In August 2020 Forest Side Home became the latest property to try the win a house prize draw format. Like many before her Jodie Paget of Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, opted to use Raffall as the platform to host her draw. Raffall is a popular option for many home owners and has created 15 house winners to date. However it should be noted that the success rate is only 19%. This percentage could have been higher though if Paget’s property had completed but due to circumstance beyond her control the competition just fell short of target.
So Close Yet So Far
On a positive note the raffle sold a staggering 118,595. Although this represented about 60% of the 200,000 target, the number of tickets sold and revenue generated was agonisingly close enough to award the property as the prize. However unfortunately for Paget, Raffall crashed due to the traffic on the site. This meant that entrants couldn’t purchase tickets in the final hour of the competition. Sales tend to go through the roof if entrants know the house is guaranteed so it’s feasible that enough tickets could have been sold. We estimate that just another 10,000 to 15,000 tickets could have been the difference between cash winners and a home winner.
Winners & Losers
Whilst the two winners, Emma Preece and Lauren Pearson who both won £88,000 each, walked away happy many others were from pleased. Jodie received abuse from entrants who were unhappy about the downtime and the conclusion to the draw – even though the situation was totally out of her hands. Raffall didn’t extend the draw to account for the downtime so as it didn’t create a property winner Jodie ended up with nothing. Further to that Raffall, as per their terms, take 25% of the ticket sales and therefore netted a nice £59,000 from the listing. Whilst we don’t suspect any impropriety – glitches happen all the time as Facebook will testify – but the situation perhaps could have been better resolved for all parties involved.
The Road To Raffique
Most hosts at this point would have probably walked away from raffles, but Jodie and her business partner Leah decided on another plan. Together they built the raffle platform Win With Raffique. There are similarities between Raffall and Raffique as they are both platforms for hosting third party pay to enter prize draws. Promoters/Hosts can sign up, list a prize, pick the number of tickets required to sell, set the ticket price, promote and sell tickets. The big difference – at least for entrants – between the two platforms is that Raffique offers a cash alternative of 90% whilst it’s 75% at Raffall. Draws are also done using a third-party system that is independent to the platform.
Win A House On Raffique
We suspect that one aim of Raffique was to be an alternative option for hosts wanting to giveaway their homes. The first to do this were Anne & Bobby with Win Our 2 Bed Village Home. This prize draw was closed early with limited sales and the hosts opted to relaunch on FrogHopping. One of the reasons for change was that the new platform would be doing “all the marketing” for them. We’re not sure whether that decision has been a good one. Undeterred and hoping to show Raffique’s potential for property prize draws, Jodie Paget decided to go full circle and therefore listed Forest Side Home on to the platform. This time round tickets cost £10 each although there’s a limited time early bird price of a fiver. The raffle requires a minimum of 64850 paid entries!
Win Forest Side Home
It’s a tall order! Relisted properties do tend to struggle as Win Our 2 Bed Village Home, Coulsdon Townhouse and Gainsborough House have all found or are currently finding. Not only does Raffique need to convince entrants about their platform, they also need to convince previous entrants to enter the prize draw again – and all at a time when win a house prize draws aren’t performing as well as they were during 2020. That’s not to say they can’t do it, but they do need to start grabbing some of Raffall’s audience share in terms of entrants and hosts. A referral element so that users can share links could help alongside a concerted media campaign. Only time will tell if Forest Side Home does join the house winners list, but if it does it will make one fantastic success story.