How to Use Giveaways in WordPress?

Are you struggling to garner attention with your brand, sell products, increase web traffic or achieve more engagement on social media? Well then, look no further than executing a promotional giveaway. Successful giveaway campaigns can skyrocket a business’s online success, and become a game-changer for the business, as a whole. Now, you might be thinking, “Well, that’s great, but how do I execute a campaign like this?” Don’t worry, as always, we’ve got you covered. Creating giveaways and sweepstake offerings is very simple to do in WordPress and the best thing is you can do it all by yourself by following this tutorial.

RafflePress WordPress Plugin

While there are plenty of plugins that can be used to create giveaways in WordPress, we would recommend RaffePress as it is the best out there.

• It offers a very easy to use drag and drop giveaway builder with powerful and amazing features.
• You can build your email list, grow website traffic and social media followers.
• The basic features in the plugin are free and you have to upgrade to get more features and capabilities.

Install & Activate the RafflePress Plugin

First things first, you will have to install and then activate the RafflePress plugin in your WordPress site.

• Open your WordPress site’s admin portal and go to “Plugins > Add New” section.
• Search for the keyword “rafflepress” and find the plugin in the search results.
• Click on “Install”, and then click on “Activate” soon after, as shown in the screenshot below.

Creating New Giveaway

• Upon installing and activating the plugin, you will find a new menu listed in your WordPress dashboard under the heading named “RafflePress”. Click on that menu to enter the plugin’s settings page.

• Upon entering the page, you will immediately see the overview section of the plugin. Here you’ll be able to view all your active, upcoming, ended, and deleted giveaways. You can also add a new giveaway from this page by clicking on the “Add New” button.

• The giveaway creation process on RafflePress consists of three steps: Template, Setup and Publish.

1. Select a Giveaway Template

This is the first step where you must name your giveaway and select a template. The free version only includes the classic template which should suffice for most giveaways.  The templates to implement giveaway campaigns specific to social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube are only available on the Pro version. In our example, we have just named our giveaway “test” for demonstration purposes, feel free to name your campaign as per your specific needs.

2. Setup and Configure Your Giveaway Template

Now, this is where the real magic happens. On this page, you’ll have access to 4 different tabs that complete the giveaway setup process. Let’s go over each in detail.

First is the Details tab where on the free version, you can add a name, include description and a feature image of the prize that your audience can win by entering the contest.You can also enter the start and end date of the contest. On the pro version, you can add featured and gallery images of the prize, additional prizes and select the time zone of your choice.

Next is the Actions tab, you will enter all the different ways a contestant can enter the giveaway program. RafflePress has divided the entry methods into three different categories.

• Get More Subscribers: The action points here are all geared towards increasing subscriber or follower numbers on popular social media channels. However, only the first five options shown in the image below are available on the free version.

• Get More Social Engagement: The goal with these action points is to improve engagement and user activity across different social media channels. Unfortunately, all the items in this section are available exclusively in the PRO version.
• Get More Traffic: The goal here as the name itself suggests is to get more visitors to your website or social channel page. Tweet a message, share on Facebook and visit a page are all great options and available in the free version of the plugin.

After adding the action items, they will be listed under “# Ways to Enter” heading in your giveaway preview card. We have added about 7 different ways to enter for demonstration purposes, but feel free to select as many options as possible that you feel are necessary to help you with your business’s online goals.

In the Design tab, you can design and style your giveaway card as per your specific branding guidelines and design preferences. However, the free version offers no design customization options as everything in this tab is reserved for pro users. Under Settings section, you will be able to make the following changes to your contest:

• General: You can edit the giveaway name, limit signups per IP, and choose to display or not to show the RafflePress link as a credit link from this tab.
• Giveaway Rules: You can add specific giveaway rules which will be shown at the bottom of the giveaway contest page. Furthermore, you can also generate rules from the rules generator as well.

• GDPR: The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) option will add a checkbox to the giveaway registration which users must agree to register for the giveaway.
• ReCAPTCHA: This option will allow you to add a ReCAPTCHA to your giveaway and will help prevent spam, fake, and fraud signups.

3. Publish Your Giveaway Offering

After you have finalized and selected all the available options for your Giveaway, click on the “Save” button on the top right of your page, and then click on the “Publish” tab. In the publish tab, you can select one of the two available publish options for your giveaway.

• RafflePress WordPress block: You can use the RafflePress block to embed the giveaway widget in any of your WordPress posts or pages.
• WordPress shortcode: This publishing option will use the RafflePress shortcode to let you embed the giveaway widget in Classic editor, sidebar widgets and inside your WordPress theme.

Now, finally to publish your giveaway, select the post or page where you want to include the giveaway. Then, just add the RafflePress block from the block editor and select your newly created giveaway from the dropdown.

Publish your page and the view the page in a new browser tab to see the giveaway in action.

Final Words

So, there you have it. We hope you learned a few important things about creating giveaways and are well on your way towards implementing your first ever giveaway campaign in WordPress. As mentioned, the free version of RafflePress plugin has limited features. You can purchase the premium version if you really want to make full use of the plugin.