Winning sweepstakes can be a lot of fun. My mom gets excited every time she hears the doorbell ring, and in fact, some of our phone conversations consist of her telling me what to look for in the mail (in case she won something for me), or what her latest or larger prizes. condition. The first time she called, I’ll admit it was kind of funny when she gave me gift certificates for free meals. After that, they sometimes call her to share a shopping gift card or just share some cool prizes like exclusive concert tickets.
With that said, there are some quick and easy strategies you can employ to help increase your chances of winning and winning more often.
1. Winning sweepstakes is a numbers game. The more you enter, and the more often, the better your chances of winning. Simply put, if only two people enter a giveaway, then you have a one in two chance of winning. Or, in other words, a 50% chance of winning. If 10,000 people enter, and you only have one entry in 10,000. It is still possible for you to win, but it is less likely.
Similarly, the number of sweepstakes you enter on a regular basis plays a big role. If you only enter one giveaway in a month, then it’s win or lose. But, if you enter 300 draws/month that claim to have 100 entries each, then you are much more likely to win something, or maybe even some prizes.
From my experience of talking to people who are successful sweepstakes entrants, they will generally, at a minimum, enter at least 50 different sweepstakes per day. If they really want to increase their chances, they will usually put in at least 250-300/day.
2. If you know what you want, ‘hard to enter’ sweepstakes also give you a good chance. There are some companies that make it difficult for people to enter sweepstakes, such as implementing captchas, having to create a user account, having to complete a survey, etc, etc, before they can enter. (Personally, I think those companies are making a mistake, because they are ‘limiting’ the exposure of the giveaways, when the goal is to make as many people as possible aware of the company and the promotion). However, the good news for your is that the odds are very well, simply because not many people enter.
For example, I’ve seen some ‘Video’ giveaways that required the user to submit a funny video, with a $250,000 prize pool. For “$250,000” there were literally only about 700 videos after extensive promotion, and I think it was a couple of months. The odds are exceptionally good. Likewise, sweepstakes that require captchas or surveys also give you a very good chance of winning prizes because not many people want to enter, because it’s too much work.
Now why do I say you need to “know” what you want in this case? It is because these types of giveaways will take you longer to enter. Sometimes 10-15 minutes. But if you are focused and focus only on those draws, then since you only have so much time in a day, you have a very good chance of winning the prizes you want.
3. Consistency is important. For example, the daily giveaways are great and offer some wonderful prizes, but you have to enter every day to increase your chances. You need to log in regularly to see the results. Just like you didn’t give up trying to learn to ride a bike after the first try as a kid, you shouldn’t give up after just one or two draws. Consistency is important..
4. Tell your friends about your awards and the company that sponsored them! While naturally you’d probably do that anyway, it’s important to remember to mention the company. Why? And how does that help your chances? Well, companies offer giveaways because, in the long run, they want to present great products and services to people. One way to do this is through “word of mouth” advertising, that is, through sweepstakes. If they get ‘feedback’ that they had a very successful promotion (i.e. a lot of people talked about their business, ideally in such a way that they ended up getting more sales because of it, from people who wanted to buy from them) — then they are much more likely to to offer such sweepstakes in the future, or even more. And of course, if there are more draws, that means you have more chances to win.
5. Smile, have fun and be patient!
Participating in sweepstakes should be fun! It’s fun to imagine what big or awesome prizes you could win, and of course if you win, it’s even more exciting! And of course, patience is important. This is not like a ‘job’ where you know you will receive a fixed salary every two weeks. No. This is a giveaway. sometimes you need to wait at least two or three months before seeing results. Simply because the giveaway can take a month before it ends, and then it can take another 2-4 weeks for the company to contact people to award the prizes.
You want to keep doing it consistently, because if you win, you’ll still have a very good chance of winning. If you only do it once or twice (and let’s say you won three months later), you should start over and will most likely wait another 2-3 months before seeing a prize!