Have you gone green? Have you changed the light bulbs in your home where you enter online or fill out 3×5s for hours? Have you suddenly developed a skin rash or headaches? You may need to switch back to your old inefficient incandescent light bulbs.
Have fun and be safe!
Last night on my online radio show I interviewed Jordan Behan, Director of Community Relations for Strutta. We talked about how Strutta created a contest engine that allows smaller businesses to run a very polished contest or sweepstakes.
To highlight all the features of the program, I have teamed up with Strutta to run my first photo contest; What is You Winter Wonderland?! It went live last night during the radio show and runs until February 28th. It is open to Canada (excluding QC) and the United States. Upload your best Winter Wonderland photo. Is it the kids building a snowman or a sandcastle? Is it you cross-country skiing or water skiing? The photo with the most votes will win the grand prize, sponsored by myself, a Flip Ultra Video Camera.
Sweepstakes.ca is sponsoring first prize; a Wayne Gretzky caricature print. The Scarlett Lounge created by RedFlagDeals.com is sponsoring second prize; a $25 Amazon Gift Card. I am also sponsoring third prize; an autographed copy of You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter.
Don’t be shy. There are random draw prizes available as well. So if you picture doesn’t get the most votes you can also be a winner! It’s Easy To Win has sponsored the first draw prize. The winner will play one-on-one with Eric and have the opportunity to win $250! Shelly’s Handprinting Service has also donated a draw prize; 100 3×5s.
There are heaps of opportunities to have fun and win. What are you waiting for? Get uploading!!
GOOD LUCK!
If you have seen the movie The Secret, you know the story John Assaraf tells about his experience with putting visual images of his goals on a board and meditating on them every day.
Well, Eric Mack found a product called Road ID and used their product to create a “portable vision board”. He now keeps his goal list with him at all times and he can focus on them whenever he has a moment.
What a great idea!
(Notice, he originally posted his goals December 2007. He managed to reach all of his 2008 goals except 4 & 5. As Helene says, “There is no failure. Only a delay in results.” I am sure he’ll reach those goals this year.)
It is a ridiculous question considering the people that read my blog have an interest in contests and sweepstakes. However, I get at least one email a week from a fellow contestor stating, even though they are entering, they are concerned that giving all their contact information (name, address, email address, phone number) plus their exact birth date to sponsors is leaving them open to identity theft and they want my advice.
My response is to let go of the fear and enter away. I have no fear entering and neither should you. Here is why. No one is really interested in your information except the sponsor. Privacy laws prevent the sponsor from selling your data, and from a marketing perspective, selling their customer’s and prospect’s information would be counter productive to all their marketing efforts.
All anyone would get is your name, address, email, and birth date. Not enough information to do anything illegal with. Also, you may have already posted that information to any number of social networking sites (such as Facebook) that anyone in the world would have access too. Plus, all of your personal information is currently attached to Internet in some way; your bank, the government, etc.
I have been entering contests on a daily basis since 2001. I have never heard a company reporting a breech of their contest database, but yesterday, yet again, it was reported that millions of transactions had been “compromised” by a global cyber fraud operation (Heartland Payment Systems Hacked).
I am not saying that identity theft doesn’t occur, but it is more likely to happen when someone takes your credit card out of sight, such as in a restaurant or full serve gas station, or as part of a larger fraudulent scheme (Huge Security Breech), not from you entering to win a gift basket full of skin creams.
So, let go of your fear, enter away and keep checking your mail, email or voicemail for that winning notification!
The March 2008 issue of Wired Magazine ran an article called Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business. The marketing idea started back in 1895 when a man named Gillette realized, that by giving away his handles, people spent a fortune on blades. He made millions and created a new business marketing strategy.
Fast forward to 2009. Club Seasons Canada is attempting to use the same marketing strategy. Give away their timeshares and get people to pay the maintenance fees. However, their execution is flawed. If they just gave away their timeshares to who ever wanted them. To people willing to pay the fees. I bet they would be “sold out” in no time. Their mistake was to shroud their give away with the blanket of a contest.
I recieved many emails on yesterday’s post, Borderline. The consensus was: that this company is very aggressive, will not disclose full details before signing, the win would cost you over $30k over 45 years and far more people than the stated 25 daily winners won. The last one is the one that concerns me the most. It means they are not following marketing and advertising law.
If you received a letter stating you were a winner, please mail it along with a cover letter stating your concerns of potential fraudulent business practices to:
Competition Bureau
50 Victoria Street
Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0C9
or via their online complaint submission form.
You will not hear back with the result of the bureau’s investigation, but I am sure Club Seasons Canada will quickly change their marketing strategy.
I am off to Canada Post!
Companies are getting desperate. I “won” a prize this week I felt I had to write about. It was from the Club Seasons Canada’s Win A Vacation a Year for 10 Years Contest.
I received a letter stating I was one of their daily winners. What did I win? Well, Club Seasons Canada is a timeshare company. I won a 45 year timeshare. (Apparently, I won the Platinum prize.) It is a legitimate win. I do not have to sit through a 90 min. presentation or a hard sales pitch. It’s mine if I want it.
The catch? Why do I feel this is a borderline win? Well, I have to pay the annual maintenance fee. (Approximately $688 Canadian per year.) Not a bad deal if you already plan to go where they have their resorts. (Wish I had won this before we went to San Antonio TX last summer!)
(I know a few people that have timeshares and love them. I even had the pleasure in spending a week in one and it was great. We drove to Florida, bought our own groceries, spent most of the week by the pool. Cheapest, most luxurious holiday – outside of a win – I have ever been on.)
Club Seasons Canada is even offering to refund the maintenance fee and take back the membership if I am not happy after my first stay. Seems like I can’t lose. I just can’t see myself going to any of the places they have resorts. Plus, I don’t want to spend about $700 annually for something I may not use.
Since they can’t sell the timeshares, why not give them away? The maintenance fees get covered and the resorts get filled. Not a bad marketing tactic.
I have a week to think about it. We’ll see…
Contestors and sweepers are finally seeing the shift. What shift? The shift in the perception that many contest management companies and judging agencies have towards hobbyists. They are finally realizing that we not only enter their client’s promotions, but we also buy their client’s products. We are not evil greedy cheap sweepers. We are loyal customers that the sponsors can directly engage, via permission marketing, consumer generated media, social networking etc.
ePrize has just launched a promotion looking for The Next Big Idea! They are giving away a $1000 prize (either gift card or cash). It is one entry per person, open to Canada and the U.S. and ends March 2nd. They also ask you a few questions about your entry habits. I answered honestly because want them to know that even though I enter a lot, I also buy from the sponsors, plus it doesn’t skew their market research.
We entrants matter! This is the beginning of the Backend Marketing Revolution!!
There were many comments posted to this blog about your unhappy travel experiences and I received heaps of emails. I thought I should address this issue one last time upon receiving an email from Lillian. After reading my blog she also chose to boycott Air Transat.
The poor service received was from a charter airline, and having flown other charter airlines in the past, the service level is about the same from all of them. Since many companies partner with various charter airlines for travel prizes, I do not want anyone to stop entering to win a trip from a couple of blog posts. Even I have not done that. (I am now just very selective!) There is a reason the advice forewarned is forearmed is spot on. If you know what to expect before you enter, and win!, then I think your holiday will be a good one.
The best quote was one I received from Sandi and I think she sums it up the best: “I have found on airlines leaving the US have one set of regulations, and I could only speculate what I would find when leaving my destination country. The problem is that the airlines are changing their rules daily. Foreign countries also dictate what the airlines can or cannot do whether the airlines like it or not. They have little concern of how uncomfortable they make their passengers. It’s totally a control and ego thing. The frustrating part of all of this is the customers who get caught up in the confusion between what the employee’s are told and the foreign country’s decision to change the rules in midstream is maddening.”
No one can predict what is going to happen in the next five minutes, let alone on vacation. You should have a contingency plan for problems that could arise while travelling, even a vacation you have paid for yourself, such as travel insurance, and then, expect the unexpected! That could either be good, such as being invited to have tea with the Queen, or not so good, such as paying extra to get your luggage home.
So if you, like Lillian, have decided to boycott Air Transat, make sure it is for the right reason.
And for those that didn’t get a chance to read all the comments posted, Cathy suggested we all check out Trip Advisor before booking (or entering) your next vacation.
Out of curiosity, I did a check on both the President Hotel and Air Transat. The President Hotel had 160 reviews and was given an average 3 out of 5 stars rating. I would have given a two. Pretty accurate I would say. There were 2,316 reviews for Air Transat. I think it’s because they fly to so many cities and resorts around the world. They were given anywhere from 0 stars to 5. (I am leaning towards the 0 end of the scale.)
So, as I stated before: CAVEAT VICTOR, or Winner Beware.
Now go enter and win something, will ya!
Today I found a contest to win a trip to London, England. My first thought was WOO HOO!
Your chance to enjoy high tea in London!
When I clicked on the contest link and came to the landing page I smiled as I realized the contest was a tie-in to the new movie Last Chance Harvey. Just as I was about to fill out the entry form, I spotted it. The Air Transat logo.
All my sick, angry and disappointed feelings came flooding back. For a brief moment my mind and heart wrestled back and forth. The diehard contestor in me desperately wanted to enter, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The knot in the pit of my stomach won over.
Enter if you wish. Since you have been forewarned, you are now better prepared to have a marvelous time. GOOD LUCK!
I also want to blog about my concerns regarding the poor service I received from Air Transat from a marketer’s perspective.
I have found there are generally two types of people that enter sweepstakes as a hobby: 1) people who do it for the fun and 2) people for whom this hobby allows them to have things in life that their income bracket would never allow.
The first questions I want to pose to you would affect the second type of entrant. If you were on a very limited budget and upon attempting to exit Britain were told you had to pay an exorbitant amount to get your overweight luggage home, money that you didn’t have, what would you do? You couldn’t return any of the items you purchased. Unless you could add items to your friend’s luggage (if they happened to be underweight) you would have to throw them away. Imagine what a devastating end that would be to an amazing vacation, a wonderful win. Would you, at that point, only feel unfavourably towards Air Transat or would your feelings also turn sour towards any or all of the other sponsors?
The second set of questions focus on the experience level of the winner. How extensively in their life have they travelled and how many trips have they won previously? If you have travelled extensively, you would probably find it easier to navigate the many experiences and differences you encounter while on vacation. What if this was your first trip win? How you would feel towards air travel if a squished coach flight was your first airplane trip? How would you feel upon entering a one-two star hotel room? How would have handled the low security at the hotel? (There may have even been more “obstacles” to a perfect vacation that my travel experience helped me to avoid, overcome or not even come across.) Again, I ask; would you only feel unfavourably towards one sponsor/service provider, if at all, or would your feelings also turn sour towards all of the other companies involved in providing the prize package if you found yourself unsatisfied with the trip?
When I was in college (Marketing 101) we learned a happy customer, on average, would tell three other people about their wonderful experience. The disgruntled customer, on average, would tell eleven other people about their poor experience. Now, with the advent of Internet, if I am disgruntled, I won’t tell eleven people, I’ll tell eleven thousand people! (Pete Blackshaw wrote Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.) As a marketer, does that fact change how you do business? How you follow-up with your clients? With your winners? Who you choose to partner with when running a promotion? It should. As a winner, how many people would you tell?
As a marketer, I advise all companies running a sweepstakes to not only do front-end marketing, but back-end marketing. Follow-up with your winners so you can ensure the positive message you originally intended to create by running a sweepstakes does not turn sour, or worse, run amok!
Recent Comments