.

Manuel Frigerio avatar
Written by Manuel Frigerio
Updated over 4 months ago

A Refer-to-Win giveaway is similar to your standard SparkLoop referral program with one exception: In addition to subscribers winning rewards for making referrals, they get entered into a giveaway for the chance to win a prize.

The more referrals a subscriber makes, the higher their chance of winning.

The Flipside newsletter, for instance, generates thousands of referrals with a monthly Refer-to-Win giveaway. Every subscriber who refers at least one friend is entered into a prize draw to win a $200 Amazon gift card.

⚠️ We recommend combining your normal referral program with a giveaway for best results.

Why run a Refer-to-Win giveaway?

Refer-to-Win Giveaways have three chief advantages over a standard referral program:

1. Many of your subscribers are more likely to be motivated by the chance of winning a larger prize, even if they weren’t enticed by a smaller reward in your usual referral program.

2. Giveaways are time sensitive, which adds extra urgency — prompting more subscribers to share today.

3. It's easy to come up with new and exciting prizes every time you run a giveaway, prompting more of your subscribers to share more often.

How to create a Refer-to-Win giveaway

Step 1: Outline your strategy

  1. The first thing you want to do is decide on your giveaway strategy.

  2. How many referrals do subscribers need to make to enter the Giveaway? (We recommend 1.)

  3. What prize will you be offering them? And how many people can win a prize?

  4. How long will the giveaway run for?

  5. Should entrants to the giveaway also win "normal" referral rewards for making referrals?

⚠️ The more referrals a subscriber makes, the higher their chance of winning. This is calculated automatically for you by SparkLoop when picking the winners.

Step 2: Create the Giveaway in SparkLoop

To create a new giveaway:

1. Head over to the Giveaways page and click the Create giveaway button. A form will open up where you can choose the settings for your giveaway.

2. Fill out the settings.

For a Refer-to-Win giveaway, you want to select Advocates in step 1, and deselect New subscribers in step 2.

You can choose how many winners you want and how many referrals subscribers need to make to enter.

Once your settings match your strategy, click the Start Giveaway button on the top right of the screen.

If you’ve already announced your giveaway but forgot to create it in advance in SparkLoop, that's not a problem.

⚠️ For a SparkLoop giveaway, you can set both the start and end date to be in the past.

Step 3: Run the giveaway

Your subscribers will already have had a SparkLoop referral link automatically generated for them from your "normal" referral program.

This is the same referral link they will share to enter the giveaway too.

To "launch" the giveaway, simply update the Referral Section of your newsletter with the giveaway rules, and include it in your newsletter!

Here are some examples of Referral Giveaway Sections in newsletters for inspiration:

Step 4: Finish the giveaway

When the giveaway time period ends, you will be notified by email.

You can then go into the Giveaways page of SparkLoop to pick the winners.

By default, SparkLoop will draw (pick) the correct number of winners for you at random from all valid entrants.

If you aren't happy with one of the winning subscribers (for instance, if it's a team member of yours), you can choose to select new winners.

Once you have drawn the correct number of winners, you should:

  1. Notify them.

  2. Consider sending a consolation email to people who entered but didn’t win.

  3. Publish the winners in your next newsletter (ideally with a photograph).

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