Beginners Guide to Comping Part 4
Entering competitions and prize draws – known as ‘comping’ – is a diverse and enjoyable hobby... and, with a bit of luck or skill, it can be profitable too! Here are Compers News editor Steve Middleton’s Top Tips for getting on the winning trail...
4. The harder it is to enter, the easier it is to win
By ‘hard’ here, I 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 in the first place!
Trust me - a little effort really WILL reap rewards!
