How to write a winner announcement email — Stripo.email

Contests are a great way to increase brand visibility, build an email list, or get your audience to engage with you. However, after the contest winners are chosen, you need to know how to write a winner announcement email. This email must be written correctly, or you risk confusing or alienating the contest’s participants and even the contest winners.

Things to consider when building your winner announcement email

Fortunately, writing an effective winner announcement email isn’t hard. Your email copy just needs to accomplish four things:

1. Start with appreciation: Use an announcing winners script that acknowledges all participants, ensuring that those who didn’t win still feel valued for their efforts and participation.
2. Celebrate the winners: Customize your announcement with a prize winner email template that congratulates the winners clearly and joyously, making them feel special for their achievement.
3. Provide clear instructions: Detail the next steps winners need to take to claim their prizes, using straightforward and easy-to-follow guidance as part of your how to announce the result of a competition strategy.
4. Keep it transparent: Ensure that the subject line and opening remarks of your email make the announcement purpose clear and transparent for all participants.

(Source: email from the Chubbies)

Requirements for the copy in a winner announcement letter

To write an effective email that covers all that, you will need to nail two key principles of email copywriting: clarity and brevity.

1. Clarity

The clarity of your email copy matters because people often do not read emails closely. Therefore, use simple, direct sentences and common words. Don’t try to be overly clever. What you state should be immediately understandable; your readers shouldn’t have to think hard to grasp your meaning.

2. Brevity

Brevity is just as important as clarity, and for the same reason: Don’t make it hard for readers to understand you. If it takes you two paragraphs to say something that could be expressed in one sentence, it could be difficult for readers to understand you. According to AWeber’s analysis of 1,000 emails from the top 100 marketers, the average email contains 434 words.

(Source: blog.aweber.com)

That is more than enough words to convey the results of a contest, and you could probably cover the basic information of your announcement email with as few as 100 words.

What if you’re not sure what to say? No worries! We’ve got your back.

A contest announcement email template

I’ve got big news for you, [first name].

Our contest, [name of your contest], has come to an end, and the winners have been selected. 

We want to thank everyone who participated. It’s been so much fun to [whatever feedback or engagement you received from your audience during the contest].

Here are the winners:

• Susie B. of Emerald, Kansas: 3rd place prize.
• Susie will receive a [describe Susie’s prize and why it’s good and valuable]. 
• Matt H. of Discount, Maine: 2nd place prize.
• Matt will receive a [describe Matt’s prize and why it’s good and valuable]. 
• Greg T. of Elmwood, California: 1st place prize.
• Greg will receive a [describe Greg’s prize and why it’s good and valuable]. 

If you are one of the contest winners, please reply to this email. We’re here to help you claim your prizes.

For everyone else, we’ve got a special prize for you, too. You will receive a [discount on an order, a fun video, a funny insider photo of your team, or a preview of a new product… anything that’s interesting].

Thanks again for your participation, everyone!

The Team at [Your Company Name]

P.S.: If you’d like to [what product or service you offer], we can help.

The above contest winner announcement template is just 204 words. It contains just enough detail to inform your readers of what they need to know.

Notice how the sentences are short and the words simple. The paragraphs are also short, often consisting of only one line. All these aspects make it easier for readers to scan your email and grasp the message immediately.

Also, notice the postscript — the “P.S.” This is included because people often skip the body of an email message. They may read the subject line and maybe the first sentence, and then scan through the entire text to the postscript. So, if you want to create extra value from your contest, add a postscript reminding people about what your company does. You might even pick up a few orders!

Word of advice

You don’t need to use this email verbatim. Adjust it to your brand voice and usual writing style. If your writing is more casual, sprinkle in more of your personality. If your writing is more formal — or if your copy needs to be approved by a legal department — tone it down a bit. 

However, you now have a draft with which to work. You know how to write a contest announcement email that will be clear, brief, and help everyone who participated feel good about their participation. And you’ve let your contest winners know the good news. With this effective communication, your subscribers will be more likely to participate the next time you have a contest or any other event.

Tips for winner announcement email subject lines

When crafting your winner announcement email subject line, it is crucial to strike a balance between excitement and clarity without it appearing as spam. Avoid overly common phrases such as “Congratulations, you’re the winner of our competition!” which may seem suspicious. A more refined approach would be “A special update on our [competition name]” or something like “Winner Announcement: Find Out Who Won!”

Here are some other examples of email subject lines to announce the winner:

1. You Won? 😱 — Mirai Clinical.
2. Alexa, play “we are the champions” by Queen 🏆— goPure Beauty.
3. Feeling Lucky? 🍀🤞 — Whistling Kettle.
4. Our first giveaway winner is… 🥁— Sackville.
5. 🚨 New giveaway winner is… — Sackville.
6. $4800 GIVEAWAY. 4 LUCKY WINNERS — TRX.
7. Winners, everywhere! 🎩— McDonald’s.
8. And the winner is… 🏆— TodayTix US and UK.
9. 🥳🥳Father’s Day Giveaway Announcement!🍀— HAOQI ebikes.
10. The Women’s Prizes — Foyles for books.
11. Winner Wednesday! — Creedmoor Sports.
12. Congratulations to our Pet Day Winner! — James Wellbeloved.
13. 🌟 Big News Alert🌟 Revealing Our May Dream Car Winner — Raffle House.
14. 🎉 Winner Alert: Check here If You Have Won Our Latest Prizes! — FreeStuffEU.
15. Summer Giveaway Alert 🚨 — Good To-Go.
16. OMG look who just won! — STYLEVANA.
17. The winner of our $150 gift voucher is … — Pampelone.
18. You Could Be Our Next Winner 👀 — Miamily-Overtea SAGL.
19. And the Sofa Giveaway Winner Is…. 🥳 — Amerlife.
20. Our April Winner is… 🎉 — Airbod.

5 examples of winner announcement emails

1. Kuranda’s winner announcement email

This is an interesting example of a giveaway winner announcement email for a contest that happens every month.

Kuranda makes dog beds that are widely used in American dog shelters. It is a for-profit company, but most of its sales are non-profit. The company has a monthly giveaway of dog beds to increase word-of-mouth business and create appealing marketing content.

This winner announcement email is shorter than the first template shown above, but it still covers all the basics.

Use this as a template for your winner announcement email if it more closely matches your needs.

2. AirTable’s winner announcement section of an email

AirTable is a relational database tool that can be made into all sorts of things. The company also has an active newsletter and uses it to announce its monthly contests. 

This is a very straightforward announcement, but it is made more interesting because it shows why the winner won. This isn’t a standard “pick a random winner” contest — it’s driven by merit. However, like Kuranda’s, it is also a recurring monthly contest. Instead of awarding a big prize, AirTable gives its winners company swag, such as stickers. It closes the section with a few encouraging words to attract participation in the next month’s contest.

The giveaway winner also has a reason to post and share information about this contest, so AirTable can also pick up a few brand impressions from the winner’s shares.

Note that contest content, such as in this example, can also make for an excellent Facebook post. Announcing the contest several times on social media could also work well, especially if you make a video about the contest and use it in your social posts.

3. Bulk.ly’s winner announcement email

Bulk.ly is a social media management tool with a small marketing team, but they have figured out a way to use contests to promote their company.

This is a contest winner announcement email, but it’s also a clever way to promote a lead magnet or a paid or free course. What Bulk.ly does here is to run a contest to give away its product and then give everyone who didn’t win “free” access to a paid course about how to use their product. This helps the company drive its visibility by making sure that everyone who participates in the contest gets a special “thank you.”

4. WPMU DEV’s simple contest announcement email

Contests don’t have to be complicated to attract engagement. WPMU DEV runs a very simple contest every month that shares an image and asks people to add a caption. Like AirTable’s winner announcement email, WPMU DEV is also able to include the winner in its email because of the nature of the contest.

Note that the winner here also won a year’s worth of access to WPMU DEV’s premium content. This is an excellent way to prompt participation and promote your product or service at the same time.

This announcement is especially clever because one of the classic problems with contests is that they can attract a lot of people, but not necessarily people who are interested in your product or service. Therefore, making your product the contest prize will increase the quality of the people who participate and help you derive more business benefits from your contests.

5. Alliant Credit Union’s winner announcement email

Alliant Credit Union took a different tack with this winner announcement email: They made their announcement into an article on their blog and then used their weekly newsletter’s top section to tease the article about the contest and the winner.

This works, but it’s a very different approach than the other winner announcement emails we saw above.

In fact, all content marketing agencies use different approaches when creating emails such as this. You just need to find your own style.

Final thoughts

By now, you know what the goals of a winner announcement email are. You’ve walked through a winner announcement email template and seen five examples of such emails.

It’s your turn now. How will you use what you’ve learned in your announcement email? Please leave a comment and tell us your plans.