What a fire storm on the Internet this past weekend! I was sent a few emails regarding a blog post that was bashing sweepers. So off I went to investigate…
Chad Essley decided to run a sweepstakes on his website Cartoon Monkey (@mrcartoonmonkey) I am assuming by the rant he posted on his blog, he has little or no marketing experience therefore was overwhelmed by the end result of the promotion. For some reason, at the end of his rant, he targeted me. After I read his posts, I decided that maybe if he had a little help, his next promotion would go better and he would have a change of heart, so I posted the following comment:
Hello,
You obviously do not follow me or what I preach regarding finding, entering and winning sweepstakes, because I teach people to only enter for prizes they really want to win, or as a gift for a loved one.
If you run a sweepstakes without having designed it properly from a marketing or promotional legal standpoint, you will get everyone, and I do mean everyone, entering.
(I wrote a blog post about this very issue in May of 2008 called A Marketer’s Dilemma.)
I imagine you are a small company without the budget to afford to hire a promotional marketing consultant, like myself, a judging agency to run your sweepstakes or a promotional lawyer to write your rules.
Even though you have taken the time to bash myself and all my friends, I will give you some free marketing advice that you can actually use to run your next promotion.
Begin by using a service like Strutta.com (@strutta) or WildFireApp.com (@wildfireapp) to host your contest. They each have formats in place to allow you to setup various styles of contests, including judged ones, along with having all the legal rules pre-written, so you don’t get yourself sued.
As for the use of sweepstakes as a marketing tool; if companies did not find it so effective in reaching their target market to would not be growing to an almost $6 billion industry by 2012. The trick is, again, to design the promotion properly.
Consider listening to a few of my online radio shows where I interview the software developers, marketers and judging agencies to learn about sweepstakes from the “other side of the table”. I think it would also help you better design your next giveaway.
I wish you luck with your business.
Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have,
Carolyn
@ContestQueen
Well, it seems that Chad, not only deleted my response, he followed it up with another nasty comment. At this point I re-read his original rant regarding how he conducted his sweepstakes and realized his actions were, in fact, ILLEGAL! He did not conduct a random draw. Chad removed, what he deemed, to be the “inappropriate” entries, and then selected a winner from the remaining ones.
Therefore I have reported him to the proper legal authorities (Oregon Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Comission and Consumer Affairs) and I am asking you to do the same. I believe this incidence requires proper investigation to determine, if in fact, any wrong doing was committed.
I will post any further findings as I receive them.
NOTE: Chad has deleted his original post and all it’s comments, so the link in the second paragraph goes to a PDF and not directly to his site.
Tags: contest expert, sweepstakes, sweepstakes expert
Thank you for your mention of @wildfireapp! We definitely can offer any kind of contest and support that you like. You can get up and running in minutes. Also, you can integrate your contest on both your website and your Facebook Fan Page.
Long live the @ContestQueen!
Best Regards,
Brendan
http://wildfireapp.com
Well Carolyn.. It looks like he can dish it out… But not man enough to take it…
so, he started a contest for to help perhaps a student with no budget or people generally interested in digital art, that frequent his forums…
you send over a flock of people, that create accounts primarily to win his contest…and you are upset?
i weep for people like you.
Wow, lady, get a grip on life. No doubt you are gonna delete this comment, but know deep down, that you are a very petty individual for writing this.
Grow up.
seriously? chad is a friend of mine who was just trying to give away something he couldn’t use and thought someone else might find valuable, like an art student who was low on funds, or someone making a career change with limited resources. he didn’t appreciate you focusing your sweeper friends on trying to snatch up something just for the sake of snatching it up. i’ll bet most of the people who spammed his site had no flipping idea how to use what he was giving away. seeing his attempt at a good deed going south, he attempted to weed out the chafe pouring from your site. reporting him to the ODOJ? give me a break. sounds like you could use a break from your computer and experience the better part of life. go get some sunshine. take a long walk in a park. meet some friends over lunch. let the people around you do their thing and don’t be so quick to bash them for not being “marketing experts” or smart enough to hire you for something they don’t need. putting others down doesn’t actually make you look smarter — quite the opposite.
do good things and good things will follow.
dave
I kept all comments that I received on this blog post, good and bad, that didn’t contain foul language. I think it is important to keep an open dialogue with all points of view voiced and respected.
Read my next few blog posts as I will be discussing sweepstakes as a marketing tool. Stay tuned…
I know what Chad’s original intent was in running the sweepstakes was and I applaud him for it. Had he run the sweepstakes properly I believe it would have been very successful and he would achieved his goal.
I reported him because sifting through the entries and hand-picking a winner from a contest that was supposed to be selected via random draw is illegal. He committed a crime; blogged about is actions and then is angered when he is reported to the authorities.
On another note, I was accused of sending hundreds of sweepers to his site. I didn’t even know about the contest until he mentioned me in his post. The moment the words: sweepstakes, contest, giveaway, win or prize, are posted online, it will be found by anyone in the world doing a Google search. That was why I had suggested Chad use a free contest management service to run his next promotion, so the entrants would be better qualified (targeted towards students or artists) along with having proper rules in place to prevent a flood of inappropriate entries.
Everyone should think twice about what they post online, in any forum; website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, email, etc., as it is then “out there” for, literally, the whole world to see.
Carolyn, I didn’t accuse you of anything. I merely said that the sweepers should return and follow their “horrible queen”, which you certainly have proved true.
Each time for the rest of your life that you stare at your precious Dumbledore’s throne photo, I want you to realize this: That you tilted the wheel in your favor. You took the prize from some young child somewhere who truly deserved it. You’re a cheat, plain and simple.
Now each time you see that photo, you’ll think to yourself “I’m a cheat!” even against your ingrained sweeper’s judgement. Isn’t the human mind an amazing thing that way? I think it’s sooo awesome!!
Also, as an aside: You can sit in Dumbledore’s chair all you want, but you’re still an unbelievable complete f’ing idiot.
Put that one out there!
Sincerely,
Chad Essley
He’s banning “trolls” but his friends are trolling here? Hypocrisy at it’s best
When you’re the Contest Queen, I guess you become the target of anyone who’s bitter about contesters. It’s sad when you’re to blame for helping someone promote their contest — and sadder when you didn’t even do it LOL!
Chin up as usual, you can handle anything Carolyn
I am a sweeper who has been pursuing this hobby for many years. While I understand what Carolyn is saying, I actually side with Chad on this subject, though I don’t agree with his actions. I do believe that many sweepers fixate on every chance to win a prize, regardless of if they will ever use it. I know of many examples of people who have done so, and must admit that when I first started I was so excited to win something that I would enter for everything even if I couldn’t use it. So I can understand why Chad feels the way he does. I think that he made some bad choices in the way that he chose his winner, but I think Carolyn went WAY over the common sense boundaries by reporting him. I think Chad made an irrational decision but Carolyn, who is a seasoned “professional” made a completely ridiculous decision as well.
I believe Carolyn is only a queen in her own mind. She gave herself the title — noone else gave it to her. Chad, I think by continuing this dialogue you are only fueling Carolyn’s feelings of self-importance. Not all sweepers think she is what she thinks she is.
Hey Carolyn,
Sorry I’m a little late to the game here, was on vacation in Powell River, visiting the folks.
You and I have talked at length about the proper use of contests as a promotional tool, so you know where I stand there. And I certainly appreciate the plug for Strutta.
As you know, our has a ‘do-it-yourself’ interface that does include such previously expensive options as legal documents, prize verification, and fraud prevention. And we’ve been proud to power your own promotions all year.
I applaud you for keeping this discussion out in the open, and letting the reader’s decide for themselves based on all of the evidence. Many promotions are not what they seem, but by a bit of “community policing,” more marketers will be forced to play by (all of) the rules.
Diplomatically yours,
Jordan
Thank goodness for vigilant citizens cracking down on such flagrant abuses of justice! In the words of burnt face man, “Crime is a @#$% that needs mopping up!”