How Do I Select Winners for My Promotions?

One of the most exciting parts of every promotion is when winners are selected and contacted! Depending on the type of promotion you ran, a sweepstakes or a contest, your winners will likely be selected by one of two primary methods:

• Random Winner Selection
• Via Judging and/or Voting

Random Winner Selection

Most often applied to selecting winners for sweepstakes (games of chance), random winner selection is the process of selecting winners at random, from the total pool of eligible entrants for each prize for your promotion. When selecting winners at random, it is important to make sure that all entry requirements and limits that were listed within the official rules are followed to ensure fairness across all valid entries.

Many companies choose to have a third-party sweepstakes administrator, such as Realtime Media, conduct their winner drawing to help ensure impartiality and fairness. When conducting drawings, we take several measures to ensure proper verification, including anti-fraud measures and confirm that entrants have agreed to the terms of your official rules and prize acceptance.

Judging and/or Voting

Most often applied to selecting winners for contests (games of skill), judging (and voting) is the process of selecting a winner based on the quality of their entry. When putting together the rules for your contest, it is important to clearly and thoroughly outline the criteria by which entries will be judged or voted on. Once judging and/or voting is completed, the highest ranked/best entry is selected as the winner.

To learn more about judging and voting and how Realtime Media can help, check out our FAQ page on Judging and Voting services!

What Happens After Winners are Selected?

Once selected, many companies choose to notify winners that they have won. If any information needs to be collected from winners or if redemption steps need to be completed before prizes are awarded, that occurs at this phase of the post-promotion workflow. Realtime Media can help with this, too.