How to win competitions
Winning Tip Four:
The harder it is to enter, the easier to win
By ‘hard’ here, we don’t necessarily mean a task that will take you weeks to complete. The fact is, a simple free prize draw that can be entered on a postcard is going to have many more entries compared to a similar free draw where an entry form is needed from a particular supermarket. Typically around 50% more entries, in fact – even though, for most people, making an effort to visit a different store to pick up the entry form in question is – well – not really much of an extra effort at all! Likewise, a requirement to collect labels or tokens from a particular product to enter a competition will put off a huge number of people, either because they simply can’t be bothered, they’re not organised enough to see the task through, or they’ve bought Brand X baked beans for the last 50 years and habit alone stops them buying Brand Z for a couple of weeks to collect the necessary labels!
To be frank, the ‘effort’ required in comping tends not to be a real effort at all... more a willingness to do things a little differently once in a while. Visit different shops occasionally, buy different magazines, different brands of products – and sometimes even new and different products if a prize really takes your fancy. Who knows, you might even discover something new that you like...and this, after all, is why companies usually run competitions.
