Holiday Giveaway Ideas: Grow Your Brand Year-Round!

The holiday season offers a fantastic opportunity to engage with your audience, show appreciation, and boost your brand’s visibility. This is why we put together this mega Holiday Giveaway Ideas Guide, just for you!

Crafting unique and compelling giveaways around a popular holiday can turn occasional visitors into loyal customers. 

In this ultimate guide to holiday giveaway ideas, we’ll explore creative giveaway ideas for various holidays to keep your audience excited and engaged all year round. We have also included real-world holiday giveaway examples for inspiration.

1. Labor Day Giveaways

• Theme: Relaxation, summer fun, and backyard barbecues.
• Prize Ideas: Outdoor games like cornhole or frisbees, portable coolers, grills or smokers, subscriptions to streaming services for outdoor movie nights.

Labor Day marks the end of summer and is a perfect time to celebrate the hardworking spirit. Consider these holiday giveaway ideas:

• Staycation Package: Offer a local getaway package including hotel stays, restaurant vouchers, and activity passes.
• Barbecue Bundle: Grill enthusiasts would love a set of premium barbecue tools, sauces, and recipe books.
• Self-Care Kits: Promote relaxation with spa kits featuring bath bombs, scented candles, and skincare products.
• Work-from-Home Essentials: Gift items like ergonomic chairs, desk organizers, or noise-canceling headphones.
• DIY Craft Kits: Encourage creativity with kits for home improvement projects or arts and crafts.

Labour Day Giveaway Example

• Brand: True Free
• Entry Method: Follow, Like, and Tag to Enter (X)
• Prize: Truefree wireless headphones
• Ideal for: Brands with small product lines or promoting a product launch

The Truefree Labor Day giveaway is an excellent example of how to leverage a holiday and giveaway to make your brand stand out on social media. Their giveaway helped grow their audience, increase engagement, and push traffic to their Twitter profile.

To enter, users must visit Truefree’s Twitter profile page. The contest post with details to enter is pinned at the top of their profile page (see image below). This strategy directs users to Truefree’s profile page which has links to their products and promotions.

Driving traffic to your social media profile page can be lucrative if the page is set up with links to offers, sales pages, etc. If this is the case, then asking users to visit your profile page to enter should certainly be one of your giveaway goals.

Labor Day signifies the end of summer to many and marks the beginning of the school year. This can be an excellent opportunity to host an End-of-Summer promo or a Back-to-School giveaway.

Click here to learn more about hosting giveaways with our Labor Day Giveaway Guide.

2. Star Wars Day (May the 4th)

• Theme: All things Star Wars!
• Prize Ideas: Signed Star Wars memorabilia, movie tickets to the latest Star Wars release, Lightsabers, droid toys, and subscriptions to Star Wars streaming services.

“May the 4th be with you” is a day Star Wars fans eagerly anticipate. Tap into this passionate community with:

• Limited Edition Merchandise: Collaborate with local artists to create unique Star Wars-themed items like t-shirts, posters, action figures, or mugs.
• Movie Marathon Kit: Include a selection of Star Wars movies, popcorn, themed snacks, and collectible items. You could also giveaway away tickets to a Star Wars movie marathon or a virtual screening event.
• Cosplay Contest: Encourage fans to submit photos of their best Star Wars costumes for a chance to win exclusive prizes.
• Customized Star Wars Gear: Create personalized lightsabers or custom character illustrations.

Star Wars Giveaway Example

• Brand: Star Wars Book Reviews (Meg Dowell)
• Entry Method: Like, Follow, and Comment to enter (Instagram)
• Prize: HARDCOVER edition of Star Wars: Bloodline (includes ‘Vote Leia’ poster)
• Ideal for: Fan clubs, pop culture enthusiasts, or stores that sell branded merchandise

A unique Star Wars giveaway, the prize of which is a Star Wars novel. Star Wars Book Reviews is a fan Instagram account focused on the hugely popular and massive world of Star Wars books and lore.

Hosting a small giveaway periodically is a powerful strategy for small brands, offering a consistent opportunity to expand their audience. Giving away a book monthly can be the catalyst for this growth! 

Books are inexpensive yet desirable to make for a decent giveaway prize. Star Wars Book Reviews uses books to create an inexpensive giveaway to host regularly. 

Increasing Engagement with a Giveaway

To enter the giveaway, users must like the giveaway post and comment with what they like about the book. In addition to following Star Wars Book Reviews. This entry method instantly boosts brand engagement and followers.

Star Wars Book Reviews promotes itself fully on Instagram, where it announces its giveaways and winners. It announced the winner of this giveaway with another Instagram post (see below).

Sharing multiple social media posts related to your giveaway will undoubtedly increase engagement. People will be hugely interested in the first post to enter the giveaway, and interest will remain high with the second post to see if they won. 

So, multiple posts for a single giveaway means increased engagement and exposure. Host small giveaways like this regularly (with multiple viral posts for each giveaway) every month, and you will see a steady increase in your audience and exposure.

As we near the end of April and Easter promos are all dried up, a Star Wars themed giveaway can be just what your brand needs to carry the momentum into the new month.

Click here to learn more about hosting a Star Wars giveaway.

3. Easter Giveaways

• Theme: Family fun and spring celebrations.
• Prize Ideas: Easter baskets filled with treats and toys, outdoor games, spring gardening kits, and brunch gift certificates.

Easter is a time of renewal and joy. Capture the festive spirit with:

• Easter Egg Hunt: Hide virtual eggs on your website or social media for followers to find and win prizes.
• Baking Kits: Offer kits with ingredients and recipes for making Easter-themed treats like cookies and cakes.
• Spring Cleaning Bundles: Include eco-friendly cleaning supplies, organizing tools, and tips for a fresh start to spring.
• Easter Baskets: Filled with chocolates, toys, and spring-themed items.
• Egg Hunt Kits: Provide all the essentials for a backyard egg hunt.
• Spring Gardening Kits: Include seeds, gardening tools, and decor items for starting a spring garden.

Harley Benton Giveaway Example

• Brand: Harley Benton (guitar and music instrument manufacturer)
• Entry Method: Like, Follow, and Comment to enter (YouTube)
• Prize: TravelMate-E Guitar
• Ideal for: Music instrument manufacturers or brands that sell high-end niche products

Music giveaways are fun and exciting, and they usually offer incredible prizes. This is precisely what the Harley Benton guitar giveaway is all about!

Harley Benton used the Easter holiday to promote its brand, products, and YouTube channel. By giving away a unique travel guitar, more YouTube users will discover the product and the brand behind it.

To continue growing their audience and promoting their products on YouTube, Harley Benton requested that users follow them to enter. You will also need to engage in the comments to complete your entry. 

The entry method above will help boost the virality of the giveaway video on YouTube. We are also impressed with how Harley Benton used the video description to display details on how you should enter. The information is simple and clear. There’s also a link with giveaway rules and Ts&Cs below.

Easter is an exciting time for brands looking to promote their latest product lines. To stay ahead of the pack, host an Easter giveaway.

Click here to learn about hosting an Easter giveaway.

4. St. Patrick’s Day Giveaways

• Theme: Irish culture and celebrations.
• Prize Ideas: Gift baskets filled with Irish treats and drinks, experiences like brewery tours or Irish dance lessons, and shamrock-themed merchandise.

Celebrate Irish culture and the luck of the Irish with these St. Patrick’s Day Holiday giveaway ideas:

• Green Goodies: Assemble baskets of green-themed products such as apparel, accessories, and gourmet foods.
• Lucky Draw: Conduct a raffle where participants can win gold coins, gift cards, or vacation packages.
• DIY Craft Kits: Provide materials for creating St. Patrick’s Day decorations like shamrocks and leprechaun hats.
• Green-themed Goodies: Offer green snacks, drinks, and apparel.
• Lucky Charms: Giveaway items like four-leaf clover jewelry or lucky penny keychains.
• Cultural Experiences: Provide vouchers for Irish dance classes, cooking workshops, or cultural tours.

Cut Da Carb Giveaway Example

• Brand: Cut Da Carb (low-calorie flatbread)
• Entry Method: Comment/Tag to enter (Facebook)
• Prize: Amazon Voucher and a 2-month supply of flatbread
• Ideal for: Small brands/businesses or food brands with low-cost products

St. Patrick’s Day is a festive holiday where people get together and celebrate with food and drink. Cut Da Carb saw this as an opportunity to promote their low-calorie flatbread because some people would like to continue to eat healthy throughout the festivities!

Cut Da Carb regularly promotes itself on Facebook with small trendy giveaways that attract a small audience. Their flatbread is relatively inexpensive, so Cut Da Carb includes an additional Amazon Gift Voucher to sweeten the giveaway prize.

A small giveaway like this is still effective in creating engagement and exposure. Hosting a giveaway during every holiday will help your brand grow consistently throughout the year. 

The one issue with getting in on every holiday is that your brand may come off as being desperate or a fake opportunist. Cut Da Carb has a great workaround for this with their holiday-themed giveaways. They get their audience to comment on what they would do for the holiday.

For this giveaway, they asked their audience what they would be doing for St. Patrick’s Day (see below).

They included suggestions like “dressed in green” and “decorated with Shamrocks,” which add authenticity to the campaign—even if their suggestions are minor.

St. Patrick’s Day is a festive holiday celebrated by a specific demographic. If your brand plans to target that demographic, it is worth hosting a giveaway. Nonetheless, St. Patrick’s Day is still a good reason to run a few quick promotions or a small online giveaway.

Click here to learn more about St. Patrick’s Day giveaways.

5. Valentine’s Day Giveaways

• Theme: Love, romance, and pampering.
• Prize Ideas: Couples spa packages, gourmet chocolates, wine baskets, jewelry, gift certificates to romantic restaurants.

Valentine’s Day is all about love and appreciation. Delight your audience with these holiday giveaway ideas:

• Romantic Getaway: Offer a couple’s retreat package including accommodation, dining experiences, and spa treatments.
• Personalized Gifts: Give away custom jewelry, photo albums, or engraved keepsakes that carry personal significance.
• Sweet Treats: Chocolate hampers, wine and cheese baskets, or gourmet desserts can make anyone’s heart melt.
• Romantic Getaways: Offer weekend trips or romantic dinner vouchers.
• Custom Love Notes: Create personalized cards or custom love letters.
• Couple’s Kits: Include items like matching pajamas, games, or DIY date night kits.

Crate and Barrel Giveaway Example

• Brand: Crate and Barrel (home and decor)
• Entry Method: Go to crateandbarrel.com to enter
• Prize: Le Creuset Licorice Dutch Oven
• Ideal for: Online stores, department stores, or physical stores

Crate and Barrel is an online retail store with a decent audience on TikTok. They hosted a unique Valentine’s Day giveaway on their website and promoted it on their TikTok account.

TikTok users who discover this wonderful giveaway will need to visit Crate and Barrel’s website to enter. This giveaway is an excellent example of how to drive traffic from TikTok (or other social platforms) to a website.

Valentine’s Day is another quick and popular holiday that gets plenty of attention and views. You can participate in that attention by hosting a simple Valentine’s Day giveaway.

Click here to discover Valentine’s Day Giveaways.

6. New Year’s Day Giveaways

• Theme: Resolutions and goal setting.
• Prize Ideas: Fitness trackers, planners, year-long subscriptions to productivity apps, and self-help books.

Keep the holiday momentum going right through the New Year with these holiday giveaway ideas:

• Fitness Packages: Promote health with gym memberships, workout gear, fitness trackers, healthy meal kits, and online fitness class subscriptions.
• Productivity Tools: Help your audience stay organized with planners, calendars, journals, stationery, and productivity apps.
• New Year’s Eve Party Kits: Include decorations, champagne, and party favors to help them ring in the new year in style.
• Goal-setting Kits: Provide tools like vision boards, motivational books, and online courses.

Top of the Town Giveaway Example

• Brand: Top of the Town (restaurant and comedy club)
• Entry Method: Like, Share, Tag, and Comment to enter
• Prize: Tickets to Mogey & Friends comedy show launch
• Ideal for: Restaurants, nightclubs, or bars

Top of the Town is an Irish restaurant that also regularly provides entertainment for patrons. Entertainment such as concerts and comedy shows. 

To launch their latest endeavor, a comedy club, Top of the Town hosted a giveaway. A giveaway to attract an audience of new customers to their establishment.

Top of the Town gave away tickets to its comedy event. This meant that whoever entered the giveaway or came across the post would have discovered the event and the restaurant. For this reason, giveaways are excellent tools for encouraging exposure and discovery. 

Get the New Year off to a good start with a New Year giveaway. A giveaway at the beginning of the year is essential to maintaining sales through the holiday period.

Click here for more New Year giveaway ideas and examples.

7. Christmas Giveaways

• Theme: Holiday cheer and gift-giving.
• Prize Ideas: Gift baskets filled with holiday treats and goodies, electronics, toys (if your target audience includes parents), and gift certificates to popular retailers.

Christmas is the season of giving. Spread joy with our Christmas holiday giveaway ideas:

• 12 Days of Giveaways: Host daily giveaways leading up to Christmas with a range of prizes from small stocking stuffers to grand gifts.
• Holiday Hampers: Curate baskets with festive treats/decor, holiday decorations, gourmet food, and winter essentials.
• Gift Card Extravaganza: Offer a selection of gift cards to popular retailers, allowing winners to choose their perfect present.
• Advent Calendars: Filled with daily surprises like mini gifts, chocolates, or beauty products.
• Christmas Tree Ornaments: Custom ornaments that can be personalized with names or messages.

Alecia Plans Giveaway Example

• Brand: Alecia Plans (personal brand)
• Entry Method: Like, Share, Tag, and Comment to enter (Instagram)
• Prize: Pen and journal set
• Ideal for: Niche influencers, personal brands, or content creators

Alecia Plans is a social media account and influencer focused on journaling, planning, and scrapbooking. She regularly features stationary and scrapbooking tools on her Instagram profile. 

Alecia also features excellent products from fountain pen and stationery brands. So, it would totally make sense for her to team up with one of these brands to host a giveaway. 

Esterbrook, a pen manufacturer, supplied the prize bundle made up of pens, journals, and stationery. Alecia Plans hosted and managed the giveaway on her Instagram. This gave Esterbrook access to Alecia’s audience who eventually followed Esterbrook to enter the giveaway. 

As a result of this partner giveaway, Esterbrook grows their audience after finding exposure within Alecia’s followers. And Alecia grew her audience even further because of the giveaway which attracted more Instagram users to her profile. 

Christmas promotions run as early as November. You can maintain the Black Friday sales and promo momentum by running a Christmas giveaway at the end of November (or early December).

Click here to find out how to host a Christmas Giveaway.

8. Black Friday Giveaways

Theme: Shopping sprees and holiday deals.

Prize Ideas: Gift cards to your store or popular retailers, mystery gift boxes filled with various products, bundles of your most popular products.

Capitalize on the shopping frenzy of Black Friday with:

• Mega Discounts: Provide exclusive discount codes or flash sales on popular products.
• Early Access: Give loyal customers early access to your Black Friday deals.
• Bundled Offers: Create product bundles at a special price, adding value and encouraging higher purchases.
• Exclusive Discounts: Offer special discount codes for participants.
• Tech Gadgets: Popular items like headphones, smart home devices, or gaming accessories.
• Shopping Sprees: Gift cards for popular retailers or online shopping vouchers.

Instant Gaming Giveaway Example

• Brand: Instant Gaming (online store)
• Entry Method: Re-tweet, Tag, and Visit our website to enter (X)
• Prize: A gaming laptop and store gift vouchers
• Ideal for: Online stores, niche stores, or physical stores

Instant Gaming is an online store that sells games for consoles and PCs. They have a massive audience of over 200k followers on X. This makes X the ideal platform for them to host a giveaway. 

Instant Gaming gave away a gaming laptop along with gift cards to their store. Gift Card Giveaways are perfect for online stores looking to get discovered on social media. People who enter a gift card giveaway will certainly visit the website where the gift card is redeemable. 

So, if your online store wants to build exposure and boost traffic, try a gift card giveaway!

Gift Card Giveaways are Effective

Gift cards might be inexpensive, which makes them ideal for hosting small giveaways. Small giveaways are feasible for brands looking to consistently grow their audience by hosting affordable giveaways regularly. 

But what if you want to give away gift cards and attract a massive audience at the same time? Perhaps you can do what Instant Gaming did and include an expensive item to the list of prizes on offer. An item like a sleek gaming laptop.

Another way to use a giveaway to drive traffic to your website is to ask people to visit your site to enter. You can have an entry form on the giveaway landing page on your website. This is the same strategy that Instant Gaming used to boost their site traffic.

It can seem impossible for a brand to stand out on Black Friday. A giveaway might just be what your brand needs to become more noticeable among a sea of BFCM promotions.

Click here to learn about Black Friday giveaways.

9. Father’s Day Giveaways

Theme: Celebrating Dad’s interests and hobbies.

Prize Ideas: Grill sets, brewery tours or tastings, subscriptions to streaming services, electronics, or sporting goods depending on Dad’s interests.

Celebrate dads with thoughtful and useful gifts:

• Gadget Giveaway: Offer the latest tech gadgets like smartwatches, headphones, or multi-tools.
• Outdoor Adventure: Provide experiences such as fishing trips, golf outings, or camping gear.
• Subscription Boxes: Curate boxes tailored to dads’ interests, whether it’s gourmet food, coffee, or DIY projects.
• Tool Kits: High-quality tools for the DIY dads.
• Sports Equipment: Items like golf clubs, fishing gear, or fitness equipment.
• Experience Gifts: Vouchers for activities like brewery tours, car racing experiences, or hiking adventures.

Street Life Giveaway Example

• Brand: Street Life (clothing store)
• Entry Method: Like, Share, and Tag to enter (Facebook)
• Prize: 50 Pound clothing bundle for dad
• Ideal for: Online stores, clothing stores, or department stores

Street Life is a men’s clothing store based in the UK. They regularly promote their store on their Facebook page. Their page is also where they host giveaways to increase engagement and exposure. 

For this Father’s Day, Street Life gave away a clothing bundle for a lucky dad. Entrants had to tag their father in the comments section to enter. This entry method helped increase engagement on their giveaway post. 

More comments/engagement on a Facebook post will help make that post more viral on the platform. This in turn makes the post more discoverable to other users. 

Asking people to tag their dads is an excellent strategy to further extend reach. Tagging others on a giveaway post turns the campaign into a referral giveaway as users end up referring their dads to the giveaway by tagging them. 

Seeing that Street Life is a men’s clothing store, having dads discover the Street Life brand is essential as dads are part of the target audience. It’s the reason why you should encourage users to tag other users that potentially make up your target audience. 

June can be another excuse for your brand to host an impressive Father’s Day giveaway. Especially if your brand caters to Dads.

Click here to learn how to host a Father’s Day giveaway.

10. Mother’s Day Giveaways

Theme: Spoiling Mom! Relaxation and self-care.

Prize Ideas: Luxury bathrobes and slippers, spa treatments, subscriptions to beauty boxes, gift certificates to her favorite stores.

Show appreciation for mothers with these holiday giveaway ideas:

• Spa Day: Give away spa vouchers or home spa kits with luxurious bath products, robes, and slippers.
• Jewelry Gifts: Offer elegant pieces like necklaces, bracelets, or personalized jewelry.
• Cooking Classes: Provide online or in-person cooking classes with a professional chef, paired with gourmet ingredients.
• Spa Days: Vouchers for spa treatments, massages, or at-home spa kits.
• Personalized Jewelry: Custom necklaces, bracelets, or rings.
• Subscription Boxes: Monthly deliveries of beauty products, gourmet foods, or books.

Local Fixture Giveaway Example

• Brand: Local Fixture (general store and coffee bar)
• Entry Method: Like, Tag, Follow, and Share to enter (Instagram)
• Prize: Prize bundle of gifts for mom
• Ideal for: Online stores, merch stores, or gift stores

Local Fixture is a general store that stocks all sorts of novelty items like clothing, merch, keyrings, and more. They built an awesome community on Instagram, the platform of choice for promoting their cool and unusual products. 

For Mother’s Day, Local Fixture gave away a cute prize bundle designed specifically for moms. The bundle included a t-shirt, “best mom’ glass and straw, a coffee bar gift card, and a Mother’s Day card. 

The prize bundle is simple and inexpensive, yet desirable enough to entice many Instagram users to enter. This is why we recommend putting multiple items and products together to create one large prize bundle which will attract more people to your giveaway and brand. 

Just like with the Father’s Day Giveaway in the previous section, users were requested to tag their moms to enter. This entry method forces users to refer to their mothers, another demographic that makes up the target audience of Local Fixture. 

Mother’s Day is an excellent holiday with plenty of potential to promote your brand. Host a giveaway to cater to moms or people who want to treat their mothers.

Click here to learn more about Mother’s Day giveaways.

Conclusion: Holiday Giveaway Ideas

Holiday giveaways effectively engage audiences, show appreciation, and boost brand visibility. Tailor your giveaways to fit your brand’s voice and audience preferences for memorable experiences and increased customer loyalty.

We hope you like our holiday giveaway ideas, and hopefully, you will find inspiration from our giveaway examples.

Ready to boost your holiday marketing strategy? Start planning your next giveaway today!

For more tips and strategies on engaging your audience, visit our blog at vyper.ai/blog. Happy holidays and happy giving!

FAQ: Holiday Giveaway Ideas

TL;DR: Holiday Giveaway Ideas – Ultimate Guide

• Labor Day Giveaways: Relaxation, summer fun, backyard barbecues; prizes like outdoor games, coolers, grills, staycation packages, self-care kits, DIY craft kits.
• Star Wars Day (May 4th) Giveaways: Star Wars-themed merchandise, movie marathon kits, cosplay contests, personalized lightsabers.
• Easter Giveaways: Easter egg hunts, baking kits, spring cleaning bundles, Easter baskets, spring gardening kits.
• Valentine’s Day Giveaways: Couples spa packages, gourmet chocolates, wine baskets, personalized gifts, romantic getaways.
• New Year’s Day Giveaways: Fitness packages, productivity tools, New Year’s Eve party kits, goal-setting kits.
• St. Patrick’s Day Giveaways: Green-themed goodies, lucky draws, DIY craft kits, cultural experiences.
• Mother’s Day Giveaways: Spa day vouchers, personalized jewelry, cooking classes, subscription boxes, luxury bathrobes.
• Father’s Day Giveaways: Gadgets, outdoor adventures, subscription boxes, tool kits, sports equipment, experience gifts.
• Black Friday Giveaways: Mega discounts, early access, bundled offers, exclusive discounts, tech gadgets, shopping sprees.
• Christmas Giveaways: 12 days of giveaways, holiday hampers, gift card extravaganza, advent calendars, custom ornaments.