Comping
Table Of Contents
- Scour the web
- Accept the truth
- Use forums
- Track everything
- Avoid competitions
- Sign-up to competitions
- Use tools
- Create an email
- Look daily
- Utilise
- Use social media
- Track your winnings
- Search offline
- Avoid fakes
- Verification stamp
- Never pay
- Supplement your income
- Get antivirus software
- Always respond
- Create a comping email
Have you ever wanted to have fun while winning big? Comping could be a fun way for you to earn money, winning anything from sums of money to free holidays is something with near-universal appeal. Comping simply refers to the act of entering contests. By entering a wide number of contests, you can potentially win big and make out like a bandit. But simply entering every contest you come across and simply hoping for the best isn’t quite going to cut it, you’ll want to get ahead of the competition somehow. In this article, we will outline a variety of methods that you can use to gain an advantage and make comping more profitable.
1. Scour The Web For As Many Free Contests As Possible
The first step that you can take to improve your odds of winning is to simply enter hundreds of free competitions around the internet. This may sound like a daunting task but don’t fret, each competition has an incredibly low barrier of entry. Usually, you only need to send off a postcard or filling in a form/questionnaire. Avoid competitions that require any sort of signup fee. A lot of competitions have large prizes, so even if you only win a handful of prizes you can still win big prizes and walk away with a pretty penny.
2. Accept The Truth That You Aren’t Guaranteed Anything
The law of probability is unfortunately not on your side. Even if you somehow enter a million competitions you are not guaranteed to win any of them. Gamblers fallacy can be a dangerous thing. You need to approach this as a hobby that can pay huge dividends rather than a disappointing inconsistent job. Recognise what you are signing up for and you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more.
3. Use Forums And Other Sources To Your Advantage
Places like the Moneysavingexpert competition time forum are a fantastic resource for tracking competition times and competitions in general. Finding communities of like-minded compers can greatly aid your efforts in finding potential prizes. Do your best to gain popularity in your forum of choice by being helpful and friendly to other users. Sharing your information with others will make them more inclined to share information with you.
4. Track What You Have And Haven’t Entered
Some competitions will exclude those who have entered on multiple occasions. Creating a spreadsheet or other document can help you track what you have and haven’t signed up for. If you are using a forum like the one mentioned above, they will often have dedicated tracking features in them for you to utilise. Sorting via various categories like time posted will help you systematically work your way through a great number of competitions in a short time span. If you choose to follow this method, document what the last competition you signed up for was so that you can pick up where you left off last time. You don’t want to risk being disqualified from something you’ve signed up for or risk missing out on a competition.
5. Avoid Competitions You Don’t Actually Want To Win
This is another critical way to ensuring that you are being efficient with your time and maximising your enjoyment/rewards. Not every prize is going to be equal, and you may run into situations where a prize is undesirable for you. For example, if a competitions prize is to meet the Liverpool football team for a day, but you’re a Manchester fan then that prize won’t be of any interest to you. Physical prizes are much less of a concern because at the very least they can always be sold. Consider your options and contemplate if you actually are interested in the prize on offer. If you aren’t, move on to a different competition and leave that prize for someone else to potentially enjoy.
6. Consider Signing Up To Competitions That Require A Little Extra Effort
This may sound a little counter-intuitive but bear with me. Many of the people who enter online competitions will be thinking in a similar way to you. They will also be trying to maximise their winnings and being time efficient. Because of this, they will also be entering as many competitions as possible. In order to maximise how many they can enter in a given time, they will overlook competitions that they view as taking too long to enter. Since these competitions are overlooked, the number of contestants will be significantly lower. You may find that the contest only has a small number of entrants and you have a much higher chance of success. Take the opportunity to enter some of these competitions, you might be pleasantly surprised with the results.
7. Use Tools To Your Advantage
There is a wide assortment of tools that you can find online to help you on your quest for contest glory. By employing the right tools you can increase the speed with which you perform certain tasks such as filling in information. For example, the Split Tabs Chrome extension can be used to display multiple browser windows at the same time. Other browsers have their own extensions that can do the same thing, look around and see what works for you. You can also look into various autofill tools that automatically remember information for you rather than making you type all of your information out multiple times. This can be used for information like your name, email address, and postcode.
8. Create An Email You Can Use Multiple Times
Often times in order to sign up for a competition you may be required to send in an email. These will ask for your basic information as well as an answer to whatever question they are asking. To speed up the process of signing up for these specific competitions it is recommended that you create a basic template email to use. This email will just have your basic information like your name and address. Once you’ve signed up to one competition this way you’ll have a much better understanding of what exactly is required for your template email. Make you leave plenty of blank space for competition-specific information. Keep the template open in either a separate tab or a word document, that way you can paste the template in and adjust it rather than typing it out every single time.
9. Look For Daily Competitions
If you find competitions that are run every single day then be sure to note them down you that you can keep signing up to them. Great examples of competitions that fall under this category include Pick my Postcode. They used to be known as the Free Postcode Lottery, so there’s a chance that you’ve already signed up to it. Simply by giving them your email address and postcode you can potentially win hundreds of pounds on any given day. You will have to keep checking back every day to see if you actually won or not though. Keeping track and consistently checking every day is necessary for your success.
10. Utilise Free Postcards To Your Advantage
Sometimes you might need to send in a postcard for a contest. In these situations, avoid buying postcards at the post office. Instead, utilise spaces like your local library to get free postcards. You will still to purchase a stamp to send it off. Make sure you just use second class stamps, unless the deadline is really close then use the first class stamp for next day postage.
11. Use Social Media To Its Full Potential
Social media is a powerful tool in the modern era and one that we can use to our advantage. Major corporations will often use social media platforms to spread brand awareness and get additional customers. This is known as social media marketing. One technique they use is to hold competitions on their social media accounts that require users to share a post to enter. By following and sharing corporate accounts that make these competitions we can regularly get more competitions to join. They are minimal effort to enter as they will just require a share/like/retweet to enter. You can make a separate account just for these competitions but this can present some risk. Sites like Facebook specifically forbid users from having more than one account, so you run the risk of being suspended/banned.
12. Track Your Winnings
Once you’ve won your desired prizes from your competitions make sure that you jot down what you have won. If you for some reason don’t get your prize within the time frame they stated, make sure that you remind them that you are owed your prize. They aren’t withholding your prize maliciously so make sure that you are interacting with them in a polite and professional manner. Sometimes something will get in the way of them delivering your prize so make sure that you remind them. Once you do have your winnings remove it from your list.
13. Search In Places Other Than The Internet
When looking for as many competitions to enter as possible, you cannot afford to overlook any potential sources of competitions. As well as searching online keep your eyes peeled for potential opportunities during your daily routine. Places like magazines, newspapers, tv shows, etc all have competitions that you could easily enter. Locations like your local library host a wide assortment of information that you can access for free.
14. Learn How To Avoid Fakes And Red Herrings
One of the worst things that could happen is that you end up wasting your own time. You need to learn to be suspicious of companies and how to check their validity. Check on the Companies House website if you have suspicions that a company might not be legitimate. This database houses all registered companies in the UK, if they aren’t in that database then they aren’t legit. Once you’ve found a company that is fake you can jot it down so you know to avoid it in the future. If you are an active participant in forums make sure that you alert other users so that you improve your standing within that community.
15. Look For The Verification Stamp
One name that you should get familiar with is the Institution of Promotional Marketing. They are a trade association that verifies the legality and legitimacy of various promotional marketing events including competitions. Whenever they approve of competition or promotional event, they apply their stamp of approval to it. If a competition has this stamp of approval on it then it is a lot more trustworthy and worth your time.
16. Never Pay To Enter A Competition
With the sheer number of free competitions that are available all around the internet and in another place, you have no reason to pay to sign up to anything. The free competitions don’t cost anything to enter so if you don’t win you didn’t lose anything. However, once you start forking over entrance fees you start having a greater stake in the competition and the losses become so much worse. Your enjoyment and profitability begin to take a nosedive. It begins to turn into gambling and the frustration that can result from losing your investment can kill any fun you were having. Just stay away and stick to the free to enter competitions.
17. Supplement Your Income With Additional Revenue Streams
It is very difficult to consistently earn enough money from comping to earn a full-time living. Pursuing other methods to earn money in addition to comping will give you a steadier flow of money. There is a large multitude of methods that you could use to make money from home in addition to comping. Ideally, you use comping as a secondary way to earn money alongside a more reliable method. Again, approach comping as a potentially profitable hobby, not as an inconsistent job. You’ll have more fun and better financial stability this way.
18. Get Some Antivirus Software
Clicking through and navigating a lot of websites always has its risks, as a comper, these risks will be magnified. You need to take appropriate measures to protect the sanctity of your personal data and keep yourself safe online. The minimum you can do is get up to date antivirus software so that you aren’t swamped by malicious programmes. If your information is stolen and you didn’t have up to date antivirus software you will have a much harder time acquiring compensation. You can get a lot of high-quality antivirus software for free online, take a few minutes of your time and spend them wisely to find the right software for you.
19. Always Reply To Your Emails
If the company running a competition you entered contacts you, make sure that you reply to them as soon as possible. Sometimes companies withdraw a prize if it is not claimed. In these cases, it will normally be added to the prize pool for the next competition. To ensure that you actually receive your prize reply to their initial contact immediately. Otherwise, you risk losing out if you decide to wait too long. Make sure that if they have any additional instructions that you fulfill them in your reply. Be careful if they ask for any information that’s too sensitive or suspicious. Keep vigilant of being potentially scammed.
20. Create An Email Just For Comping
You are going to be both receiving and sending a lot of emails. Potentially dozens every day. Rather than sifting through various email folders and reply chains, everything will be much simpler to track if its all in its own email address. As well as immediately knowing how important the emails you are receiving are, you also free up the clutter from your main email address. It will create a far more enjoyable and manageable experience.
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