Hello Lovely authors! 

I have a lot of favorite tools to help me make an impact in my marketing strategies, but one of my favorite is Rafflecopter. It allows you to offer giveaways, build your audience, and protects you from accusations of favoritism for free. Plus, you don’t have to set up a google form, which can be quite the hassle! 

And I love their snark! But it takes a savvy marketer to finagle Rafflecopter for free. Just like every app out there, they are looking for a way to make money. (Hey, we are too, don’t hold it against them!) But if I had to pay for every tool I use, I would never make money at this whole writing gig. I think you can sympathize! So, let’s get back to how to use Rafflecopter free to achieve your best results! Once upon a time, every person who entered a Rafflecopter had to provide their email address to be notified when they won, and Rafflecopter would provide the host of the giveaway those email addresses. No more. They still collect the email addresses, but they don’t send it to you. Thank Can-spam for that. But there are still some pretty neat features and if you plan ahead, you can do some great stuff. When you go in to start a giveaway, it asks you to tell us about your giveaway. To show a picture, you have to pay. Don’t let this lure you in. You can simply put an image in the announcement that you do for the giveaway, so no worries! 

 After you enter the prize(s) you are offering during your giveaway, you enter the things that people can do to earn entries for the giveaway. Rafflecopter offers a pretty awesome list of options pre-established. Once upon a time, those were all free, but now most of them cost money. Sneaky, what they did there, right? 

 The automated features require paying. Or you can creatively take advantage of that Invent your Own button and MacGyver a solution to your problem! I will create custom messages they can C & P on Twitter that include my hashtags and include my twitter handle @HeidiAngell. I will ask them to follow my Geek Street Facebook group, I might invite them to follow me on Instagram. You will have to manually verify that the entrant did those things with another tool, but it is fairly simple as long as you don’t mind putting in the extra time. I prefer to use Rafflecopter to build my email list, and as Mailchimp provides a link for forms, I simply add that as part of the entry process. I have my notifications set up to show every person who subscribes, so I save this when I do a Rafflecopter so I can verify that they did actually enter if that is how they are chosen. 

There is no limit to what you can do for Invent Your Own options, except your imagination and willingness to track! After you set your giveaway options, you need to set the date. Make sure this is planned well in advance, because once you set it, you cannot change it unless… you guessed it, you pay! After it is all set up, their installation page provides you with a variety of ways that you can share your giveaway. Embed in your blog/ website provides you the HTML code to be able to add the cute mini graphic. This is convenient for you to send to bloggers if you are doing a tour. There is also a feature that allows you to add it to your Facebook page, so everyone on your Facebook page will know and be able to enter as well. Pretty nice, right? There is also the option to share the Rafflecopter through a link. 

 If I’m running a tour or hosting a signing event that I’m inviting people to (which is the most common time that I use Rafflecopter giveaways) then I will copy each of these options to add to the media kit for the promoters.

There you go. How to use Rafflecopter. Rafflecopter also provides a lot of marketing tips to promote your giveaways, and I enjoy their quarterly email, so you should sign up for that too. Any questions about Rafflecopter? Let me know in the comments below! What other help would you like with marketing? Let me know in the comments. 

Until next time, 

Keep Writing!