Promotion Mistakes

[MrGlassHere]

So we offered a "win X free" contest on social media and the website. "X" has a MSRP of $250 and is advertised by a major company (our supplier) who spends millions/year in advertising and you see their ads everywhere in this niche area. Around 200 people signed up for the contest. I picked two winners. The first person picked never responded to email. The second person basically said he was excited & thanks. We shipped the product 3k miles to him but then he went 100% silent after the product was delivered. Will not give us any plug or say anything about him.  So now who would even believe that the contest was real? I'm not very interested in blowing more money on sending out prizes.  The other "nice" thing is several of the people who gave their email address to enter the contest marked our mail to them as spam so now when I mail other people it goes into their spam folder. 

One idea I have is to only do local prize giveaways but I don't think I can/should force people to reveal their identity if they aren't into that so they could still decide to vanish. And no, this product isn't anything illegal or "adult".

Any suggestions are welcome.

[heddykhalifa]

Hey MrGlassHere,

Heddy from Gameball: Loyalty Program & VIP here!

I understand your frustration with contest participants going silent and the challenges that come with giveaways. One idea is to incentivize participants to engage after winning by offering a small reward or loyalty points, which you can manage through Gameball. You could require some light social interaction, like sharing their prize on social media or giving a review, in exchange for extra points. This way, you can encourage engagement without forcing identity reveals. For the email issue, segmenting your contest emails could help avoid the spam label.

Let me know if you'd like more advice!