How to Run a Compelling Memorial Day Giveaway in WordPress

President Truman hit the nail on the head when he said, “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid.”  His words ring especially true on Memorial Day.

We’ll never be able to repay those who made the ultimate sacrifice entirely. But we can honor their memory and connect with our communities.

A thoughtful Memorial Day giveaway is a unique way to do both – show our gratitude and give your business a meaningful boost. In this guide, we’ll show you how to run a Memorial Day giveaway that achieves both.

Table of Contents

Why Host a Memorial Day Giveaway?

Memorial Day is a time for reflection and celebration, so your marketing needs to strike the right balance. A well-designed giveaway lets your brand show respect and gratitude, allowing customers to honor the armed forces while connecting with you.

But there are practical benefits, too. Giveaway contests are a great way to improve brand awareness on social media, get users to visit your website, and even boost sales.

They also create positive feelings around your brand – making loyal customers happier and bringing in a new audience.

Want to make an even bigger impact? Encourage people to share their Memorial Day stories or partner with a veteran’s organization or charity. It shows you care about your community and reinforces the true meaning of the holiday.

Planning Your Memorial Day Giveaway Strategy

A successful Memorial Day giveaway takes some careful thought. Here’s how to get started.

Figure Out Your ‘Why’

The best giveaways have a clear purpose. What are you hoping to get out of yours?

Here are a few ideas:

• More social media followers: Get people to share and engage with your posts.
• Grow your email list: Make signing up for your emails a must for entering.
• Get more people to your website: Promote it everywhere and ensure it looks impressive when people get there.
• Make your brand better known: Get your giveaway seen with social media posts and maybe even team up with another business.
• Find new potential customers: Design your giveaway so you gather helpful info about the people entering.

Understand Giveaway Regulations

Before you launch your giveaway, understand the legal side of running a contest. The official rules can differ from state to state, so do some research to see what applies to you. Be sure to figure out who can enter and ensure you have clear terms and conditions written up.

Some states might even make you register your giveaway if the prizes are worth a certain amount. Others might have rules about how old people must be to enter or how you pick a winner.

Choose an Appealing Prize

Your giveaway prize is the star of the show. It needs to be exciting enough to get people interested, and it should make sense for your target audience, your business, and what you’re hoping to achieve.

Here are some Memorial Day prize ideas to get you started.

Products or services from your business:

• Outdoor gear company? Put together a camping bundle with a tent, sleeping bag, and headlamp.
• Got a beauty brand? A gift basket of your top-selling promotional products.
• Offer a free consultation or discount coupon on a service people love.

Gift cards to popular stores:

• Go big with Amazon or Target for broader appeal.
• Support local and veteran-owned businesses with gift cards to places in your town.

Experiences:

• Tickets to a local ballgame or concert.
• Passes to an amusement park or another family-friendly spot.
• A gift certificate for a spa day or a fancy meal.

Need even more inspiration? Check out our list of proven giveaway prize ideas running from water bottles, coolers, and tote bags to cash prizes and vacations.

Memorial Day Giveaway Ideas

Now that you’ve got the planning out of the way let’s get creative. Here are some giveaway themes and formats that capture the spirit of Memorial Day:

• Red, white, and blue: Make these colors the stars of your giveaway – in your images and even the prize itself.
• Stars and stripes forever: Use this classic American symbol in your giveaway graphics and any other materials you create.
• Picnic or BBQ time: Put together a basket filled with all the goodies for a perfect Memorial Day get-together.
• “Nominate a Hero”: Let people share stories about deserving veterans or active-duty military members in your community. The winner gets a special prize or shout-out.
• Support local: Create a prize bundle featuring unique gifts from local businesses, showing community love.
• Partner with a veteran-focused charity: Donate some of the money you make, or ask people entering the giveaway to donate to a charity that helps military families.

Setting Up Your Memorial Day Giveaway

With your goals, prize, and theme in place, it’s time to get your giveaway up and running. Let’s break down the key steps.

Choose the Right Giveaway Format

The way your giveaway works – how people enter and how you pick a winner – is essential. Let’s look at the most popular options to determine the best fit for your Memorial Day plans.

Sweepstakes are super simple to run. People just sign up and have a shot at winning. They’re a great choice if you want something fast or have multiple prizes to give away.

You can easily make it Memorial Day-themed by having people answer a trivia question about the holiday or share a picture (and tag a friend) of their celebration.

Contests get people putting in more effort with tasks like photos, essays, or recipes. This format gets you great entries and makes people interact with your brand.

It’s perfect for Memorial Day – think photo contests focusing on the best traditions or a recipe showdown for the tastiest BBQ dishes.

Pro Tip

Photo contests are especially useful for collecting user-generated content. With permission from the user, you can use this content in future marketing campaigns.

Instant Win giveaways offer excitement, with some people winning smaller prizes immediately. This can get people excited and boost participation.

They’re enjoyable for those quick Memorial Day-themed prizes, like gift cards to restaurants or picnic goodies. However, it might not be the best choice for big, expensive prizes.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on what you want to achieve and the kind of people you’re trying to reach. Think about how much excitement you want to create, what type of prize you have, and how much time you have to manage the whole giveaway process.

Select the Best Giveaway Tool

While you might see other businesses run giveaways directly on social media platforms, hosting one on your own website offers some serious perks.

First, you have complete control over how the whole giveaway looks and feels. This means your Memorial Day theme and your brand’s personality can shine through.

Plus, your giveaway is a great way to draw people to your website, where they can check out everything you offer.

Another bonus? You own all that valuable information people share when they enter, like their email addresses. No need to rely on a third-party platform to access that.

And the best part is, unlike a social media giveaway that fades away after choosing the winner, a website-based giveaway keeps working for you, bringing in new leads long after the contest ends.

Why RafflePress? (For WordPress sites)

If you’ve got a WordPress website, RafflePress is our go-to recommendation.

Here’s why it’s an excellent choice for your Memorial Day giveaway:

• Super easy to use: Even if you’re not a tech whiz, their drag-and-drop builder makes setting up your giveaway a piece of cake.
• Tons of ways to enter: Choose from all sorts of actions, like social media follows, sharing with friends, signing up for your newsletter, visiting your website, you name it. This lets you customize the giveaway to fit your goals.
• Keeps you organized: Easily track all your entries, getting actionable insights about the people entering and how well your giveaway is doing.
• Could go viral: RafflePress lets people earn extra entries by referring friends, which can seriously boost your giveaway’s reach.

Expert Tip

For one of our websites we used RafflePress to get over 4,000+ new users and triple our sales in under 30 days. The process was much easier than if we’d relied on hosting our giveaway directly on social media.

Design an Engaging Giveaway

Now it’s time to bring your Memorial Day giveaway to life. For this guide, we’re using RafflePress. For all the steps, you can see our detailed walkthrough on how to do a giveaway with RafflePress.

Let’s focus on the key elements to create a visually appealing and practical design:

Start by giving your giveaway that patriotic Memorial Day feel. Use classic red, white, and blue, stars, stripes, or other symbols that say “Memorial Day.”

Choose a font that’s easy to read and gives off that traditional American vibe. And, of course, make sure everything looks great with your company’s overall branding – that keeps your image strong.

Next, get people excited with a title that pops. It should be catchy and immediately let people know what the prize is. Keep the description short, but clarify how to enter and when the giveaway ends.

Ensure to include a great photo of your prize or a Memorial Day image to catch the eye. And don’t worry about how your giveaway looks on different devices – RafflePress has you covered with its responsive design.

Simplify Entry Requirements

The easier it is to enter your giveaway, the more people will do it. Nobody wants to jump through hoops.

Luckily, RafflePress keeps things super simple. Focus on “one-click” actions for the best results, like following you on social media, visiting your website, or signing up for your email list.

One helpful solution is RafflePress’s “Refer-a-Friend” feature. This gets people sharing your giveaway with their friends and family for extra chances to win, which could seriously boost how many people see it.

The trick is to find the sweet spot: too few ways to enter limits your reach, and too many can scare people off.

The most important thing is being transparent. Ensure people understand how each entry option works and how many entries they get for each task they complete.

Start with the options that fit your primary goals – growing your social media, getting more email subscribers, or just getting more people to visit your website.

Display Clear Giveaway Rules

Being clear about the rules builds trust and ensures your giveaway goes off without a hitch. Make sure everyone can easily find them.

Here’s what to cover:

• Who can enter: Be specific about age limits, where people need to live, and anything else that matters.
• How to enter: List all the ways to enter and how many entries people get for each thing they do.
• What you’re giving away: Describe each prize and how much it’s worth.
• How you’ll pick winners: Explain if it’s random, if there’s a judging panel, etc.
• When it starts and ends: Make it clear when people can start entering and when it’s over.

RafflePress has a built-in giveaway rules generator that’s a huge help. It ensures you remember all important details and follow the law.

It’s also a good idea to link to a separate page with the full terms and conditions for anyone who wants all those legal details. However, RafflePress displays this automatically inside the giveaway widget:

Publishing Your Giveaway

RafflePress gives you many ways to launch your Memorial Day giveaway so you can choose the best approach for getting people to enter. One way is to use their giveaway landing page. It highlights your contest and makes it easy to share a single link that takes people straight to the entry form.

You can also embed your giveaway into one of your website’s existing pages, blog posts, or even your sidebar. This blends your giveaway perfectly with the rest of your content.

The best way to publish your giveaway depends on your goals. The dedicated landing page is the best way to go if you want as many entries as possible.

Embedding your giveaway into a Memorial Day-themed blog post could also get more eyes on it. A widget is a great way to keep your giveaway in sight all over your website.

Mix and match these methods to get the most out of your giveaway.

Promoting Your Memorial Day Giveaway

Now that your giveaway is live, let’s ensure it gets the attention it deserves.

Generate Buzz with Social Media

Start by generating excitement on social media. Choose the platforms where your target audience spends their time- Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or others.

Create eye-catching graphics showcasing your prize, and write compelling captions highlighting the spirit of Memorial Day. Explain the prize’s value and clearly outline how to enter.

Throw in a mix of general (#giveaway, #contest) and Memorial Day-specific hashtags (#MemorialDay, #MemorialDayWeekend) to get your giveaway seen by even more people.

Encourage More Entries

To get those shares going, offer bonus entries. Tell people they can get extra chances to win by tagging friends or sharing the giveaway on their own pages using RafflePress’s refer-a-friend option.

You could even offer entries for specific actions, like leaving a comment on a blog post or answering a fun Memorial Day trivia question. However, ensure you don’t make this a requirement for entering to comply with giveaway rules on some social media platforms.

Use Email Marketing

Your email list is another powerful promotional tool. Send a special email announcing the giveaway, and make sure there’s a clear link taking people straight to it.

You can even send reminders as the giveaway goes on.

Collaborate with Influencers

Think about teaming up with influencers who fit your brand well. This is a great way to reach new people by tapping into the influencer’s followers.

Give them some quick guidelines, hashtags to use, and the main things you want them to say about the giveaway.

If you need more help with this, check out our guide on how to run an influencer giveaway.

Advanced Promotional Strategies

If you have a budget, targeted ads on social media can get you in front of tons of new people. You could also team up with businesses that complement your own and promote each other’s giveaways.

Finally, share your giveaway in relevant Facebook groups (if the rules allow it) – just make sure you don’t come across as spammy.

Expert Tip
WPForms saw excellent results when focusing their giveaway on their Facebook group.

• They generated 50% more email subscribers
• They grew their Facebook Group to over 11k members

“We’re thrilled about how the WPForms VIP Circle Facebook Group has grown with the help of RafflePress. We’ve been able to target active users who want to engage with our brand and other people, whether they’re learning more about the plugin or helping others do the same.”

Drawing Giveaway Winners

The big moment is here – let’s find out who gets to take home your Memorial Day prize. RafflePress makes picking giveaway winners easy and fair.  

Their random winner tool picks someone out of all the entries. With a click, you’ll know who won, and you can see all their info right in your WordPress dashboard.

You can even contact the winner by email to give them the news and figure out how to get their prize to them.

If you have prizes for multiple winners, just do the same thing again.

Once you’ve picked everyone, announce all the winners on your social media and website. This gets people excited and shows what a success your giveaway was.

Expert Tip

Want to be extra sure everyone knows your giveaway was legit? Record yourself or take a screenshot while you’re picking the winner.  Share it on your social channels so everyone can see how it went down.

Evaluating Your Giveaway’s Impact

Now that your Memorial Day giveaway is over, it’s time to see how well it did against your goals. This will help you make future giveaways even better.

First, determine what you want to achieve and how you’ll measure that success. Did you want more website traffic, to grow your social media, get new email subscribers, or make sales?

RafflePress Entry reports will have some good info, but you can also use tools like Google Analytics to track website-specific metrics.

Don’t just look at the numbers, though.

Did people get involved – leave comments, share your posts, and generally seem excited?  Also, think about the long term – did the giveaway get you any new loyal customers or lead to people recommending you to their friends?

Finally, get some feedback straight from the people who entered.

A quick survey can tell you what they loved about the giveaway and if there’s anything they’d change next time. Tools like WPForms make creating surveys in WordPress a breeze.

Best Practices for Memorial Day Giveaways

To get the most out of your Memorial Day giveaway, here are some essential things to keep in mind:

• Timing and Theme: Start planning and promoting your giveaway early. Make sure your prize, the way you talk about it, and any images you use fit with the true meaning of Memorial Day – honoring fallen heroes and their sacrifice.
• Be Inclusive: Use words and pictures that everyone will understand and feel good about, and avoid stereotypes. You want everyone to feel welcome to enter.
• Keep the Connection Going: The giveaway isn’t the end. Thank everyone who entered, publicly announce the winner(s), and give past entrants a discount or another incentive to say thanks and keep them interested in your brand.

Run Your Memorial Day Giveaway Today

Planning a great Memorial Day giveaway means having a plan, doing it right, and always remembering the true meaning of the holiday.  

Here’s a checklist to keep you on the right track:

• Know what you want to achieve.
• Keep it patriotic and respectful.
• Make entering a breeze.
• Get the word out everywhere you can.
• Pick your winner(s) fairly.
• See how well you did so you can do even better next time.

With the tips and tricks we’ve covered, you’re all set to create a successful Memorial Day giveaway. You might also find our guide on contest SEO helpful for driving organic traffic.

Start planning yours. Get started with RafflePress today.

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Stacey Corrin Writer

Stacey has been writing about WordPress and digital marketing for over 10 years and on other topics for much longer. Alongside this, she's fascinated with web design, user experience, and SEO.

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