Free Stay Giveaway
Run a Free Stay Giveaway to get new leads, shares & followers on social media
Free Stay Giveaway
Hotels & Resorts
Build Your Email List
Get Social Shares & Followers
Description
The Free Stay Giveaway Campaign is an easy to build your email list, get social shares and grow your followers on social media. People enter to win a free stay at your hotel/resort by entering their email address and contact info in an entry form on the Giveaway Page. They can also earn bonus entries by sharing, following you and referring their friends. This makes your giveaway grow exponentially, as each entrant is incentivized to share with their friends and bring more entrants for you.
By offering a free stay as your giveaway prize, you’ll attract targeted leads who are interested in staying at your hotel/resort. And your Giveaway Page acts as a pre-qualifying sales page: People learn about your hotel/resort, and then say “Yes, I want this!” by entering the giveaway. You’ll then be able to follow-up with them after the giveaway ends to turn them into customers.
Step 1: Facebook Ad
Advertise to people on Facebook who are interested in staying in a hotel/resort in your local area to drive them to your Giveaway Page.
Step 2: Giveaway Page
On the Giveaway Page, people fill out an entry form and share / follow you on social media to get bonus entries.
Step 3: Thank You Page
The Thank You Page shows people they’ve entered successfully and displays the share, follow and refer-a-friends buttons to earn bonus entries.
Step 1: Facebook Ad
Facebook Ads allow you to target people who are interested in staying in a hotel/resort in your local area to drive them to your Giveaway Page.
Below is a pre-built Facebook Ad and Target Audience that we use for one of our hotel/resort clients.
1. Ad
Text
Start with a short, exciting sentence to pull people in. Then show a call-to-action to tell them to Enter now for the chance to WIN. Then show the aspects of the grand prize in a bullet list, with eye-catching emojis, so it’s easy for them to read. And finish by tell them that the contest ends soon to create a sense of urgency.
Image
Use an exciting, eye-catching image with a blue border. In our experience, this kind of image with a colorful border is what will stop people when they’re scrolling in the Facebook Newsfeed and read your Ad. And show a text headline in the image. This will get people reading your Ad right away.
Headline
This headline format, WIN [PRIZE]!, does a great job of immediately drawing people in and exciting them. Having WIN in all-caps draws people’s attention to it. They’ll then see what the prize is that they can win, which gets them excited and keeps them reading all the way to the end – where the Call-to-Action is for them to click.
Newsfeed Link Description
Provide a sentence or two with some extra details on the prize.
Call-to-Action
This is the button people click on the Ad to be taken to your Campaign.
Facebook only gives you a few options for this. For Giveaway Campaigns like this one, Learn More performs best as none of the other options are applicable for it.
2. Target audience
Your Target Audience will depend on your type of hotel/resort and where your customers usually come from to stay with you. Here’s the targeting we recommend:
Interests/Behaviour Targeting
Facebook’s Interest and Behavior targeting allow you to show your Ad to people who are interested in specific things and activities. Their system has become very sophisticated and is now able to target the right people incredibly accurately.
We recommend using Facebook’s Travel Behaviors:
- Frequent traveler
- Frequent Domestic Traveler
- Frequent International traveler
These allow you to target people who travel frequently, and will be more likely to book a stay with you.
Age, Gender, Language and Location Targeting
Age, Gender, Location and Language targeting should reflect who your most common customers are. If you have a resort that generally attracts people in their 40’s and 50’s, then you should target people in that age group. If you’re unsure which Location to target, we recommend targeting people within a 4-hour drive of your own location: This is a close enough distance for most people to be content with driving to you.
Why are Facebook Ads effective for this Campaign?
The reason they’re effective is because they’re shown to people who are interested in staying at a hotel/resort in your area. Facebook is great at knowing people’s interests based on their behavior, which is what makes their Ad targeting so effective.
Google Adwords, on the other hand, don’t work well for giveaways. This is generally because people don’t search on Google for giveaways. And the ones who do search for giveaways are just people who are interested in winning something free, not specifically in your hotel/resort.
Need help with Facebook Ads?
Step 2: Giveaway Page
The Giveaway Page is where people enter the Giveaway. It has two jobs:
1. Make it easy for people to understand and enter:
The entry form is right at the top of the page so people can immediately see it. And the title and sub-title directly explains what a person should do on the page: Enter to win a free stay at your hotel/resort.
2. Build interest in your Hotel/Resort:
The page includes several sections to explain the amenities and experience of your hotel/resort. This builds people’s interest in staying at your hotel/resort and makes it easy to follow-up to turn them into a customers.
Giveaway Page Sections
1. Top Bar
Show a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency to get more entries.
2. Hero Section
- Headline and Subheadline:
Tell people what they should do (Enter to win) and what the prize is (a free stay at your hotel/resort)
- Entry Form
This allows people to immediately see how to enter the giveaway when they first visit the page.
3. Hotel/Resort Highlights
Show the highlights of your hotel/resort in a way people can quickly read and digest.
4. About your Prize Package
Describe what people will see and experience at your hotel/resort. This helps people envision the experience in their mind and pre-qualifies them to buy later on.
5. Customer Testimonial
Show a customer testimonial to provide social proof. Testimonials build trust by showing that other people have stayed at your hotel/resort and had a great experience.
6. Amenities
Show a bullet list of the amenities of your hotel/resort. This will allow people to easily see everything you have to offer.
7. Location Details
Show your location and phone number. This helps people see where you’re located and you’re a real, trust-worthy business.
Step 3: Thank You Page
After a person submits the entry form on the Giveaway Page, they are taken to the Thank You Page. Here you can display a Thank You message to confirm their entry, tell them when the winner will be drawn and provide buttons to share the giveaway on social media.
Thank You Page Sections
Top Bar
Show a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency to get people to take the bonus actions and refer their friends.
Hero Section
Includes the following:
- Thank You Message
- Prize draw date
- Buttons to earn bonus entries
How to create this Campaign in Wishpond
The Free Stay Giveaway Campaign is available for free on any plan in Wishpond. Here’s how to use it:
- Sign up for a Wishpond account.
- Select Hotels & Resorts as your Industry
- In the Campaigns Dashboard, click Free Stay Giveaway. This will take you to the Campaign Builder where you can edit the Giveaway Page and Thank You Page within the template. They will look exactly the same as they do above, and you’ll be able to edit and style them however you like.
- Publish your Campaign on your website or a wishpond.com URL.
- Create your Facebook Ad and set the Ad’s Destination URL to the Campaign URL.
