Tips For Successful Sweeping
Sweepstakes are fun! But they’re competitive as well. While there is a lot of luck involved, with a proper approach, you can improve your chances of winning. By staying organized, consistent and safe, you can maximize your winning opportunities. In this article, I’ll cover a variety of tips and tricks to help you make the most of your sweeping efforts including; creating a sweepstakes routine, the best tools and apps to track your entries, organizing your email, confirming a sweepstakes win, avoiding social media scams and common disqualification mistakes. My goal is to help you become the best sweeper you can and get the most out of your endeavors.
Creating A Winning Entry Routine
Why does a routine matter? The more you enter, the more chances you have at winning. Most winners enter on a daily basis. However, entering many sweepstakes daily can lead to burnout. A solution to this is to block off a specific period of time each day to handle your entries. Set a dedicated time, whether it’s morning, lunch break or afternoon break and follow the same routine every day. Organize your entries by category - daily, weekly or monthly and create a calendar of when to enter. Make sure to use a tracking sheet or app to avoid duplicate entries, when they are not allowed. I give some recommendations on these later in this article. You want to stay productive too. This can be accomplished by using auto-fill tools that are built into all web browsers. Stay motivated by rotating between high and small value giveaways. And create goals for yourself such as 20 entries per day or 1 hour per day.
The Best Tools and Apps For Tracking Sweepstakes
There are several reasons why it’s important to properly track your sweepstakes entries. First, it will help you avoid duplicate entries where that leads to disqualifications. It also helps you avoid confusion by keeping track of your entries, deadlines, entry frequencies and prizes. There are several tools that you can use to keep on top of your sweeping efforts. One option is a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. With a spreadsheet you can create your own customized tracking record with a format that meets your needs. A password manager is a good idea too. This will keep track of all your login information for all the giveaways you enter.
When it comes to tracking, there are several key pieces of information that you should monitor:
- Entry frequency, daily, weekly or monthly
- End dates and prize drawing dates
- Prize values
- Sponsor information and entry website
- Notification rules (email, phone, mail)
- Disqualification rules
Organizing Your Email For Sweepstakes Success
If you plan on entering a large number of giveaways, it will be important to keep your email organized, since almost all sweepstakes are now online and communications are done through email. The first step is to create a dedicated email account just for your sweepstakes entries. By doing this, you can easily find any entry confirmations, keep communications separate from your regular email, and know where to find any winning email notifications you might get. Another helpful technique is to create folders/labels to organize your emails. Examples include “Entries”, “Wins”, and “Verified Sponsors”. You can also create filters to automatically sort your emails. Any email with the words “Congratulations” or “Winner” in the subject can get sorted into the “Wins” folder. Make sure to check your Spam/junk Mail folder regularly for important emails. Finally, you can “whitelist” any of your favorite sweeps sponsors to make sure their emails go through to you. The way you do this varies by email provider, so make sure to check specific instructions for this.
How To Verify A Prize Win
Congratulations, you just won a prize! That would be great, but don’t act so fast. You will want to verify that it’s a legitimate prize win before responding. You should look out for any red flags for a potential scam. These include asking for payment or fees to collect your prize, requesting personal sensitive information (social security number or bank details), poor grammar, emails that are not from the sponsor’s web address (like yahoo.com or gmail.com), or vague company information. Legitimate sponsors may ask for your shipping address, a signed affidavit of eligibility or a W-9 form for prizes over $600.
Common Disqualification Mistakes
The last thing you want to do is get disqualified from winning. A common mistake is entering too many times when only a single entry is allowed, or using multiple email addresses to enter multiple times. Incomplete or incorrect information can get you disqualified. Make sure you fill out all forms accurately, especially your email address. Otherwise you will miss a potential winner notification. Make sure you don’t break the rules including the age eligibility and geographic restrictions. Most giveaways disallow use of bots or automated entry mechanisms. And sometimes the sweeps will require you to tag or follow them on social media, so be sure to do this when required.
How To Avoid Social Media Scams
Social Media sites are full of sweepstakes scams but there are steps you can take to avoid them. A common technique for scammers is to impersonate celebrities by altering their name by one or two characters and using their picture. If you receive a Direct Message that says “you won!” it’s most likely fake. You can spot a legitimate Social Media Giveaway if it links to the official page of the brand or celebrity, the rules are posted clearly and publicly and they don’t ask for money upfront. Some safety tips include not sharing personal information in comments or on posts and being careful of clicking on short links (like bit.ly).
Successful sweeping combines luck, strategy and safety. Remember to be consistent, stay organized and keep an eye out for scams. Make sure to use this guide to boost your chances of winning. By following the tips and tools, you can be on your way to winning!