Many of the things I teach, I learned the hard way. I make the mistake, figure out a better way and share my knowledge with you, saving you time and energy.
One of my biggest entry mistakes when I started entering sweepstakes as a hobby was using my business email. As I owned my own company, it was also my main personal email. It was bad enough I was already mixing personal and business, but adding contesting on top of that just made my inbox a hot mess.
When I made the decision to separate my hobby from my personal/work email, I knew I had to have a plan, or I could lose out on prizes.
I began with getting a virtual email address (vs. one from my Internet provider or another company-based address). I changed my contact data within RoboForm (so when auto-filling forms, it would always have my new email address). I also gave myself a window of six months. Yes, a full six months to convert my hobby to my new email address.
Why that long?
Well, look at what you are entering today. When does any given promotion end? Some have very long entry periods. Then add on time for the drawing to occur, potential winner notification, etc. It is a sliding scale as most sweepstakes end shortly, so it would be only the odd potential win notification at the end of the 6-month time frame. (Plus I still had my work email so if one snuck through I would be ok.)
I left all the current sweeps I had saved with my ‘old’ email address (I was still using it for work) and began using the new one on any new sweepstakes I entered. Slowly, over time, more and more entries were made with the new email address until all the entries were ported over.
Over time, I even noticed the conversion with win notifications until I no longer had to check my work email for the words, “Congratulations, you may have won …”
I do not relish ever having to do it again.
Have you ever had to move your hobby to a new email address? If so, what did you do?
Loving the daily posts Carolyn! 🙂 I did have to change emails in the past. My issue was that I won a prize and the sponsor was not receiving my reply. I panicked and changed immediately.
Oh and I wanted to ask one thing: maybe you can do a post on a Canadian winning an American contest? Have you ever won one? Did you have to pay taxes? I know that Canadians in winning a Canadian contest do not pay income tax on the prize won but I could not find the answer anywhere as to what happens if a Canadian wins an American contest, like a trip for example. It makes me scared to enter American sponsored contests cause I don’t know what will happen!
Thanks, I will blog about it.
Carolyn,my husband wants to get our phone number changed and all the contests I’ve entered would have my old phone number. Any ideas.
This one is tougher. You have to ensure the phone company offers a call forwarding service for 3-6 months. I’ll write a blog post on this as I have done it.
I do now have two e-mail addresses and two phone numbers. We changed to a new phone company, and were able to keep our old phone number with them, many will now do that. They also at no extra cost, gave us a new second phone number, which I now use for contesting. Remember we still have our original number. As for e-mails, you can forward certain e-mails to your new e-mail, there will be in both places until you delete but it is a good start. As for winning U.S. contests, I remember seeing something on T.V. about paying the taxes first, then there is a company ( don’t remember the name) you can go to, and get it all back. Never had a reson to try.
I’m currently changing over to a gmail email. We currently have hughesnet as ou internet provider and I set up an email for sweeps years ago. However I’ve actually lost prizes due to the fact that hughesnet is on a LOT of spam list.
I made the decision when I realized hubby and I will be retiring and moving in 5 years. Moving will mean new internet . I decided to get a jump on it now.
Switching over sites that require registration before you enter are going to be a pain in the behind, ’causeI’llhave to go in and change all of those to remain a member.
Wish me LUCK