December is quickly approaching and you are looking for a marketing strategy to outshine last year’s campaign. Pro Tip: Host a Christmas Giveaway!

Christmas giveaways are exciting marketing campaigns that perfectly embody the festive season by offering people a chance to win something for free. It’s also an excellent way for your brand the end the year on a high note. 

Hosting a giveaway at the end of the year is ideal for brands looking to stand out among other brands with competing festive offers. 

Because Christmas and the holiday season pose time constraints that are challenging for marketers, you will have to carefully plan and execute your giveaway. 

We analyzed a bunch of Christmas giveaways to break down the strategies they used. The info we have in this guide will certainly help you to create a fantastic end-of-year marketing campaign. 

But before we get into our Christmas giveaway examples, let’s find out who should host a Christmas giveaway.

Christmas Giveaway

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Christmas Marketing Strategies 2023 Update

Christmas is a massive time for businesses, with consumer spending at its highest. People have so many choices due to competing brands. 

So, how do you start ahead of your competitors? How do you reach the front of the line in your customers’ minds?

Will Ferrell has the answer:

Will Ferrell Elf Quote
Source: ManyChat

Christmas is the time for your brand to step up regarding its marketing efforts. It’s time for your brand to “sing loud for all to hear!”

Hosting a giveaway is certainly one way of doing this (we cover this extensively later on in this post). However, there are a few more ways for your brand to stand out this December. 

We have some of those strategies below in our 2023 update, along with this year’s trends and predictions.

Christmas 2023 Trends and Marketing Strategies

Christmas is just around the corner, so it’s time to start thinking about your Christmas marketing strategy. With so many options available, knowing where to start can be difficult. 

However, by keeping up with the latest Christmas trends, you can ensure that your marketing strategy is on point.

Personalization

One of the biggest trends for Christmas 2023 is personalization. Consumers are increasingly looking for Christmas gifts that are unique and personal to them. 

As a result, businesses need to focus on creating personalized Christmas campaigns that speak to their target audience.

A few examples of brands with personalized marketing campaigns are:

  • Amazon – Feed online shoppers with personalized product recommendations that fit the individual and personality. Similar products or accessories can complement the items in the customer’s cart.
  • Netflix – Serves personalized movie covers that feature unique images or scenes from the movie instead of the original poster. 
  • Coke – The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign replaced the Coke logo with customer names. Delighted customers shared pics of bottles that had their names on them on social media with the hashtag #ShareACoke.
Share a Coke Campaign
Source: MarketingMag

Sustainability

Another key trend for Christmas 2023 is sustainability. With more people becoming aware of the impact of their consumption habits on the environment, there is a growing demand for sustainable Christmas products

As such, businesses must ensure that their Christmas campaigns are eco-friendly and promote sustainable products.

Examples of sustainable marketing include:

  • Starbucks minimized energy usage with solar panels.
  • Apple uses 100% recycled aluminum to build Macbooks.
  • Nike is dedicated to decreasing waste

Setting out sustainability goals will certainly benefit your brand, as customers will notice that you see the bigger picture positively.

Successful Marketing Campaign Infographic
Source: TheSustainableAgency

Keeping up with these latest trends ensures that your Christmas marketing strategy is ahead of the game. So start planning now and ensure your business is ready for a successful Christmas season.

Christmas 2023 Predictions

As we all know, Christmas is just around the corner. And what better way to get into the holiday spirit than by getting a head start on your Christmas shopping? 

But before you start stockpiling Christmas presents, it’s important to take a moment to consider what trends will be big in the world of retail this year.

Here are a few predictions for Christmas 2023:

More people will shop online – With busy lifestyles and ever-growing workloads, fewer people will have the time to visit physical stores. Instead, they’ll opt for the convenience of online shopping.

Spending is down – Holiday spending in the U.S. is expected to drop by $30 billion. Around 25% of people are expected to cut back spending on clothing and footwear, making it one of the hardest hit in the retail space. 

Extended holiday shopping season – Holiday shopping peaks in the week before Christmas. However, people are holiday shopping long before December. 

Sales continue in the new year, with holidaymakers buying gifts for loved ones or products to remember their trip. 

The human touch – Chatbots, automated online stores, and SaaS brands will certainly benefit through technology. However, customers prefer talking to humans or live agents. 

So don’t leave everything entirely up to automation. Make room for human interaction through live chat, email, and even webinars. 

So there you have it! These are just a few predictions for Christmas retail trends in 2023. So whatever you’re planning to buy this year, make sure you’re ahead of the curve!

Who Should Host Christmas Giveaways?

We answered a similar question in our Black Friday Giveaway post. Similarly, any brand that has Christmas offers and promotions during the holiday season should indeed host a Christmas giveaway. 

A Christmas giveaway is an excellent campaign for:

  • Creating brand awareness and exposure
  • Boosting social media engagement
  • Driving traffic to your website
  • Generating new leads and sign-ups

Being more discoverable during such a competitive period when consumer spending is at its highest can be beneficial. 

Here are some interesting Christmas spending stats:

Christmas Spending Statistics
Source: Fortunly

If you want your brand to have a powerful presence among these stats, you will have to up your marketing game during the holiday season. A giveaway will certainly make a drastic difference to your marketing strategy.

When Should You Host a Christmas Giveaway?

As per the stats above, 60% of consumers do their shopping a week before Christmas. So, your Christmas promotion efforts should be on point in the weeks leading up to this period.

For example, you can host a giveaway from the 1st to the 17th of December. Then announce the winners on the 25th (or on Christmas eve). 

The wandering bird (a travel blog) hosted their Christmas giveaway from the 1st to the 12th of December. However, the concept behind their campaign was to give away a prize a day for 12 days.

Wandering Bird Christmas Giveaway
Source: Wandering-Bird.com

Orlando Magazine hosted a Christmas giveaway with a similar concept. They gave away prizes every day for 25 days. 

This meant that Orlando Magazine ran a massive marketing campaign from the 1st of December up until Christmas day.

Orlando Magazine Christmas Giveaway
Source: Orlando Magazine

Your Christmas giveaway does not have to be as elaborate as the giveaways mentioned above. You can run a simple Gift Card Giveaway or a Makeup Giveaway. Anything that will attract your target audience to your brand during the holiday season.

Hosting a Christmas Giveaway in July

We researched a bunch of Christmas giveaways and found that many brands actually host their campaigns in July. 

Niche brands like Halloween and Christmas stores rely on seasonal sales. It makes sense for a Christmas brand to promote their store with a giveaway during another holiday season, like in July.

The Christmas Ornament Shop Giveaway
Source: The Children’s Book Review

The Christmas Ornament Shop and The Children’s Book Review teamed up to host a Christmas giveaway in July. Here’s why:

  • The Christmas Ornament Shop got to promote their Christmas storybooks and kiddies apparel during July. 
  • The Christmas Ornament shop got The Children’s Book Review, a children’s literacy blog, to host and promote the giveaway on their website. 

This is an excellent example of how a niche online store can use a website (or influencer) to promote its brand during the off-seasons.

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Christmas Giveaway Examples

We analyzed a few Christmas giveaways to find out what it takes to create a compelling and successful year-end campaign. 

We hope that the examples and breakdowns below will help inspire your next giveaway.

LoFi Girl Christmas Contest – Instagram

  • Entry Method: Draw LoFi Girl to enter
  • Prize: Drawing Tablet/iPad and Lofi Girl merch
  • Ideal for: Musicians, Artists, or Graphic Designers

Lofi Girl is a YouTube channel and record label that is focused on Lofi chill music. Music from the label is regularly uploaded and curated on various music and media platforms online.

With more than a million followers, Lofi Girl’s Instagram profile is the perfect platform to promote their brand, music, and merch. It makes complete sense to host an Instagram giveaway to promote new music releases and merch.

To be more accurate, Lofi Girl hosted a UGC Contest on Instagram. People were required to draw Lofi Girl and her cat, then post the image on Instagram with the hashtag #lofigirlchristmas to enter. This entry method delivered tons of new Instagram content. Fans had a chance to vote for the winner.

Lo-fi-Girl-Christmas-Contest
Source: @lofigirl Instagram

Key Takeaways:

  • Asking people to draw you to enter your contest is an excellent way of producing user-generated content that can be used on your socials or website. It is also a great way to find new creative ideas for your brand.
  • The risk of attracting poor quality leads is low as this contest requires verified users to express their artistic talent enter. This removes the inconvenience of spam and robot entries.

Mantra Candles Giveaway – Etsy Store

  • Entry Method: Repost the giveaway post and engage with the brand/followers
  • Prize: High-end pomegranate cider candle
  • Ideal for: Micro-influencers, Online stores, or small Etsy brands

Mantra Candles is an Etsy store that uses Instagram to promote its products. The brand is still building up a considerable following on the platform. 

Hosting a giveaway is one way for Mantra Candles to promote candles on Instagram. A seasonal Christmas giveaway can create tons of brand engagement while showcasing its Christmas candle range. 

Mantra Candles achieved just that with their Instagram Christmas Giveaway. The campaign helped them to grow their audience and engagement.

Mantra Candles Christmas Giveaway

Key Takeaways:

  • Users must repost the giveaway post to enter. This means that the post and brand will be shared across multiple users feeds, making the campaign and brand more discoverable. 
  • This campaign is perfect for brands with a ‘Christmas range’ of products. A Christmas giveaway can help showcase your Christmas products. 
  • A small, low-cost giveaway is ideal for creating a small audience and engagement boost. Small affordable giveaways work best if you host them regularly, as they will provide steady growth.

So Fort Worth It Giveaway – Online Brand

  • Entry Method: Go to the Instagram giveaway post to enter
  • Prize: $8500 worth of Gifts from 40 different brands
  • Ideal for: Influencers and online brands that often collaborate with other brands

Christy Dunaway Smith is a local designer and socialite that runs her popular lifestyle blog, SoFortWorthIt. She hosted a shopping event for local businesses a few months prior to Christmas. 

Christy’s event allowed local businesses to participate and promote their brands before the holiday season. The event was crucial to smaller businesses that were looking for much-needed exposure before Christmas. 

To effectively promote the event, Christy held a massive giveaway on her blog and on Instagram. She got the businesses (that were featured in her event) to sponsor prizes. 

So Fort Worth It Giveaway
Source: SoFortWorthIt.com

All the prizes were bundled together to form one massive giveaway prize that would attract a broader audience to the giveaway and the shopping event. 

Users had to visit Christy’s Instagram page to enter and if people wanted more info on the giveaway and its participating brands, they could get that from Christy’s blog. This is a great strategy for creating exposure for an event to people across the Instagram platform, while also pushing traffic back to a website.

So Fort Worth It Instagram Giveaway
Source: Instagram @sofortworthit

Key Takeaways:

  • By creating a massive shopping event under her brand name, Christy was able to get the brands she collaborated with in the event to also collab with her in the giveaway. This allowed Christy to build a massive giveaway prize sponsored by multiple brands which eventually drew a larger crowd to her giveaway and event. 
  • The success of the giveaway meant more exposure to Christy’s brand and the brands that collaborated with her. This also leads to a successful event. 
  • With multiple brands taking part in a single giveaway, all brands were able to help with the promotion efforts. This amplified the results exponentially as every entrant was required to follow all brands. So, all brands that participated ended up with tons of new Instagram fans after the giveaway. 
  • Creating a blog post to promote the giveaway is a great way to ensure that Christy’s blog is included in the campaign. This is an excellent way of also pushing traffic to her website during the campaign.

The Christmas Market Giveaway – Instagram

  • Entry Method: Follow and tag the brand on Instagram to enter
  • Prize: $100 gift card for The Christmas Marketplace online store
  • Ideal for: E-commerce brands (online stores)

The Christmas Market is an online store (Shopify) that specializes in Christmas-themed decor, apparel, gifts, and more. The owner, Siannon, sells Christmas goods all year round on The Christmas Market. 

Instagram is at the center of Siannon’s marketing strategy, which is why engagement and followers on the platform are vital to her brand. 

The Christmas Market is also a niche brand that is heavily dependant on the Christmas season. So, hosting an Instagram giveaway in June is an excellent way to create brand awareness and exposure during quieter periods. 

An Instagram giveaway is also ideal for boosting engagement for online stores that market their brands on the platform. 

You don’t have to go big with your giveaway to improve engagement on Instagram. The Christmas Market shows us that a simple Gift Card Giveaway is sufficient in achieving your marketing goals.

The Christmas Market Instagram Giveaway
Source: Instagram @thechristmasmarket

Key Takeaways:

  • This is an excellent example of how a small Shopify store can host an Instagram giveaway to grow its brand on the platform. 
  • A gift card giveaway is a cost-efficient way to promote your brand on social media and drive traffic to your online store. People who enter gift card giveaways are most likely going to visit the store to see which products they can purchase if they do win. 
  • The Christmas Market hosted a giveaway during June (a “slow” month) to increase exposure, leads, and sales. Niche brands, like Halloween stores, can also promote themselves offseason with a giveaway.
Gift Card Giveaway

Want to learn how online stores drive traffic to their websites with inexpensive gift card giveaways?

Click here to learn more about gift card giveaways.

Sarah Betts Christmas Giveaway – YouTube

  • Entry Method: Subscribe, Follow, and Comment to enter
  • Prize: Prize bundle that includes a backpack, headphones, camera, and more
  • Ideal for: YouTubers, Influencers, Personal Brands

Sarah Betts is a popular YouTuber with over a million subscribers. She regularly posts lifestyle vlogs and fashion tips. 

Sarah hosts an annual Christmas Giveaway on her channel to boost subscribers, social followers, and engagement

She achieves this by giving away a massive prize bundle that is made up of multiple prizes. Users must subscribe to her channel, follow her on Instagram, and leave a comment on the giveaway video to enter. 

Sarah’s strategy is excellent as it allows her to achieve the following with her giveaway: 

  • More YouTube subscribers
  • An increase in Instagram fans and engagement
  • YouTube comments, engagement, and more views
Sarah Betts Christmas Giveaway
Source: YouTube Sarah Betts

Key Takeaways:

  • Sarah uses a single YouTube giveaway to promote her channel and Instagram profile. By requesting that users visit her Instagram page and follow her, she would go on to successfully drive traffic from YouTube to Instagram. 
  • Brands looking to host a YouTube giveaway can ask Sarah to host their giveaway on her channel. She can then create a giveaway video to promote the campaign and drive traffic to the brand’s website. 
  • Sarah’s prize selection is truly awesome. She could have just given away a pair of headphones or a camera. Instead, she chose to build a massive prize bundle that included multiple prizes that can draw a broader audience.
YouTube Giveaway Checklist

Want more tips on hosting YouTube giveaways?

Click here to learn more about YouTube giveaways.

Sarah Grace Christmas Giveaway – Instagram

  • Entry Method: Like, Follow, and Tag 2 friends to enter
  • Prize: Prize bundle that includes a Phone, Makeup, and more
  • Ideal for: YouTubers, Influencers, Personal Brands

Sarah Grace is a YouTuber with a considerable following on Instagram. She built up her Instagram audience through the popularity of her YouTube content and with giveaways.

Sarah hosts giveaways throughout the year and ensures her campaigns have specific themes to make things more entertaining. This December, Sarah rose to the occasion by hosting a Christmas giveaway on Instagram.

A simple yet effective giveaway that helped her find 25k likes in a matter of hours! Incredible results in such a short space of time. Instead of sticking to a single product for the prize, Sarah created a larger prize bundle of various items shaded in pink.

Key Takeaways:

  • The prize bundle is made up of female-centric products that include makeup, a phone, a water bottle, a notepad, and more. The prize looks fantastic, and every item fits well into a pastel pink shade. Excellent choice to attract a female audience.
  • Including a smartphone in the prize may draw too much of a broader audience and not a targeted audience. Its best to choose products that your target audience will appreciate enough to enter your giveaway.
  • Themes are crucial for all kinds of campaigns. Sarah went with pink for her Christmas giveaway. So, a Pink Christmas theme which will attract an audience with a soft spot for the Christmas holidays and pink products.

FREE: Contest & Giveaway Viral Growth Guide

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — Download all the guides, checklists, and outlines we use to build and market viral contests. See our case studies for examples of brands using these to collecting 50k emails and social followers in 3 weeks.

Christmas Giveaway Ideas with VYPER

At VYPER, we are always throwing around giveaway ideas. We love to come up with giveaway concepts to share with our audience. 

We worked on two Christmas giveaway concepts below just for this post. Feel Free to use our giveaway ideas for your next campaign. 

NB. The giveaways below are all demo campaigns created using our service. You can signup for free here and create your own designs using VYPER – https://vyper.io/user/register?redirect=freeaccount

The Flourist Christmas Giveaway (E-comm/Online Store)

  • Entry Method – Visit our website and Instagram page to enter
  • Prize – Prize bundle that includes gift cards, flour mixer, recipe books, and more
  • Goal – Boost website traffic and Instagram fans

The Flourist is an online flour store and distributor. Apart from selling flour in their Shopify store, The Flourist also has a bakery section that features pastries, bread, and cookbooks.

Flourist Website
Source: Flourist.com

We believe that The Flourist can effectively promote its website and products at the end of the year with a Christmas giveaway. They can create a large prize bundle that includes gift cards, products from their website, and baking appliances.

Flourist Christmas Giveaway VYPER

Benefits of this campaign:

  • The entry method will help The Flourist to achieve multiple goals like an increase in website traffic and Instagram fans. Also, requesting that users create an account to enter will in turn increase their new account signups.
  • Using multiple prizes to make up a larger prize bundle is an excellent way to attract a broader audience to the giveaway.

Linus Tech Tips Christmas Giveaway (YouTube/Online Brand)

  • Entry Method – Watch an upcoming video for more details on how to enter
  • Prize – Razer Laptop
  • Goal – Boost website traffic and YouTube fans

Linus Tech Tips is an incredibly popular YouTube channel that is focused on delivering reviews and advice on computers, smartphones, gaming peripherals, and more. 

What started off as a YouTube channel has now grown into a massive online brand that features multiple YouTube channels, a podcast, and a merch store.

LTT Store
Source: LTTStore.com

Linus and his team have already hosted plenty of giveaways in the past. It is one of the strategies they use to grow their YouTube channel and brand. 

Our giveaway idea for Linus is to host a surprise giveaway for his fans. Participants must wait to watch a YouTube video (or live stream) when it premieres. The video will have the details on the proposed entry method.

This strategy will keep fans in suspense and will increase video views because fans will be eager to know how to enter the giveaway.

Linus can potentially redirect users to his store to enter the giveaway (increase store traffic) or request that users simply subscribe, like, and comment on the video to enter.

LTT Chistmas Giveaway VYPER

Benefits of this campaign:

  • By announcing the giveaway only and not the entry method, you can build up suspense among your fanbase. People will have to wait patiently for the moment you release all of the giveaway information. Because Linus has a massive following on YouTube, he can announce the giveaway entry method in a video.
  • Linus can use his Christmas giveaway to boost YouTube subscribers and engagent during the busy holiday period. He can also use this opportunity to drive traffic to his merch store.
New Year Giveaway

Another great end-of-year marketing idea is to host a New Year Giveaway.

We have a complete guide to New Year Giveaways that includes case studies, giveaway examples, and more.

Click here to learn more about New Year Giveaways.

Christmas Giveaway Q&A

❓ When should I host a Christmas Giveaway?

Christmas giveaways are best held during December (especially early December). The giveaway can end before Christmas day, or in some cases, on New Years Day. 

It might make sense to host the giveaway earlier in November. However, your Christmas giveaway can potentially be overshadowed by other brands’ Black Friday Promotions. 

You can also choose to host your Christmas giveaway during other months of the year, like July. This strategy is ideal for Christmas-themed brands and stores that are trying to promote themselves during their off-season. If your brand doesn’t deal only in Christmas-themed products, then a Christmas giveaway in July might not be as effective.

❓ Does my giveaway prize have to include only Christmas-themed products?

No. You can give away any product or service. It’s always best to consider your audience first before selecting your giveaway prize. Choose a prize that will attract your target audience. 

TL;DR

Christmas giveaways are powerful end-of-year campaigns that are engaging and exciting. Hosting a giveaway in December is a perfect strategy for brands looking to end the year on a solid note. 

Christmas giveaways are not restricted to December. Niche brands that specialize in Christmas-themed products can host giveaways in June to grow their audience and website traffic. 

From our analysis of the giveaway examples, we found that brands loved bundling multiple products together to make a huge prize to attract more people to the giveaway. Brands are also not afraid to go collab with other brands and go big with their giveaway.

What do you think about Christmas giveaways? Is this something that you plan on hosting in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

Jack Paxton
Jack Paxton

Jack Paxton is the co-founder of VYPER, a marketing tool that helps brands build email lists, social followings, and revenue using viral giveaways, referral, and reward programs. After millions of dollars spent testing different marketing strategies at his marketing agency. He then also co-founded Hyax a fast, conversion & design-focused course and funnel builder for creators.

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