Comping Review of the Year 2017

I can’t believe how fast 2017 has whizzed by– it is already time to review how the year has gone, and review my comping strategy. Firstly, to the trusty prize spreadsheet for a check of the stats:

Prizes won: 108

Total prize value: £2135 + mystery prize 

Average value per prize: £20.33

Most valuable prize: £250

That is slightly up on last year in terms of number and roughly equivalent in terms of value so not bad, seeing how little time I’ve had for comping with juggling the big one, a busy toddler, and a newborn. And I hit my 100 wins target for the year with a win rate of over 2 per week. While quite a lot of the wins were small ones, I find a steady flow of little wins keeps me interested! 

Month by month breakdown: 

• January – 11
• February – 18
• March – 17
• April – 1
• May – 5
• June – 6
• July – 2
• August – 4
• September – 13
• October – 6
• November – 12
• December – 12

There is an obvious lull in the middle, due to having my hands full with my newborn daughter!!

Best comping month: The best month was February with two wishlist prizes ticked off and a whole stack of personalised kitkats.

 

Note: a significant number of the web entry wins were purchase necessary competitions, and others were instant wins; only 6 were straight up web forms. 30% of the Facebook wins were in local competitions. 

Local comps won: 14 (13% of all wins)

Creative comps won: 12 (plus 15 review comps and 2 Facebook live competitions)

Purchase necessary comps won: 26 (mostly small prizes including 10 personalised kitkats, but I did win a year’s supply of Original Source shower gel)

WISHLIST items ticked off:

• Theatre tickets
• Gardeners world live tickets
• NutriBullet/ juicer – I had a massive google mission at the start of the year and actually won both!!
• Restaurant voucher – two lots!
• Festive Gift Fayre tickets
• Hamper – a tower of treats!

BEST PRIZES:

1. £250 worth of K’Nex
2. Nutribullet
3. £100 zizzi voucher
4. Juicer
5. Theatre tickets

Favourite Promotion: 

Personalised Kitkats! They may have been small in value, but they were just so much fun as a prize and with so many being given away, I managed to win 10 out of 11 entries! The kids were so excited to have Kitkats with their pictures on and I the rest made cute little gifts. 

The Ones That Got Away!

I tried really hard to win the two things in the top of my wish list (including tweeting three daily selfies for Walkers Snap and Share and dancing like a flamingo in the #flamingoroam competition!), but a family holiday and a PS4 both eluded me! No matter how many you enter, or how hard you try, you can’t win them all. I gave in and bought a PS4 for Christmas (although I did manage to use a £50 Amazon voucher that I won to make it more affordable, and nectar points I won to buy the games) but a family holiday will be top of my wishlist again for next year. Maybe 2018 will be my year?

COMPING RESOLUTIONS 2017

Did I stick to them? Well, pretty much – I am always more successful with my comping resolutions than my regular ones!!

1. To master Tweetdeck – ✔️ I have finally got the hang of this thanks to a great video tutorial on Glam & Geeky Mum. I’ve given up trying to do it on the laptop as it is just too slow, but I’ve got it working on the iPad and it’s already proving to be a really useful tool.

2. To do Google searches for wishlist items regularly. ✔️ I saved google searches for each item on my wish list as bookmarks which worked well and saved time. I did manage to keep up weekly searches until about mid October when things just started getting a bit too busy. Still not too bad. I have also been regularly searching twitter/the prizefinder for wish list items. I need to do some work on my search terms next.

3. To familiarise myself with MSE comp forum & learn how to find things on it!! I still haven’t done this- I need a clear few hours to really get stuck in (or a handy guide- please do put in the comments if you know of one!)

4. To win a date night treat for each month: Jan ✔️(cocktail masterclass) Feb ✔️✔️(hotel break + zizzi meal) Mar ✔️ (theatre tickets). We have also won cinema tickets and a meal for two, which we have yet to take.
Not too bad considering what a busy year it’s been with a new baby and a toddler in tow!!

The Best Things About Being A Comper in 2017: 

• Spreading the love – I’ve been able to gift my mum a fab juicer, pass on event tickets to friends and I’ve won 2 hampers of yummy goodies for my colleagues. I’ve also won £250 worth of K’Nex for my school which the kids are going to love!
• Easing the cost of Xmas – I won some books and stocking fillers and I was able to buy quite a few of my kid’s Christmas presents either with Nectar points I won from Sainsbury’s Swipe and Win promotion or with Amazon & Love2Shop vouchers I won. This really helped as money is a bit tight at the moment while I’m on maternity leave.
• Using my comping experience to run my own giveaways on the blog. I’ve run two now and really enjoyed doing them!

Look out for my 2018 Comping Resolutions and my 2018 wish list coming soon!!