All over the blogsphere and the internet sweepstakes world in general, I’m seeing contest deadlines being extended.
I’ve been tempted on occasion, to do this myself. Sometimes you only get a few entries for a contest you think should be widely popular, so you consider extending the deadline to get more entries and allow more people to have the chance to win great prizes, (along with boosting your traffic!)
While it seems fair to give more people a chance to win, is it really fair to those who have already entered, and done so by the deadline you first assigned?
The ammount of winners has already been decided. Unless the number of entrants for your sweepstakes or giveaway is less than the number of prizes, I don’t think extending the deadline is fair. If someone worked hard to get in on time, they deserve the higher chance of winning that comes with a limited time/and list of entrants. When you extend a dealine and let in more contestants, the original entrant’s chances of winning decreases.
This post is not aimed at any one in particular, it’s just something that bugs me, personally, and that I wanted to open up for discussion.
What are your reasons for extending (or not) a contest deadline? How do you feel as the entrant, when a deadline is extended, allowing the pool of entries to grow, which in turn lessens your chance of winning?
The first contest I had was bad. There were 7 entrants, and I had 3 winners so I really considered extending the deadline. However, I think that if you consider your blog your personal business, and I am trying to, then it is not a good idea.
I expect businesses to have consistency and fairness in their business practices, and if I were promised something within a specified time frame I would expect that business to follow through. It doesn’t set the tone for a blog who cares about readers to change the details just to get more traffic. I can understand doing it, especially if you’re like me and have very low traffic and need more. Nevertheless, you should keep promises you make. The next giveaway I did, I made sure to have a much longer entry period so that I could promote it more widely and get more traffic. There were more than 6 times the entrants as the first giveaway. That still isnt’ much, but it was better than before, and I’m glad I held my stance.
The first contest I had was bad. There were 7 entrants, and I had 3 winners so I really considered extending the deadline. However, I think that if you consider your blog your personal business, and I am trying to, then it is not a good idea.
I expect businesses to have consistency and fairness in their business practices, and if I were promised something within a specified time frame I would expect that business to follow through. It doesn’t set the tone for a blog who cares about readers to change the details just to get more traffic. I can understand doing it, especially if you’re like me and have very low traffic and need more. Nevertheless, you should keep promises you make. The next giveaway I did, I made sure to have a much longer entry period so that I could promote it more widely and get more traffic. There were more than 6 times the entrants as the first giveaway. That still isnt’ much, but it was better than before, and I’m glad I held my stance.
I would tend to say that once you make a promise, then keep to it. The rules have been set. Don;t change the ball park. Extending the contest deadline merely makes your contest unreliable and you loose credibility.
If you have entrants, then the competition is on. IF you have less entrants than prizes, just give out less prizes.
I have competitions where no-one entered. So just did not give away prizes. Extending the deadline shows desperation. In that case, might as well just draw names out of a hat and give away prizes.
I agree. It really bugs me when I see bloggers extending entry deadlines for anything other than technical reasons.