Last week we gave prospective win a house competition organisers a reality check with the news that some promotions don’t always go to plan. However this week there’s some more positive news in the shape of not one but two new home competition winners. This takes the number of property raffle winners up to nine. And it’s good news for Raffall as both competitions were hosted on that platform.
Durham House Winner
On 4th September County Durham House & Car concluded it’s sale of 300,000 tickets at £1 a piece. Launched on the 29th July this competition has taken just over five weeks to complete which is pretty good going. The winners were announced as Courtney Morgan (House) and John Brannen (Car). There was some confusion over this particular competition as we, like many, assumed the house and car were one prize. A glitch during the draw process also added to some confusion. According to reports in The Northern Echo the Raffall system showed two names being displayed at random instead of just one winner. Raffall have apologised for the issue and they have also “provided compensation to the person negatively affected by the error”. We’d not sure how we’d feel after “winning” a new house only to discover it’s a mistake!
Salford House Winner
Joining Courtney Morgan on the home winner rostrum is Win A House & Car. This was the second Raffall competition to launch and ran from 23rd July to 6th September. Natalie and Bradley Rowcroft have managed to sell 200,000 tickets at £2 each resulting in Rachael Brown becoming the new owner of a 5 bedroom property in Salford plus a BMW 320D. The Rowcrofts have worked tirelessly pushing their competition on social media and it’s great to see them succeed with this venture. These results are promising for the many other home owners who have jumped on the win a house bandwagon and the Raffall platform. With three winners – fromw what we believe is four completed competitions – is amazing. However again we’re going to sound a cautious note. Other active competitions, especially those on Raffall, are not doing so well. For example Congleton Home had sold just under 5000 tickets as of a week ago.
The Secret Of Their Success
So how have Richard Taylor and The Rowcrofts managed to succeed where many other house competition organisers have failed? Trying to understand what works and what doesn’t with these kind of promotions is an interesting subject. Price points need to be important – both competitions are “the price of a cup of coffee” – cheap enough to attract people to “give it a go”. Timing could be a factor as both launched very quickly after the media interest in the Wakefield Raffall competition conclusion. Utilising the media looks to be very important in both cases. County Durham House used local news to keep interest in the promotion whilst the Rowcrofts used Facebook incredibly effectively. They were pretty much online daily keeping people up to date with the progress of the competition and encouraging ticket sales. This encourages ticket sales as people start to realise they do have a chance of winning a house. Compare this approach to other win a house competitions which are basically put up competition and expect it to be a success!