Saturday 19 January 2013

Top Tips for Entering & Winning Competitions...

 I always get people asking How do I win so many prizes?...How can you win and I don't? Simple....I spend a lot of time entering comps....Yes maybe luck comes into it but I put the effort in too....


The spirit of comping is that it’s a bit of fun rather than a dead cert money-spinner.....Hours can be long....Payouts poor and your bum won’t thank you for sitting at the PC all day...
 
I started comping the middle of 2010 and won nothing for months and I entered hundreds upon hundreds of competitions...I gave up....Then a few weeks before Christmas I got my first big win!! £100 worth of Dora the Explorer toys from Toys R Us!! That got me back into it and since then I have kept up with the comping sometimes winning nothing for months then winning something every day....

The past few months have been brilliant for me....I won so much for the girls for Christmas....Board games, dvd's, £150 worth of Amazon vouchers, CD's, A case wine, Chocolate Hampers, Socks, a ready bed, nail varnish, Slippers, ear plugs & ohh probably a cuddly toy..lol

Comping takes time....I can easily spend a couple of hours a day sat at the computer entering comps...But the more you enter the more chance you have of winning!

You also need to put the effort in....Lots of people are lazy, so anything involving a smidgen of extra effort attracts fewer contestants...Need to pen a poem, complete a tie-breaker or snap a photo? Try your luck – you might be the only entrant..

Finding Competitions - I find my competitions in many different ways....At the moment I am entering a lot of comps on Personal Blogs...Di Coke over at Super Lucky has a monthly list of blogs hosting give-aways and as well as finding comps you may find a great blog to read too....I have found quite a few blogs to read by first going there to enter a comp!! It was going on blogs and entering comps which inspired me to start blogging myself :)

 Twitter is a very simple way to enter competitions...You follow different companies, and then you usually just have to 'retweet' a specific message, and then you are entered! Follow me on Twitter @NorthumMam as I am always entering comps on there to get an idea of which companies are holding comps at the moment....They do change on a daily basis though :) 

I also sometimes use The Prize Finder website which is basically a mass list of all open competitions in the UK...

Read the rules. It takes a bit of extra time but you don't want to disqualify yourself - or win a holiday that you can't take because you didn't read the dates in the terms and conditions!

Fake Competitions When people start out comping they often enter any competition they find....I did!! I know now if it seems too good to be true it probably is!! I think that you should never enter your details into are ones where they advertise lots of competitions and want you to answer surveys etc...I DO NOT recommend these types of sites: Win 4 Now, UK-PrizeDraw, Prize4U, Prizes.UK, InstantPrizeDraw or FindAPrize.  

 You will also stand a better chance with highly localised competitions such as tickets to a nearby theatre in a local paper.

Free web program Roboform is a form-filling weapon that easily outguns just typing....It stores info such as addresses, phone numbers and postcodes and uses them to automatically fill in online forms!

It’s worth keeping a list of prizes you’ve won, in case they don’t materialise. Usually promoters are not purposely with holding the goodies - they just need a little nudge now and again.

When looking for comps, you may come across websites and magazines charging to view lists of contests. Never pay to register with a competitions site. 

It’s a good idea to focus your efforts on prizes that you can really use....What's the point in entering comps for say scuba diving if you can't swim or a day rock climing if you're scared of heights...lol

The More Prizes The Better - Go for competitions that have many prizes on offer. If there are 100 prizes on offer, you have 100 more chances to win something!!

Be patient!!! It can take a while to start winning prizes so don't give up....

Have Fun! The most important rule is to have fun! Remember you do this because you love it....If it starts to feel like work take a few days off and come back to it later... There will always be more competitions waiting for you when you return!!  

2 comments :

  1. Great post lots of sensible ideas you dont always think about.

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  2. Great Tips :)
    I give up on the entering sometimes.
    But you have to be in the chances to have any chance of winning :) X

    ReplyDelete