New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Introducing RafflePress's new leave-a-review giveaway actions. Boost customer engagement and build trust effortlessly by incentivizing reviews in WordPress.
New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
Are you looking for summer contest ideas?
Running a summer marketing campaign is an excellent way to promote your business while engaging your target audience. Because giveaways are popular all year round, they’re one of the best ways to raise brand awareness during the summer months.
This article will share some of the hottest summer contest ideas to use as inspiration for your summer campaign.
Running a summer giveaway can help you engage your target audience in a fun and rewarding way. People are also more relaxed during the summer season and have more time to enjoy activities they might otherwise miss.
Giveaways can also provide instant results for your business. They encourage social actions which boost your reach and help a broader audience find your brand’s website.
With a successful summer giveaway, you can quickly achieve the following:
You know why running a summer contest can help your business, but how do you run one? Let’s find out.
There are many ways to run a giveaway for your summer marketing campaign. You could run a contest over social media or host your giveaway on your WordPress website.
Running a summer contest on your WordPress website helps you control the user experience and target many more channels.
For example, running a contest on Instagram will give you more Instagram followers, but it won’t help you grow your email list. However, running a giveaway on your WordPress site can help you get more Instagram followers, email subscribers, YouTube subscribers, etc.
The easiest way to run a giveaway on your website is with RafflePress, the best WordPress giveaway plugin. It lets you run giveaways on your website and doesn’t have a complicated setup process.
RafflePress comes with social media integrations for all popular platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. As a result, you can create viral giveaway campaigns on social media.
RafflePress also comes with 1-click fraud protection and verified actions to ensure that all actions are recorded as genuine interactions.
Follow this step-by-step guide to set up a contest with RafflePress.
The most successful summer contests start with a strong idea. If you’re out of inspiration, here are some of the hottest summer giveaway ideas you can adapt for your business.
Who doesn’t love some summer fun on the beach?
Your audience will likely be following suit with a beachside vacation over the summer period. You can tap into the summer vibe by running a video contest for the chance to win some summer swag.
Ask your audience to send in videos of their best beach moments, such as sandcastle building, surfing the waves, or even hanging out with family in the sun. You can enter each submission into a prize draw and reward the most creative video with the grand prize.
Check out this example from Blue Planet Surf. They asked users to upload a summer video for the chance to win a giveaway prize of $2000.
RafflePress’s custom giveaway action is an excellent way to run your summer video contest. You can customize the Invent Your Own action and ask users to post their video link to enter.
Hashtag contests are another popular giveaway idea for summer, promoting brand awareness on social media. Giveaways like this are easy to run because the entry criteria involve minimal effort.
Take Metropole South Beach, for example.
Their summer giveaway asked users to follow their Instagram account, like the giveaway post, and share it using the hashtag #metropolesouthbeach. The prize was a 4-day stay in their hotel.
To run a similar summer contest, you can use RafflePress’s Viral Refer-a-Friend giveaway action. It allows participants to share your giveaway on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and Email.
You can customize the share message for each platform and include your branded hashtag to increase awareness.
There are bound to be local events taking place over the summer. Your business can tap into the event hype by running a selfie contest.
In this example, Liverpool City Council invited users to take a selfie at each of the city’s locations for the chance to win various prizes. It’s an excellent way to promote local businesses while helping users enjoy their day out.
You can run this type of contest with RafflePress’s Submit an Image action. Users can upload a selfie directly to your WordPress website to qualify. You can also ask users to join your email list with the Join an Email Newsletter action.
Summer is one of the best seasons for showing off your favorite outfits. Inspire your audience by hosting a summer style photo contest, rewarding contestants with the chance to win gift cards for their favorite fashion brands.
That’s what Sequin NYC did in this example. They partnered with a complimentary brand giving users the chance to win a stunning dress and earrings combo.
To enter, users had to post a photo on Instagram with their brand hashtag and follow both brands’ profiles.
You can follow suit by using RafflePress’s Submit an Image action. You can also boost your Instagram engagement by including bonus actions to view your Instagram profile and your Instagram post.
Sweepstakes are the easiest contests to run. They require minimal effort to enter, and you can tailor them to any theme you like by choosing a high-quality prize.
In Vtech’s sweet summertime sweepstakes, users could enter to win promotional products from their range of children’s toys. They also chose the winners randomly to ensure everyone had a fair chance of winning.
You can choose giveaway winners randomly with RafflePress’s random winner picker. When your giveaway is over, simply click the “Choose Winner Now” link, and it will pick a winner randomly from your pool of qualifying entries.
Does your audience love to get creative in the kitchen? Let them unleash their creativity by cooking up a storm with a summer recipe contest.
You can run this type of contest by asking participants to share their favorite recipes in the comments to win promotional items. RafflePress’s Leave a Comment action is ideal because it only takes a few clicks to enter.
Alternatively, you can get users to post a quick TikTok video of how they did it. Use the Invent Your Own action in RafflePress and ask users to post the link to their TikTok video to qualify.
You can also add bonus entries to follow you on TikTok and other social media platforms for more chances to win.
If your audience includes a crowd of voracious readers, you can get them involved in a summer book review contest. Whether they’re relaxing by the pool or traveling, you can ask users to choose a book from their summer reading list and review it for the chance to win promotional gifts.
Toppsta ran a summer book review contest for kids to win up to £3000 in book tokens. They even had a review pack that kids could download.
Don’t have the budget for such a grand prize idea? Don’t worry!
With RafflePress, you can easily run a book review giveaway for any budget. One of the best ways to do it is with the Write a Blog Post giveaway action. Participants can publish the review on their own blog and post the link in your giveaway widget for the chance to win.
You can reward the lucky winner with a bundle of best-selling books or an Amazon gift card.
Summer is the best time of year to get your green thumb out and make some garden improvements. Why not use the good weather to inspire your audience with a garden makeover contest.
You can ask contestants to create a Pinterest board of their dream garden or challenge them to transform their garden and submit a photo of the results.
Robert’s Nursery took the latter idea, asking users to send a photo for the chance to win $10,000.
If you’re going down the Pinterest route, don’t forget to ask participants to follow you on Pinterest for an extra chance to win.
Last up is a summer contest idea anyone can join. Choose a summer-themed photo relevant to your brand and ask participants to create a funny caption.
Telus International Philippines did that in this example. Participants had to create a fun and friendly caption matching their summer-themed critter. The prizes included an iPod shuffle, branded t-shirts, and other promotional items.
Use the Answer a Question action in RafflePress to run your caption contest. For example, you can ask, “What is your caption” and users can enter their response for the chance to win.
We hope this article helped you find the hottest summer contest ideas to boost brand awareness. Ready to run a viral summer giveaway campaign?
Get Started with RafflePress today!
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