Last week Molly-Mae did an Instagram giveaway. She spent £8k on gifts.

So far it’s returned:

• 270k new YouTube subscribers

• 210k new Instagram followers

• 550k new followers of her brand, Filter by Molly-Mae

That’s < 1p / fan. Possibly the best ROI I’ve seen. Let’s break it down:

The most important thing Molly-Mae did was time her giveaway with reaching 1M YouTube subscribers.

This gave it purpose.

It wasn’t just an attempt to get some new followers. It was a celebration. And people got behind her.

Next, let’s look at the specifics.

Molly-Mae asked followers to “like and tag”. She also offered bonus entries for “multiple tags” or if users shared the post to their stories.

Each one created a mini viral loop which helped the post spread.

And it worked. Her post got 1.9M comments (1900x her average).

So the giveaway exploded. To the point where it was becoming a meme. Boys started sarcastically offering girls £5 to not enter.

The easy thing would be to not respond. But Molly did. And her self-awareness took ownership of the joke.

Finally, let’s talk results.

The aim of most giveaways is to grow the account hosting the giveaway.

But the problem is you end up with a load of new followers who unfollow or disengage after. Molly-Mae realised this.

Her aim wasn’t to attract new followers (who just want the prize). It was was to incentivise existing followers to follow her brand account and YouTube.

And she managed to pull across 820k!

Okay. Last thing. Yes, it’s well-executed. But for £8k the return is still insane.

Molly-Mae’s personal brand is what makes the difference.

If a fashion brand runs the same giveaway the numbers don’t compare.

We don’t celebrate brands. We celebrate individuals.

Support

Thanks for reading. If you’d enjoyed this one, I’d love it if you joined the email list. I share a new marketing case study, like this one, each week.

Thanks to Ahrefs for sponsoring. I rely on them to grow my own search traffic.

Over and out — Harry