Comps Tips - New Thead Help Needed

furndire

rrickyuk wrote: »

'Ere, how do you put a signature / what you've won on the botty of your message?

Ta in advance.:D

If you want to keep a record of what you have won, don't rely on your signature on here. If it gets too long, powers that be will delete it, so keep it in excel, or somewhere else.

furndire

Just another tip with Full version of Roboform, you can save passcards.
for example on the phase 9 daily comps, you can fill in one form, with your preferences, save as a new passcard, and then all you have to do is go to "fill & submit". Saves having to scroll to submit. Also works with other regular comp sites that don't require different answers.

Myzdamena

Ok feel free to shout at me

*cringes*

...but I really can't work out how to search for, say, comps that close tomorrow...

I have tried E:13/11 and all variants of that with spacing etc but it comes up with none found....

...even if I cut and paste the top of someone's subject line! It still doesn't find that one!

Sorry to be dense.... but Myz just is..that's the way it is

Cheeky_Chicken

There is no way to search by date

Myzdamena

Oh Oh Oh thanks! Then it isn't my fault

XXXXX

rrickyuk

Hi all.

You know when a comp comes up in another city, say, Manchester Evening News when you live in London, do you bother entering? I'm still undecided as to the usefulness of doing these, and would appreciate others' views.

Thanks in advance!!

Cheeky_Chicken

I won a signed Fatboy Slim CD from the Nottingham something-or-other, ( and I don't live in Nottingham!)

rrickyuk

How far away are you from Nottingham? What do other people think? Maybe I should just enter if I want the prize. I got a Wii today, but with a London paper. Where I live.

littleholly

rrickyuk wrote: »

Hi all.

You know when a comp comes up in another city, say, Manchester Evening News when you live in London, do you bother entering? I'm still undecided as to the usefulness of doing these, and would appreciate others' views.

Thanks in advance!!

Quite a few of the comps from the london papers/sites say in the t&c's that the prize will only be delivered to a london address so a lot of them I don't do. Or, if the prize is something to do with being in london I don't do that either. Too far for me to go! I do all the newspaper comps from the different areas though.

SparkyMark

The 25 missing posts from the beginning of the thread were as follows:

divadee wrote:

I am in the process of starting to write a new help guide for compers. I need all your tips how to win, how to increase your chances of winning, online and offline comps etc....

You lot all know the stuf I am looking for. Please can we keep this thread just for tips. No chat please all chat to be put in the discussion thread.

Can you all help me????

catz747 wrote:

Check the terms and conditions carefully. E.g. 1 entry per person / email address / household. As multiple / duplicate entries may lead to disqualification.

Mark entries i.e. thanks button so you know which you've entered.

Use roboform or similar to save time.

Someone put a hint about postal entries somewhere as well cause people were getting their postcards posted to themselves :rotfl: something about writing your own address sideways on the back, and the competition address boldly and clearly on the front.

Take time to think about tie-breaker comps - less people enter so there is more chance of winning. The tie-breaker doesn't even always have to be clever or rhyming or anything. Sometimes just an honest comment.

Caption comps - look at the picture / photo and wait a few days before entering as something good might come to mind when the pressure is off.

Is that the kind of thing?

furndire wrote:

Use the thread tools to subscribe to a comp that you can't do or want to do later.

Thrupneybit wrote:

To Avoid Your Postcards Being Returned
<hr style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message --> If you're sending postcards write your own address left to right in stead of top to bottom and on the line below your postcode write either your phone number or signature.
It stops the machines reading your postcode and returning your card back to you

snitterling wrote:

Here are some based on some of the silly mistakes people have made entering comps on my website. Being a small site I have been able to sort out and re-filter entries that went to the wrong place - a big company would just delete them.

Send email entries in plain text - no colours or fancy fonts and definitely NO animations, as they make the messages too large to be accepted by most company spam filters so your entry will be deleted.

Don't include any info to email entries other than that which is asked for in email entries - saying "no further information" or "please do not add me to your mailing list" is a complete waste of time as these things are totally automated and computers can't read messages. The only message which will be read by a human is the winning one - or the next one drawn if that one doesn't comply with the rules.

Always use the header specified - you may think you are being clever by correcting the spelling or punctuation in it, or adding flourishes to get yourself noticed, but if you don't use it *EXACTLY* as stated, the entry won't get filtered into the correct mailbox and will almost certainly be deleted.

If it says "One entry per household" make ONE entry per household. Not one for your cousin in Cornwall and your sister in Inverness. The promoter will be able to see the IP address of your computer and if they get three entries with different postal addresses that have come from the same computer, and entry patterns don't suggest that it is from an internet café or college computer, they will delete the whole lot.

snitterling wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by Thrupneybit
If you're sending postcards write your own address left to right in stead of top to bottom and on the line below your postcode write either your phone number or signature.
It stops the machines reading your postcode and returning your card back to you
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
And if you do that, make sure your address stays in the lower two thirds of the postcard by starting each line ast the lower edge - otherwise part of it may be obscured by the postmark

catz747 wrote:

Read what you are entering properly so you don't end up with a prize that involves going somewhere you can't make :rotfl:

Thrupneybit wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by Thrupneybit
If you're sending postcards write your own address left to right in stead of top to bottom and on the line below your postcode write either your phone number or signature.
It stops the machines reading your postcode and returning your card back to you </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by snitterling
And if you do that, make sure your address stays in the lower two thirds of the postcard by starting each line ast the lower edge - otherwise part of it may be obscured by the postmark </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
It's not possible for anything to be obscured if you start your name in the bottom LHC .

Thrupneybit wrote:

A quick 'Thank You' to promotors for any prizes received lets them know that they are appreciated, and they'll hopefully keep running comps,,,,,,,,,:T

kit34 wrote:

always thank the original poster if you enter a comp , reason 1 its polite and its hard work finding comps to put on board , reason 2 it helps you keep track of the comps you have entered

kipper wrote:

Not really a tip for winning as such, but when entering the comps make sure you tick/untick boxes regarding promotional bumph, you don't want to end up with a load of spam

iwantabargain wrote:

Alot of the sites that are running the comps want you to register first, i.e. magazines and newspaper web sites. Don't be put off by this - register with them as these sites have new competitions every week, so it is worth registering.

Another tip is to set up a separate email account just to use for competition entries, so any bumph they send will not clogg up your personal email account.

dollypop wrote:

It probably sounds obvious but enter lots of competitions - I have a reasonable win rate but thats because I enter lots - a friend of mine recently asked how do you win so much, I enter about 10 a day and never win anything!

Well, I enter a lot more than 10 thanks to everyone on here!! :T

The best tip I can give is not to expect too much, I comp for fun not for the prizes so anything I do get is always most appreciated!

Enjoy your comping and any prizes!:j

Thrupneybit wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by dollypop
It probably sounds obvious but enter lots of competitions - I have a reasonable win rate but thats because I enter lots - a friend of mine recently asked how do you win so much, I enter about 10 a day and never win anything!

Well, I enter a lot more than 10 thanks to everyone on here!! :T

The best tip I can give is not to expect too much, I comp for fun not for the prizes so anything I do get is always most appreciated!

Enjoy your comping and any prizes!:j
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Well it's not always the case, I often don't enter even 10 a week, But most of the ones I do enter have some sort of skill element to them like a tiebreaker or a caption ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

lizzielie wrote:

Don't give up, sometimes it takes time before you hear you've won.

hjb123 wrote:

My advice is:
- enter as many comps as you can - the more you enter the more chance you have of winning
- use the thanks button to thank the poster of the competitions - that way you know if you have entered the competition if it gets bumped up the board
- sit back and wait for the prizes, they can be like buses though - none for a while then several at once!

loquax wrote:

Few suggestions (which I hope are ok to give)

1. Enter as many competitions as you can for the prizes you'd like to win - new compers tend to enter for anything and everything, but think about what you're going for. There's so many comps around so you can be selective and still enter a large number.

2. Visit the websites that run competitions even if the email entry route is there posted in front of you. Most sites don't get paid for running competitions, by number of entries, adding names to their mailing lists, or even clicks to any sponsors they may have... so support the sites that run the comps by taking time to visit them and have a look around.

3. Have fun! Comping is meant to be fun so enjoy it

Jason

weaver wrote:

if your enter Holiday comps -

1) check how many the prize is for - normally 2 people only
2) check where you fly from as you will have to get 2 and from this airport
3) check hidden costs - i.e meals, taxes, travel
4) make sure your available for any dates specified
5) passports - visas etc especially US conditions - make sure you have correct documents




If your entering tickets for events comps - ensure you can get to them on the date/time stated - as many ticket comps give tickets only a couple of days before the event.

Most of all HAVE FUN:j

jen.eng wrote:

Don't automatically disregard Text entry comps. If you read the terms first often you find they only cost your standard network charge which can be cheaper than a postcard and stamp (if you've got the right tariff).

Jen x

Roberta1 wrote:

1) If you have to register for a newsletter to enter a comp, make a note of the promoter and the comp end date. Once the end date has passed you know you can unsubscribe from that newsletter.

2) Enter comps for little prizes as you stand more chance of winning these.

3) Enter comps in your local newspaper as these seem to have high success rates.

4) Don't get disheartened if you enter loads of comps and still don't win. It is down to luck after all, but if you are persistent the effort WILL pay off eventually.

kysira wrote:

If you want to mark that you have entered a competition press the thanks button and not reply to the post "thanks" or "just entered", bumping it.. I'm sure I'm not the only one getting annoyed having to read lots of posts again thinking there is something important and then seeing something like that..
And if I am the only one, I hereby apologize :cool:

sovarn wrote:

Or an easier way to keep track of the comps is to sort the threads by 'thread start time'.

That way you can do them in chronological order without threads popping up messing up the order.

This can be done by changing the display options at the bottom or just click here.

kysira wrote:

Then you miss it when someone updates the answer or question though

sarerb18 wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by furndire
Use the thread tools to subscribe to a comp that you can't do or want to do later.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Ok I thought I knew what you where talking about but:o what are you talking about please. I posted a comp that has various end dates and wanted to mark it to remind me to bump it for the other dates. Please help this old and ancient comper to understand these complicated new fangled things.

sarer

furndire wrote:

Scroll up in a line with your face, and you will get to Thread Tools at the top of this page ( hang on while I go back to page, and I'll edit again in a minute,) trying to describe as I do it) Its on the same line as View threads, Click on there and it comes up subscribe to this thread. There is also has a box for email notification, and if you click on that you can get a message email to you daily, or weekly if you want.
The box underneath "notification type" is folders. If you look on the left hand side of page, you have a box Subscribed Threads, and below that Edit Folders. If you click on there, you can make a folder to put your daily comps in, weekly comps, etc. I also have one for comps couldn't do.
You can also have them for anything else interesting that you come across on the different forums.
I hope this helps, as I have tried to do and tell you at the same time.

sarerb18 wrote:

Quote:
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> The box underneath "notification type" is folders. If you look on the left hand side of page, you have a box Subscribed Threads, and below that Edit Folders. If you click on there, you can make a folder to put your daily comps in, weekly comps, etc. I also have one for comps couldn't do. </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
got the first bit but can't find the "notification type" folders thing. Thanks a lot for helping me. sarer:rolleyes:


Just found it in the user cp which I don't normally have on view. Thanks again. Good luck sarer:D