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Where Do I Get Entry Forms?
'Specific Stores' promotions.
Many firms, particularly those with stores nationwide, tempt extra custom by means of regular promotions, the magnet usually comprising very handsome prizes indeed. Primary amongst these firms are: Tesco, Safeway, Sainsbury's, The Co-op, along with major chemists Boots and perennial 'super store' Woolworths.
Often competitions will be in respect of products available only from the store concerned, in which case the company might take the step of incorporating competition details onto the product packaging itself, ensuring of course that labels from pre-promotion products can not be used be validate entry.
Here a golden rule of the successful competitor is to immediately acquire all of the qualifiers needed for the number of entries it has decided to make. It is not unknown for special packs to disappear from the shelves within weeks; that person who has completed the competition task, produced a brilliant tie breaker, but who nevertheless can not obtain the further proofs of purchase he or she requires has effectively wasted time, money and perhaps an excellent chance to make it to the winners list. Be warned!
At other times forms are provided, often where the product concerned is available from several other sources. Usually such forms will be located near to the product display itself or else close to the store's check-out.
National Promotions:
In this case forms are available from a great many sources: from shops, suppliers, sometimes on product packaging, newspapers, often via direct mail or upon application to the company itself. The item required to permit entry to the competition can be purchased from whatever source one chooses. No till receipts are usually required either, greatly increasing the chances of using up at least a few labels hoarded in pre-promotion days.
Product Packaging:
As already considered, here the label or entry form details, are incorporated into the product label or packaging, ensuring that a purchase must be made to validate entry. Make appropriate purchases as soon as you are able if that earlier warning of wasted time, money and effort is not to rear its ugly head.
From Specialist Suppliers:
As is the case for a great many of the more popular hobbies and pastimes, a number of specialist services are available by which to ease the burden of obtaining necessary supplies, in this case of the often elusive entry form.
For a fee, and usually a low one at that, specialist entry form suppliers will scour shops, magazines and newspapers, many of them travelling the entire length of the country in the process, the intention being to offer a regular (usually monthly) supply to eager customers for whom a great deal of time, legwork and frustration has been eliminated.
From Contacts:
One of the very best things about competitions is the friends one acquires in the process, many of them fellow embers of the many clubs organised up and down the country. Sometimes strong friendships are formed with people who though they might never meet, will continue a friendship by correspondence often extending over several years.
Such contacts along with friends, relatives and colleagues should be alerted to your need for entry forms, with either little reward and incentives being given to those who don't share your hobby, and a swap-shop system being involved with fellow competitors.
Other Sources:
Ten years of so ago, it was usual to find the majority of major promotions being advertised in the national and local press, with the appropriate entry form appearing alongside. Not so today however, and it is comparatively rare for competitions to be promoted in this way, unless the competition is in itself organised by the newspaper or magazine concerned. Almost all publications run a competition of some sort, some regularly, others perhaps offering prizes in the pre-run to Christmas or holiday season, when local firms might be keen to offer prizes for the opportunity of a little extra prime-time advertising.
Usually promotions in magazines and newspapers involve a great degree of luck for any degree of regular success, since usually they take the form of a draw with no tie breaker usually being required of the entrant. Given that whatever task is required of the entrant is usually one which will result in an almost certain 100% success rate, it is not unknown for many thousands of entries to reach the final selection of winners stage.
Sometimes forms are provided as part of a basic solutionist service, sometimes they are printed in 'Competitors Journal', and for many a competition addict the answer of availing themselves of a particularly elusive entry form is a simple matter of writing to the Public Relations Department of the company sponsoring the competition.