You gotta be in it to win it! (Online Competition Tips...)

Member Name: nikkisly

Product:	Online Competition Tips...
Date:	31/10/02 (1656 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Something for nothing

Disadvantages: D'Oh!

I enter a lot of online competitions but it's only in the past four months since I've been running my own website that I've realised just how dense the British Public can be. Hello...(taps monitor screen for attention)...yes, I'm talking about you, Mr or Mrs Competition entrant!

My website, Phoenix Book Reviews, runs three or more competitions every month. Why? Well obviously because I'm an altruistic, kind-hearted and exceedingly generous sort of person - NOT! I run competitions to attract visitors to my site. They're genuine competitions with real prizes on offer - yet, month after month, I'm perpetually surprised by the total inability of some of the entrants to follow the simplest of instructions. So, here are some of the most frequent cock-ups on the competition front, which I'm writing to help competition organisers the world over. If just one person takes notice it will make our job a lot simpler.

1.Read the terms and conditions first: Simple, isn't it? Yet, each month around 10% of my competition entrants get automatically disqualified because they haven't read the terms and conditions. If you live in the U.K., for example, it's no good entering a competition open only to residents of Canada and the United States.

2.Answer the bloody question! If a competition asks a question then make sure you actually answer it. Every month I get entries that just give a name and address and have made no attempt to answer the qualifying question. I know why this is - it's because people have read only the headline to my competitions page and haven't bothered themselves to actually scroll down and read the full page. If they had done so, they might have realised that in order to enter, they had to answer a simple question. (They might also have picked up on the fact that there is more than one prize on offer!) It's not rocket science and there is even a clue, but failure to answer the questio
n accounts for the disqualification of another 5% of entrants.

3. Make sure you comply with the competition instructions. If you are asked to put something in the subject box of your e-mail (e.g. October Competition) then jolly well do so! My website is only a small one, yet it can still attract several hundred competition entrants each month. As I am running more than one competition, I ask entrants to write "Competition X" or "Competition Y" in the subject box. Each e-mail received is then stored in a folder headed X or Y until the end of the month when a winner is picked at random. I have neither the time nor the patience to sort through reams of e-mails placing them in the correct folders to be entered into the draw. Failure to correctly fill in the subject box accounts for the disqualification of around 20% of entrants every month.

4. Don't use fancy fonts or backgrounds on your competition entries to try and make them stand out. This increases the size of your e-mail and, on my site (and many others), automatically redirects it to a bulk mail folder designed to prevent spam, the contents of which are automatically deleted after 7 days. Unless I am prepared to read through my bulk mail folder and rescue your entry then it won't even make the draw. Life's too short, I'm afraid. Besides, most competition entries are not even read - they're stored in folders and one lucky entrant is selected at random each month. Don't waste my time and your effort. Fancy fonts account for a further 5% of disqualifications

5. By the same token, don't include correspondence / questions in a competition entry. Chances are they won't even be read and you'll be left thinking that the webmaster is an ignorant so-and-so who can't even be bothered to reply.

6. Do, do, do include your full name and postal address. Again, I have neither the time nor the inclination to send you e-mails before I
send you the prize and if I don't know where to send it, you don't get it.

7. And now one from the "unbelievable but true" file. Check your e-mails regularly. A friend who also runs a website that has a competition told me a story about a winning entrant. An e-mail headed "CONGRATULATIONS" was sent, asking the recipient to confirm their postal address so that the prize could be despatched. No reply. A second e-mail was sent a week later. Still no reply. Finally, with the patience of a saint, the webmaster sent a third e-mail, this time headed "PLEASE RESPOND URGENTLY". He received a very sheepish e-mail back apologising.

The entrant had set up a separate e-mail account for competitions and had forgotten to check it. When she had checked it, she had deleted the two "CONGRATULATIONS" e-mails without reading them. Her explanation for this was that she was always getting letters at home saying; "Congratulations - you have won £25,000! (please read the small print so we can tell you that you haven't actually won anything, but, boy we had you going for a minute there, didn't we?)" Hence she deleted anything arriving in her Inbox that looked similar without even checking!

Was this woman an isolated idiot? No. Exactly the same thing happened to me when I ran my first online competition.

Anyone that has been doing the maths while reading this opinion will have noted that so far about 40% of entrants to my competition haven't even made the draw for the prize on offer, having been disqualified for failure to comply with the rules. A further 5% don't make the cut because they get the answer wrong.

My competitions are simplicity itself. I run a book review site and, in order to answer the question correctly, entrants must have read my review of the book concerned. I make it even easier - I link the competition to the review with the word "Clue". Click

on the word and you're taken directly to the review, wherein lies the correct answer.

So, how can you get it so wrong?

My most recent competition asked the question; "Who is known for his distinctive body odour?" Answers received included "Age 23", "Onions", "Deodorant" and "Breath freshener"!

So, we've lost 45% of all entries and the remaining 55% will go into the draw for the prize. If you win, it's a matter of courtesy to acknowledge receipt of the prize when you get it (and, yes, even say "thank you".) Imagine if it got lost in the post. I, as webmaster, have confidently sent it off - you, as the lucky winner, have not received it. How does that reflect on my website?

Prior to running my own website, I had entered a lot of competitions with very limited success. (In fact my total wins amounted to a bottle of shower gel.) Since running online competitions of my own, I have won far more. A weekend break in a luxury hotel, books, vouchers, chocolates and CD's are just a few of the goodies I've got for free and I'm convinced it's because I'm now playing strictly by the rules.

In fact I know it is. My all expenses paid luxury weekend was won in a competition on a small personal website run by the hotel owner. Chatting in the bar, he told me that, after discounting all the disqualified entries, he was left with just three names to go into the prize draw. That's THREE. Not three thousand, or even three hundred, but three.

Online competitions are supposed to be fun. However surely they are even more fun if you actually win something and, to even stand a chance of doing that, you have to be entered into the draw. Five minutes checking the rules and regulations can make the difference between disappointment and delight - after all, you've gotta be in it to win it!

Good luck!





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