Freebie Hunters Use Technology To Win In 2010 - part 1

Online technology is a freebie hunters friend, don't be scared of it. Use it wisely because it will save you time & it will help you enter more competitions than manually trawling through old hat prize portals.
You can even stumble across exclusive vouchers & competitions. ( I see these daily on my Twitter feed! Heres an example of a GMTV competition)

How can I use twitter for competition entries?


That's today competition tip is to start investigating twitter.

At first it can be a little overwhelming with hundreds of tweets appearing from all directions and might daunt the more mature comper but stick with it and you'll soon reap the benefits through a little patience and trial and error.

You can access twitter online here, via your iphone using special apps, through widgets on blogs,through free programmes like tweetdeck and even directly on the search engines natural listings.

'Follow' as many celebs & companies as you deem enough to show you interesting links and exclusive prize draws. A useful tip is to find a competition website you know and trust then click onto who they are 'following' and 'follow' all of those people too. Before you know it, you'll be tweeting away with 100's of different compers :)

In order to be completely up to date with the latest voucher code, freebie, free sample, competition and prize draws its vital that freebie hunters in today's online community keep up to date with the latest technologies. Don't be a dinosaur comper; keep up to date :)

Follow Win4now on Twitter, say hi and i'll help you get your bearings.

Cracking down on the prize cheats

That's right, we're constantly trying to improve Win4now & making sure that everyone who enters the competitions are not cheating the system.

It's not fair on the genuine members, so we have very strict rules and if you're found cheating you won't get your prize.
Now all the would be members who join using fake & quite frankly obscene names will no longer be able to win. No longer will our lovely Joy have to sift through rude words when picking the latest prize winners! Hooray!

Hard but fair. Everyone has an equal chance of winning our prize draws. No exceptions.

Happy comping everyone.

Hot Competition Tip

On Instantwin4now our free instant competition site, you have to pick out 3 numbers and if they match the winning numbers you get to win the prize then & there. No waiting for a draw to end, just an instant win.

Here's a tip for you, the lower the number selections are within the drop downs, the higher the odd's are of you winning! Easy.

I recommend that you mix up your daily competition allowance by entering lots of small prizes and some of the big value ones too. We've had winners of single prizes worth £15,000 before now, so you can get lucky on a big scoop. Nothings impossible on Instantwin4now.

Whats Squarespace?!

Successful promoting by the squarespace staff means lower odd's of winning for the competition entrants.

As you know from previous posts, Win4now is now tweeting daily with the username 'win_prizedraw'. While i've been tweeting, I couldn't help but notice the huge trend success of #squarespace's great promotional competition. They've gone from pretty much being unheard of worldwide to now being a twitter phenomenon. To be honest I wish that I had such a brainwave!

Basically every day they randomly give away a free iphone to people who tweet the word #squarespace. As of a moment ago they have 29,736 followers so that means that your chance of winning is decreasing every day as more and more people follow and enter to win the 1 daily prize.
Great for the promoters themselves for all the brand awareness but not so great for the would be winners.

My tip to you today, is to find little niche competitions to enter, try not to just stick to the national ones that everyone's heard of like gmtv, squarespace & most tv promoted competitions.
Win4now's fun4now section is a great example of low odd's of winning very month.

Happy comping.

Better odds for winning

We often get told that one of the things you our users want to see on Win4now are more competitions with better odd's of winning.

If your one of those people then this competition to Win 1 of 50 short breaks is right up your street.

So that's 50 chances from 1 prize draw to win a prize instead of the usual 1.

Enter today it's a great prizedraw and remember to enter all of our fun4now and wacky categories because they usually have greater odd's of winning too. (less entries)

Good luck!

Top 5 Competitions in Jan

Our most entered competitions in Jan were:

Win a Mini Cooper
Win £2000 in cash
Win a Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec
Win £2000 Marks and Spencer vouchers
Win a Renault Clio Dynamique

Insiders tips of which competitions to enter for a high winning chance:

Win tickets to see Rumours of Fleetwood Mac
Win an aquarium & tropical fish
Win 1 of 3 musical pillows

There's loads of new competitions for Feb too, so log into Win4now now & get entering!

Do you refer friends to competitions?

When I say 'refer friends' to competitions; I mean do you tell your friends the website url/link, forward email newsletters, tell them about it when you see them face to face or do you tell effectively strangers via comping forum communities?
After all it's a game of luck so why not share it out and see what fate decides?

Or do you prefer to increase your odd's (less people entering) and sneakily enter alone. Rubbing your hands together cackling away in your secret hide away? (Sorry I got carried away there.)

Would you be more likely to share good competitions with your friends if you had an incentive; like an extra entry into the competition, if the company makes a charity donation on your behalf or a small reward like a voucher code?

I would recommend that you start a little syndicate, where you all enter the same competitions sharing any new prize draws leads as you find them.
Then if any of your syndicate wins, you share the prizes between your group. You might need a contract between you or just good old fashioned honour & trust.

Power in numbers.

Do people really win competitions?

Yes! Real people do really win competitions!

However I can totally understand how people can be sceptical and I can relate to your frustrations.

On a personal note, for about 2 years now I've entered the same monthly competition on a furniture website to win £100 vouchers for that store, and for about 4 years I've entered the monthly competitions on an extreme sports site.
I still haven't won!

BUT every month other lucky peoples names are listed on the sites to have won the goodies. I know they are real because I've even seen their names on different forums bragging how happy they are to have won such cool prizes. I think you'll agree, it's lovely to see other peoples enjoyment. So I can't stay miffed for long.

I keep entering prize draws, as every good compers knows that people really DO win competitions online, you just need patience and to understand that you can't win everything! (riddle time) Because then everyone BUT YOU would be asking the same question! (do people really win competitions?)

PS. Boss if your reading this err, I keep entering other companies competitions during work time for research purposes.... honest ;)

Meet the marketing team part 4

Meet Vicky! Our new affiliate marketing team member. Vicky wrote this to introduce herself to you:

"I think it’s only right that I tell you about my obsession with food as you will probably find out soon enough that I enjoy pretty much all aspects of food. When I am not working I am usually watching cooking shows, reading cookery books or just thinking about food in general. I do try and cook from time to time but would much rather eat food that other people have made and as I only have a camping stove at the moment (we are in the process of having a new kitchen fitted) it can be quite difficult if not challenging!

I have just recently bought a new house and moved to the Sheffield area, hence the new kitchen, so the rest of my spare time is primarily taken up with DIY pretty much or just socializing with friends over a glass of wine.

I am really looking forward to starting my new role within DMRI and have thoroughly enjoyed my time so far."

So young, so naive..... I wonder how long it will take before we crack her ;) hehe


Also today; Going, Going live!

Check out Wacky Win4now & Win4now's Competitions Tips Pages.
Awww look at this little doggy in it's coat. Just one of the Wacky competition prizes you could win our new feature!

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think about the new features and if you have any further recommendations to what you'd like to see on Win4now.

Can you win twice?

If you've won a competition before, can you win again on the same site?

Yes of course you can!

We won't remove your winning entry if we know you've won before.
That goe's for Win4now & Instantwin4now.

You could even win the same competition on Instantwin4now if you wanted.

See the winners pages for proof you really can be lucky more than once - in fact it's endless the amount of wins you could have with Win4now (& instantwin4now)

Fun4now clue:
Fetch

Office banter & fun:
What comes to mind when you hear the words 'Dinosaur Mummy'?
We were in stitches in the office recently, when I was talking about how I'd watched an interesting documentary on A Dinosaur mummy but Rob completely got the wrong end of the stick and thought I was talking about a documentary on old women giving birth. Then to make matters worse looked straight at Kerry! She wasn't a happy bunny! (or dinosaur mummy hehe)
Ah the wonders of the English language :)

Whats the best time to enter competitions?

Doe's the time & date of your competition entry have any effect on your chances of winning?

Simple answer is no.
I've heard a rumour that some people worry about this, but stop fretting. We do not discriminate against people entering at the last minute and pick winners from the early entries. Or vica versa.

As long as your entry is within the competition opening times and you only enter once, any time or date is just as valid as the next.

Another myth is that when picking the winners, some companies read through the entries and pick someone they like the sound of!

At Win4now we use a computer formula to fairly pick out the prize draw winners. Your chance is completely equal to everyone else who enters.

fun4now clue: yummy bones

3 reasons why you can win, but never get the prize!

1. The company try to contact you to tell you your a winner, but your email address is fake or goes to junk and your telephone number is a dead line - so you never even know that you've won

2. You break the T&C's (IE. enter multiple times, under 18, not UK resident etc)

3. You don't claim your prize! (unbelievable but it happens a lot)


All of these reasons (and more) have happened over the years to us.

On Instantwin4now if you win, it comes up on your screen as 'congratulations' and gives you a telephone number to call to claim the prize. It isn't fake and it doesn't cost a mini fortune per minute.

On Win4now if you win, Joy has the exciting job of 'pulling the winning entries' and contacting them to share the good news with. Frequently she rings and emails winners but they've changed their details without telling us or worst still they join with fake contact details - but this means they can't win anyway! What a waste of time.
In the end we have to re draw the winners again, until we do find a real winner!

So my advice to you, is to check your contact details (go to 'update details') are correct and make sure you put our details in your email address book so your winning email doesn't go into your junk.

Fun4now we love you

Loads of new starters here in the office this morning. All bright eyed and bushy tailed at the future ahead of them working for Win4now.


Our lovely Thelma in accounts makes fabulous cakes for all our staff's birthdays and we all sing happy birthday to them. Will this great tradition continue now we have so many staff? Here on marketing we are all voting it does. (Thelma's cakes are yummy!) I'm not sure that I could survive a week without cake....

If you want to win on your birthday, we run a monthly competition to win £20 of vouchers for 15 lucky winners.
Birthday Competition

It seems that the Win4now office loves Fun4now more than our members (sob).

We voted to keep the Fun4now section live for a few more months, so please enter these great puzzle competitions. We always enjoy trying to guess the landmarks, riddles and mystery blurred images so I'm sure you will too.

Anyway, a bit of a rant but jeez, have you seen the Fun4now mystery image competition this month?
Come on this is soooo easy, so get entering to be in with a chance of winning £50 Cash. (I'll give you a clue; it's not a mushroom, Angelina Jolie or a nose - as some of our members have entered)

Do you want to win a Lonely Planet Guidebook of your choice? Just guess the famous seaside landmark from the clues and you could Win Lonely Planet travel books

Last months mystery image competition only had 7 correct answers, so take this tip from me and enter for great winning odds!

The winning lottery numbers for todays Euromillions are...

Ok, ok so I haven't got a clue what the winning numbers are! but if you play just one line you are at least in with a chance.

I got an email this morning stating impressive statistics of the odds of winning the lottery and Euromillions can increase by joining a syndicate.
Doesn't everyone knows that though? (They didn't mention the fact that you are decreasing the amount you would win.)

But these figures also tried to imply your chances of winning the Euromillions would be better odds than the National lottery's lotto if you were in a syndicate.
The reality is that in order to win the Euromillions lottery your odds, syndicate or not are much much higher than the standard National lotteries lotto. They just hand picked the statistics they wanted to show me on the email.

The moral of the story is that statistics can be misleading if you don't have all the information in front of you....


Something I can do for you is, show you a list of last months winning Win4now members: http://www.win4now.co.uk/winners

That's 58 lucky winners from 21 competitions. Costing them nothing.
None of the members will now be millionaire's from their winnings but hopefully we'll have put a smile on their faces that day.

Real People, Real Prizes.

Have a good weekend & good luck with your lottery numbers!

Not winning doesn't = a scam company

It's snowing here in Sheffield again, that would be nice if it was December; but i'm getting a tad fed up of all this cold weather now and i'm looking forward to putting my shorts and sandals back on.

Not a lot of office gossip over the past few days, Evo has had a new tattoo (shes braver than me) & Rob our new team member is experimenting with making his sandwiches more 'city'. Oh and I lost the table football championship in March :( boo

Not winning on comps musings:

I've been buying a lottery ticket now once a week for about a year.
That's £52 i've wasted out of my hard earnings, because i've not even won a tenner!

That doesn't mean that http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ is a scam and no one ever wins from it.
It just means that I haven't won yet, but its more likely i'll win if I carry on trying and increase my odds.

Win4now is free so if I enter a competition every week it costs me £0, and my chances/odds of winning are massively higher than winning the lottery.

Keep trying compers you will win if you don't quit. Even if its a £10'er, at least your in profit unlike my lottery experience so far!

What are your chances of winning competitions & competition winning tips

"What are our odds of winning a competition?"
Once I explain my job to new friends and family, they often ask me this question followed by 'are competitions a scam?'

Question 2 is easy. Win4now competitions really are real and people DO win. It's not a scam and there are no catches. I can guarantee that for our sites.

Question 1 is a bit harder to answer:

If the competition is a prize draw like http://www.win4now.co.uk/ main competitions, then you have an equal chance as every other entry to winning - so it's unfortunately quite hard to answer what the odd's are exactly as you don't know how many people enter competitions until its ended.

Also if there is only 1 prize per entry the odd are different to if there are multiple. Win4now is normally 1 prize per entry but doe's have as much as 10 prize winners per competition entry. How many people enter Win4Now competitions? Anywhere from 50 - 50,000 people per competition, so thats the odd's ranging from 1-50 - 1 to 50,000.

http://www.instantwin4now.co.uk/ our sister site on the other hand you can increase the chances of winning by entering competitions up to 50 times per week, you can even try the same competition the next day. Just spending 10 minutes a day comping on this instant win site could increase your chances of winning massively. (tell your friends too)


A good tactic is to enter the more unusual competitions like Fun4now -http://www.win4now.co.uk/fun4now as these have less entries per month and are not everyone who enters can win as they have to have guessed the correct answer. ( i love the mystery image competition- have a look ) You can get a real satisfaction in these, getting the right answer.

The only other bit of insiders tip I could give you is to be patient (don't give up), increase the amount of comps you enter to per week and remember this is free and supposed to be fun.

Whatever happens your odds here are a lot cheaper and better than paying for a lottery ticket ;)

Instantly Win Competitions Sites

Have you entered all of Win4now's amazing competitions and are raring for more?

Do you want to win competitions but not have to wait until the end date to find out if you've won?

Well look no further than http://www.opinioniser.co.uk/ It's a genuine free to enter, no catches or costs- instant win competition site.

All you have to do is register free (really easy and only takes 2 mins) then you can enter up to 50 competitions a day! -it can be the same one once a day until you win or up to 50 new competitions each time. The choice is yours.

Browse through the competitions or use the search function to find your perfect competition then you just have to select 3 lucky winning numbers - if they match up to the winning competition numbers (pre selected by computer system)- you win the prize instantly!

Not costing you a penny and only taking a few minutes of your time each day. The perfect lunch time distraction from going to the real shops and spending all your wages!

How cool is that then?! We all love it in our office.

Ch-ch-ch-chaaaanges...

no need to turn and face the strain though as there's good and bad news! We have a new member of web-team called Rob who'll be looking after The Insurance Centre.

We have two leavers so shed the tears for Ben L and Kelli who've upped sticks and taken them elsewhere. On the upside we did get beer and chocolate this afternoon though - a true necessity for a Friday afternoon.

But you're not bothered about the staff right? You want prizes, prizes and more PRIZES! Well here you go, here are some awesome new ones!

If you're broke then let us bail you out with £500 to pay a chunk of your credit cards off.

Bruges has many things going for it lace, beer, chocolates - why go anywhere else? Win a 2 night break in Bruges for nowt!

Cleaning your car is a rubbish job so at least make sure when you clean it your car sparkles like something off Pimp My Ride on the telly with 1 of 6 car valet kits.

Save your pennies on library charges and win 3 books on us!

Who doesn't love Peppa Pig? What's not to like? A cute pig in a red dress... win loads of Peppa Pig goodies with Win4now!

and shes back!

The infamous Evo is back in town after her city break. We missed her lots but she bought in some choccies from her travels so thats lessened the pain somewhat.

Beths currently in spice rehabilitation doing a sterling job going from a korma to a balti in just one day. Well done Beth! Keep up the good work.
Rock school is next... can we break her away from girls aloud and go into the realms of iron maiden? Best take it one step at a time and go for a bit of bon jovi first.

ooh I don't think i've mentioned this yet but myself and the mighty Mr Rock are having a March table football contest. We've made a spreadsheet to keep check of the scores and everything. So wish me luck in totally whooping his ass! We're hoping that in April no one will win this fab prize http://www.win4now.co.uk/competition/pool-table so that we can start a pool table contest.

Bye for now and good luck comping - remember Real People DO Win Real Prizes at Win4Now.