Sweepstakes and Contests

Online paid survey companies all have their own reward schemes. Some may offer you a range of ways to be reimbursed for your time while others may only have one option. However, increasingly companies are starting to offer sweepstakes. Some companies will offer this as a primary compensation method, while for others it will be a bonus payment incentive.

So what exactly is a sweepstake? A sweepstake is a marketing tool which can be applied in any industry/ market. It aims to generate enthusiasm and provide an incentive amongst customers by entering them into a draw where the winner is decided by luck. When referenced to paid survey companies, a consumer is entered into a sweepstake on completion of a survey.

So is there any point in entering this kind of competition? Well this depends on the individuals’ circumstances. Firstly, you must make a personal decision and decide if you actually have the time to do it. If you completed your surveys and have no other surveys to do, then why not enter into it. At the end of the day, you can only win if you participate and someone in the competition will win. Usually, these sweepstake competitions consume very little time which is why they offer the sweepstake as an incentive in the first place. So you may be able to complete several of these in the time it takes to complete a normal survey.

Also, some survey companies monitor the sweepstakes that people take. It has been said that if you take them, it increases your chances of getting focus groups and telephone surveys. These offer a significant higher amount of money and so you should do what you can to improve these odds. This same principle applies for lower paying surveys, as they are sometimes used as a filtering process for much higher paid surveys where they anticipate that some people will lie about their demographic.

Finally check the details of the sweepstake competition. Each market research company operates differently and their competitions will consequently be different. Quarterly and annual sweepstakes will normally have a large amount of participants because the reward is usually high. Whereas, monthly sweepstakes have a much smaller incentive but have a much lower number of entrants. Therefore, there is a much higher chance of winning a monthly sweepstake and so is probably much more worth your while.

There are a lot of potential bonuses to be won in these sweepstake competitions but it is best advised to be selective in order to maximise your efforts into converting dollars.