This week I'm taking a break from Prizes For Parents (although you will see the linky below!) Instead, I'm offering you a great guest post from the Competition Hunter which is a free online resource for finding and sharing UK Competitions such as the ones I run on my blog regularly (and lots of other even more exciting comps!)
It's probably the number one conversation we have with compers. It usually goes something like this: “I never win anything”, or “The same people always win”. We usually respond with: “Do you enter creative competitions?”
The answers, predictably are usually: “I'm not very creative” or “It's too much effort”.
This reasoning for the most part is based on flawed logic, and mistaken assumptions about entering creative competitions. The reality is very different. The people who always win? It's because they're being smart! Want to get smarter at winning things? Read on.
Last year, Competition Hunter ran a competition with two side-by-side mechanics for two identical prizes. The first mechanic was registration – taking 15 seconds, requiring no effort other than typing 3 lines and pressing enter. The second mechanic was creative. We say “creative” - in fact it was completely open to the entrant to do anything they wanted, provided it mentioned us. Whilst we wanted, as always to give things away for fun, we were also running a very vague experiment to illustrate the disparity in entry numbers between participative/creative competitions and passive draws.
As we'd expected, the numbers for registration were in the mid hundreds. We had a only a few creative entries, all-but-one being of the “I Tweeted/Facebooked” variety, which, let's be honest, isn't really all that creative. The winner our judge picked was the only actually creative entry, in which a lady took a sweet picture with her daughter and a drawing mentioning us.
In real terms the ratio of creative:passive entries was something like 1:500. Now, in that example (which isn't necessarily reflective of all creative competitions, of course), it's a no brainer. Take it from us – creative competitions, by and large, receive substantially fewer entries than passive entry competitions. Your odds of winning are much, much better.
So, what about the argument that “It takes too long”, and it's quicker and more efficient to enter lots of competitions passively. In our example, the average time it takes to register on Competition Hunter (being generous) is about 15 seconds. For argument's sake, let's assume the picture that won the creative competition took 10 minutes. 600 seconds is clearly better spent on a win likelihood of 100%, than 15 seconds for a win likelihood of 0.2%. An extreme example, of course, but it's important to take into account that the easier the route of entry, the more entrants. So, be the smarter entrant and increase your odds and thereby your efficiency by picking the better odds in creative competitions.
“But I'm not creative”. Here's the good news: judges want to see effort. Very few competitions ask you to actually employ serious skill – there are scarce paint a masterpiece or write an essay competitions out there. Think about it from the promoter's perspective. What they usually want is an example of you having fun and engaging with their brand on a deeper level – something they can share, that says “people are enjoying this”. Often creative competitions have had a greater amount of effort (and usually cost) in preparing, and so when effort is reciprocated, judges recognise this readily, and runners up prizes tend to be more liberally awarded. These people want to reward you, so let them!
“What about judging and voting, it's unfair”. The benefit of judging is that the effort you put in is in most cases recognised, and whilst, of course, there is some chance involved, you can usually measure yourself by your competitors, and whilst sometimes you might feel hard done by if you don't win, you're still better off than a 1/3000 random draw (where everyone is screaming “pick me” or “I deserve this more” - hint: this approach never ever works), and hey, perhaps it was fun.
As far as voting goes, there are legitimate grievances regarding cheating and undue influence on the system. Our advice is that if you suspect that a competition could be gamed easily, don't even bother entering, but perhaps gently inform the promoter of the weakness of the competition mechanic. Your effort (and precious comping time) will be wasted and you'll come out of the experience with a bitter taste.
So where can you can you find all these creative competitions? Well Competition Hunter's users contribute a substantial number of creative competitions. Your real experts on the subject however are Di Coke (super-lucky.blogspot.com) and Jane Willis (competitiongrapevine.blogspot.com) – give them a friendly wave and they'll get you started.
It's probably the number one conversation we have with compers. It usually goes something like this: “I never win anything”, or “The same people always win”. We usually respond with: “Do you enter creative competitions?”
The answers, predictably are usually: “I'm not very creative” or “It's too much effort”.
This reasoning for the most part is based on flawed logic, and mistaken assumptions about entering creative competitions. The reality is very different. The people who always win? It's because they're being smart! Want to get smarter at winning things? Read on.
Last year, Competition Hunter ran a competition with two side-by-side mechanics for two identical prizes. The first mechanic was registration – taking 15 seconds, requiring no effort other than typing 3 lines and pressing enter. The second mechanic was creative. We say “creative” - in fact it was completely open to the entrant to do anything they wanted, provided it mentioned us. Whilst we wanted, as always to give things away for fun, we were also running a very vague experiment to illustrate the disparity in entry numbers between participative/creative competitions and passive draws.
As we'd expected, the numbers for registration were in the mid hundreds. We had a only a few creative entries, all-but-one being of the “I Tweeted/Facebooked” variety, which, let's be honest, isn't really all that creative. The winner our judge picked was the only actually creative entry, in which a lady took a sweet picture with her daughter and a drawing mentioning us.
In real terms the ratio of creative:passive entries was something like 1:500. Now, in that example (which isn't necessarily reflective of all creative competitions, of course), it's a no brainer. Take it from us – creative competitions, by and large, receive substantially fewer entries than passive entry competitions. Your odds of winning are much, much better.
So, what about the argument that “It takes too long”, and it's quicker and more efficient to enter lots of competitions passively. In our example, the average time it takes to register on Competition Hunter (being generous) is about 15 seconds. For argument's sake, let's assume the picture that won the creative competition took 10 minutes. 600 seconds is clearly better spent on a win likelihood of 100%, than 15 seconds for a win likelihood of 0.2%. An extreme example, of course, but it's important to take into account that the easier the route of entry, the more entrants. So, be the smarter entrant and increase your odds and thereby your efficiency by picking the better odds in creative competitions.
“But I'm not creative”. Here's the good news: judges want to see effort. Very few competitions ask you to actually employ serious skill – there are scarce paint a masterpiece or write an essay competitions out there. Think about it from the promoter's perspective. What they usually want is an example of you having fun and engaging with their brand on a deeper level – something they can share, that says “people are enjoying this”. Often creative competitions have had a greater amount of effort (and usually cost) in preparing, and so when effort is reciprocated, judges recognise this readily, and runners up prizes tend to be more liberally awarded. These people want to reward you, so let them!
“What about judging and voting, it's unfair”. The benefit of judging is that the effort you put in is in most cases recognised, and whilst, of course, there is some chance involved, you can usually measure yourself by your competitors, and whilst sometimes you might feel hard done by if you don't win, you're still better off than a 1/3000 random draw (where everyone is screaming “pick me” or “I deserve this more” - hint: this approach never ever works), and hey, perhaps it was fun.
As far as voting goes, there are legitimate grievances regarding cheating and undue influence on the system. Our advice is that if you suspect that a competition could be gamed easily, don't even bother entering, but perhaps gently inform the promoter of the weakness of the competition mechanic. Your effort (and precious comping time) will be wasted and you'll come out of the experience with a bitter taste.
So where can you can you find all these creative competitions? Well Competition Hunter's users contribute a substantial number of creative competitions. Your real experts on the subject however are Di Coke (super-lucky.blogspot.com) and Jane Willis (competitiongrapevine.blogspot.com) – give them a friendly wave and they'll get you started.
