Unbelievably it’s coming up to almost five months since we last did an update about Loquax on the blog. Back then we were still in lockdown and making little changes to Loquax. Since then there’s been a few tweaks here and there but we (well Kirsty) has been busy working on essential upgrades to the site. Hopefully these will come online in the next month or so with minimal disruptions to service. We don’t expect there to be too many issues for users but you just never know.
Loquax In The News
We don’t actively court publicity but it is nice to get a mention in the media every now and then. This week we spotted an article about house raffles doing the rounds in the likes of Wales Online, Manchester Evening News and The Yorkshire Post. Within the article – which actually is identical in every publication – was references to our win a house statistics. We’ve been monitoring these competitions actively since 2017 and are quite possibly the only site with the data. Initially the articles “forgot” to reference their source but after an email or two all is now well. For us that’s pretty good news because mentions and links help generate interest in the site.
House Raffles
At time of writing (June 2021) there are now 63 open competitions listed in our Win A House section. We’ve made a few tweaks and changes over the last few months as it had started to develop a life of it’s own. For example we now list the closed competitions by year. Previously this list was well over 100 strong and just getting bigger and bigger. By breaking it down to individual years it should make it easier to use. We’ve also introduced a section for Irish House Competitions as this is one area where these competitions are growing in popularity.
Radio Competitions
Eagle-eyed compers will know that radio companies often have big prizes! For example Heart recently concluded their Make Me A Millionaire promotion whilst back in March one lucky Loquax user won a massive £61,000 with Hits Radio. Radio sites have a mix of online, on-air and text competitions so are well worth keeping an eye on. To help you find these listed competitions we’ve now introduced a Radio Competitions section within the listings. To be honest we’re not sure why it’s taken us this long to do. We do need to look at adding daily entry competitions though to make a more complete listing set-up.
Postcard Competitions
Another little, but quite important, tweak to the listings involves postcard and phone-in competitions. The way things were set-up meant that only competitions added to the postcard section or phone/SMS section would appear in their respective listings. However some online competitions like raffles, purchase necessary or magazine competitions also offer postal, phone and SMS entries. But they wouldn’t show up in the right list. We’ve now fixed this so that what’s posted to the database appears in the relevant lists. This should make a more rounded experience for users.
Loquax Prize Draws
Our regular Loquax Prize Draws continue and as ever there are six different giveaways for you to enter! The prizes include Lantern Speaker, Galaxy Dust Rum, £25 WHSmith Giftcard, Prosecco Selection Box, A Bouquet Of Flowers and A Gardener’s Hamper. Don’t forget we now use the Rafflepress plug-in so you can enter using an email login or via Facebook login. Extra entries can be picked up by referring friends or visiting our social media pages. Winners are announced weekly on the prize draws page and on the Forum.