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You’d be amazed at how many people run a competition and never announce the winner… maybe you’ve even been guilty of this in the past?
You may not think it’s a big deal, but here are five reasons why it’s important to announce your competition winner:
- To ensure your competition obeys the law
- To boost your brand’s reputation
- To show your audience your competition is legitimate
- To gather valuable social proof
- To leverage the opportunity for converting entries to sales…
If that last point wasn’t enough to convince you why it’s so important to publicly announce your contest winner, perhaps we can persuade you by delving deeper into these reasons. After you know why your winner announcement is so important, we’ll give you a quick and dirty how to for announcing your next giveaway winner to generate as many conversions as possible.
Did you know winner announcements are a legal requirement?
In most countries around the world, the relevant laws clearly state that as a condition of running a competition, you must publicly announce your winner.
Don’t believe me? Here are just a few examples – verbatim – from the most common countries our clients run competitions in.
AUSTRALIA
From ACT’s Racing and Gambling Commission website:
“The person conducting the promotion must make the results of the lottery available to entrants.”
Consumer and Business Services in South Australia state:
“If the lottery has only been advertised in a particular publication or website, or if an entry is only permitted on a particular website, results must be published in that publication or website.”
The Northern Territory Government actually requires major prizes to be announced in a newspaper (how antiquated):
“… you must publish the names of the major prize winners in a local or a national newspaper.”
The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation explains that the name, date and place of the winner announcement must be included in your promotional material (and terms and conditions of course).
“Information used to promote the lottery and any scratch and win cards must include… the name and date of the publication in which winners’ names will be published”.
For prizes valued at over $1,000, there are specific stipulations from the state of Victoria around how to announce your competition winner:
“The names of winners of all prizes over $1000 must be published by one of the following methods… in a newspaper circulating generally in Victoria; on the internet, for a minimum period of 28 days; if the lottery was advertised solely through a trade journal, promotional magazine or similar publication, in that publication.”
The states of Western Australia and Tasmania do not stipulate any conditions for announcing a competition winner.
Interestingly, Queensland don’t require a public announcement, but they do require you to state in your terms and conditions whether your competition winner will be announced and where (don’t worry, if you purchase our T&Cs template, we’ve got you covered here:
“The terms and conditions must also be readily available, complied with, and include… whether results will be published and, if so, the way in which they will be published”.
If you need a hand with your competition legals, get in touch with our team and we’ll ensure your competition is compliant.
UNITED KINGDOM
Competition laws in the UK state that:
“Promoters are required to publish or make available information that indicates an award of prize(s) took place – usually prize winner(s)’ surname(s) and county/counties. The promoter must warn entrants of their intention to do so, and give entrants the opportunity to object to or reduce the information made available.”
– From DLA Piper’s amazing Prize Promotions Around the World guide.
Whilst Brexit may impact your need to comply with GDPR when dealing with UK residents post-EU exit; the UK still has strict privacy and data protection laws, so it’s important that you allow your winners the opportunity to amend the information you publish as part of your winner announcement.
UNITED STATES
According to DLA Piper’s guide for running promotions and competitions in the USA, there doesn’t appear to be a federal requirement to announce your winners, however certain states do have laws around winner draws and announcements.
If you’re considering running a competition in the United States and would like a hand with your competition legals, we’ll do the legwork, research and applications relevant to your contest.
Announcing your winner gives your brand a great reputation.
Don’t you just hate it when you enter a competition to win an incredible prize, spend hours crafting your game of skill entry, follow all their social channels and open all their emails so you don’t miss your name being announced as the winner… only to realise months later that they never actually told you who won?
It’s a pet peeve of mine.
Not just because I really, really wanted to win; but because as a competition professional, I see it as such a huge missed opportunity to build that company’s brand reputation.
I love seeing winner announcements on social media.
This one from Spanx for example, is a particularly good example – on their Instagram stories, they reused the images they created to promote and advertise the competition to announce the winners.
Not only did I recognise straight away that it was the same competition, but I actually felt really chuffed for the winners.
Your announcement lets people know your competition is legitimate.
There are SO many dodgy competitions out there, as you’d know if you saw our #competitionroast about the mailbox scam competition.
You know your competition is legitimate, I know your competition is legitimate, so let your audience know it’s legit too by taking five minutes to craft a simple email and social post announcement.
Unless you’re announcing your winner in the UK (see above legal requirements), the normal process for announcing your winner is to announce their first name, followed by the initial of their surname.
Feel free to tag them on social of course, but under no circumstances should you ever, EVER, publish their email address or personal details. You may think this is obvious, but we’ve actually seen this done and it’s a huge no-no.
If you’ve asked for any form of qualitative data as part of their entry, for example submit your photo to win, tell us in 25 words or less or comment why you deserve to win you could also repost your winner announcement with their winning entry.
You’d actually be surprised how much engagement is generated on your winner announcement post by people congratulating the winner and genuinely being happy (just like I was with the Spanx competition) to see someone win such a fantastic prize.
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Winner announcements act as powerful social proof for your brand.
Once you’ve announced your winner and delivered your prize, follow up with your winner and ask them to send you a photo and quick testimonial/thank you so you can repost it to your website, use it in an email or post to social media.
Bonus points if they post it to their social accounts first and you can reshare or repost to your social channels.
A name is a name, until it has a smiling, winning face to it – and most winners are so excited to have been selected, that they’ll eagerly send you a happy snap of them with their prize.
The East Forged team meet the winner of their competition.
Mitsubishi Cruise Through Winter Competition winners enjoying their cruise.
Leverage your winner announcement to drive conversions and sales.
If you collected an email address as part of your competition entry, you can use our favourite conversion tactic to help turn your competition entrants into paying customers.
Here’s how you do it.
- Draw your winner using this handy blog post as your guide.
- Contact your winner privately, double check they’re eligible to win and that they’re happy to claim the prize.
- Once your winner has confirmed; draft up your winner announcement email… it doesn’t need to be anything lengthy or fancy, just let people know your competition is over, thank them for entering, announce the winner’s name (again first name + initial of surname) and then make them an offer so tempting and easy to redeem that it would be impossible to resist.
- Once your email has been sent, opened – and if your offer was tempting enough – clicked; you can announce your winner on social media.
It’s honestly that simple.
If you thought announcing your winner was just another pointless, time-consuming task, think again. Not only are winner announcements a legal requirements in most countries, but announcing your winner provides you with an amazing opportunity to build your reputation, give your competition legitimacy, provide powerful social proof and drive leads and sales for your brand. It’s a huge opportunity for businesses big and small.
If you want to make the most out of your next competition (or winner announcement!) why not see how we can work together to create a compelling competition that drives real results for your business with a free competition consult?
