Instagram Giveaways / How to Find Sponsors

We've had four successful giveaways. Well, at least I think they were successful. I guess everyone defines success differently though. Does a successful giveaway mean gaining X number of followers? Does it mean getting at least Y number of likes? How about having at least Z dollars amount of product to giveaway? I bet you thought you wouldn't be seeing this many math variables too. To me, a successful giveaway means being able to give something back to the woodworking community that they genuinely want / could use.

So, everyone loves free stuff. The vast majority of us do giveaway in order to gain followers. That's not a bad thing. It's a solid idea. In a perfect world, you run a giveaway, gain lots of followers, more companies pay attention to you / donate stuff to your giveaways, you run more giveaways, gain more followers, and the cycle continues. Of course, this isn't a perfect world. You'll find some people will unfollow after the giveaway ends. People will start tagging people who are already following you. Others will tag big name accounts like Blacktail Studio or Fix This Build That. There's really no way to fix this other than to just get over it.

We ran our first giveaway at 300 followers. Yea, I know, that's nothing and it's an odd number. Why not wait until 500? Honestly, I have no idea. I guess I was so excited to hit 300, I never thought it'd get much higher. Nevertheless, I wanted to make it a giveaway that was epic. One that people actually wanted to enter for the products, not just to win something. I reached out to all the companies we love and use on a daily basis and made sure to include not only woodworkers in general, but also woodturners and people who don't woodwork. In the end, there were six winners. SIX. That was my first mistake. The giveaway was overly complicated because I wanted to make sure the right type of person won the right prize package, in other words, a woodturner won the woodturning package. Don't do that. Keep it simple. Dead simple. Oh, and because I know you're wondering, we gained about 400 followers from it.

Our second giveaway 52 days later at 1K was smoother. I reached out to different companies from the first (because I think it's awkward asking the same companies to frequently donate) and even threw in a Stanley No 4 smoothing plane purchased from yours truly. We gained about 100 followers from this one.

Our third giveaway 50 days later at 1500, was a little different. We had a piece of really nice wood donated and did a giveaway without requiring any tagging. It was solely just for people who'd been following along our account. Our goal for this wasn't to gain followers,

but strictly just to say thanks. In case you're wondering how I got the piece of wood donated, I also made a $500 purchase.

This brings us to our 2K giveaway (we did it at around 2300 followers), 36 days later, that caused our account to get limited. There's a separate blog post about how that happened.

We wanted to do a small giveaway with Woodpeckers and a gift card from us. It was doing so well we even added a third prize pack since we hit 2500. I'm actually incredibly proud of this one especially after everything that happened. It's also done better than accounts with tens of thousands of followers so it just goes to show we throw one hell of a giveaway party.

How to get sponsors:

I'm sure this is really what you're wanting to know.

I specifically pick companies that we use and love and I think others will enjoy. To reach out to them, just shoot them an email. Most companies will either say no or forward it on to the marketing / social media department and let you know. There's very few that just didn't respond at all and only one was rude about it. I keep a spreadsheet of all the companies I've contacted, when, how, and what their response was to help me stay organized. After companies started reaching out to us via Instagram, I would continue the conversation on there, but I rarely ever started the conversation on Instagram. Notice what companies donate frequently to giveaways. For example, Starbond and Black Diamond Pigments are REALLY good about supporting the woodworking community. It's a good idea to reach out to companies a few weeks before you think you'll hit your target goal. Some companies do take a hot minute to respond.

The best thing that happened from reaching out was really just getting to chat with some founders of the companies. For example, we've gotten to chat with Brett, the creator of the Hedgehog Featherboard and even though he doesn't support most giveaways (we're just super cool), he's been a big supporter of ours and even sent us a mini one that we used in a stop motion video.

The Red Tools

We get asked this A LOT. You'll find that Woodpeckers doesn't really sponsor that many giveaways. I honestly don't know if people are just too scared to reach out to them or if they don't respond or if they simply say no. I'm not really sure why we're special (I am pretty cool though), but I can tell you that we're INCREDIBLY fortunate to have the relationship that we do with them. I don't have a recipe to get you there, but it never hurts to reach for the stars.

Cheat Sheet

To help you out though, I'm going to do you a solid to get started. Here's some companies that have always been generous in supporting the woodworking community and what their typical donation is. By the way, you should only be reaching out to companies you actually use. In other words, you support them and they'll support you. Don't be a douche and ask companies you haven't actually spent money on.

• Starbond - 2oz CA Glue + Accelerator Kit.

• Black Diamond Pigments - Pigment Pack.

• Titebond - Glue bundle that includes a Titebrush. Contact them through Instagram.

• Walrus Oil - $20 e-gift card. Contact them through email.

• Serious Grit - 50 pack of winner's choice.

• Woodcraft - shirt / mug bundle. Contact them through Instagram.

• Rockler - Depends on how many followers it's for. It'll typically start with a pair of bendy clamps and go up from there. Contact them through Instagram.

• IsoTunes - Kiiiiinda. They used to support more giveaways (including our 1K) but now you must have at least 5K followers.

These companies do NOT support giveaways or they don't like us, which is hard to believe because we're so cool. For the record, we actually own products made by these companies.

• Triton

• Suizan

• Bora

• Freud

• Amana Tools

• Kreg

• Toughbuilt

• Jorgensen

• Wixey

• Oneida

• Wagner

• Odie's Oil

• Incra

• Magswitch

Hopefully this list gets you started and helps you out. Remember to always be polite when you're reaching out to them. Giveaways are stressful, but they're also a great way to give back to the community!

Cheers and good luck!