Subject: Congratulations! You Won!!

[Shpaget]

Instant "Report spam", right? Well...

A few days ago the company I work at had a promotional event and we were giving away some prizes. So after drawing the three winners, I sat down behind a computer to write the three emails to inform the recipients.

I clicked into the email subject box and started typing "Congratulation", but as I had a coworker sitting right next to me, I said it out loud and immediately we both realized that was no good. That got me thinking. How should I write the email so it gets the attention it deserves, but also conveys the message that the recipient of the email has actually won a prize? I ended up just writing our company name in the subject and the rest in the body of the email, but now I can't get a thought out of my head: How many prizes have I actually won and ignored because of the "Congratulations!" in the email subject?

Seed of doubt has been planted.

Any thought on the matter?

[Benjamin Kerman]

Say something about them being part of the event at the start of the email. 

"Hello Bob Smith, 

thank you for being part of our raffle. You blah blah blah...

edit: saw you already sent said email. ^^^ how I would have done it  

Edited May 24, 2017 by Benjamin Kerman

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Instant "Report spam", right? Well...

A few days ago the company I work at had a promotional event and we were giving away some prizes. So after drawing the three winners, I sat down behind a computer to write the three emails to inform the recipients.

I clicked into the email subject box and started typing "Congratulation", but as I had a coworker sitting right next to me, I said it out loud and immediately we both realized that was no good. That got me thinking. How should I write the email so it gets the attention it deserves, but also conveys the message that the recipient of the email has actually won a prize? I ended up just writing our company name in the subject and the rest in the body of the email, but now I can't get a thought out of my head: How many prizes have I actually won and ignored because of the "Congratulations!" in the email subject?

Seed of doubt has been planted.

Any thought on the matter?

Yes, that is a problem. You have no chance reaching me this way because i delete everything i do not know where it's from. Sometimes the mouse hovers over the sender-field but i never get any closer. So it might have been that i already won 100 times, i will never know . Also i never answer any calls for customer surveys or the likes, they only want my data.

Depending on what they've won, if it is something of worth like a journey or a new car, don't use email. Write a neutral postcard.

If it's just a toaster, a voucher, a calender or even a tv, keep it. I'm serious. But that's just me.

:-)

Edited May 24, 2017 by Green Baron

[p1t1o]

I've always wondered, if you went through your life entering every single "FREE PRIZE DRAW!" and scratching every free scratch card, filling in every survey and evetering every competition, lottery or otherwise competetive or probabilistic challange or marketing campaign thaht comes through your door, falls out of your magazine or appears in the back of your local paper. Everything, all of them.

Taking into account how many are scams, how many offer worthless prizes but also taking into account the sheer volume that you are exposed to - could you make a decent living?

Im talking every single £5 off voucher, every single nigerian prince, every competition, every write-in, phone-in, text-in, every pub quiz.

Not buying lottery tickets or other paid gambles.

Its seems a long shot, but you'd only have to hit big a few times, and all of the hundreds of tiny prizes would stack up.

And like you say, you never know how many of these pass you by.

It would only take one member of african royalty to make an ill-advised offer to a stranger to set them up for life...

Theres gotta be one or two mega rich people with questionable sense out there, right?

***

Related anecdote - I did read an article once about a mathematician, who spotted a trend on a particular brand of lottery scratchcard, it was one with a sort of number game on it, and he found out how to predict which ones would win, without scratching them, by examining the numbers involved in the game board.

He also found that you can buy them in bulk, and that the manufacturer would buy back unscratched cards at cost price.

He worked it all up, and found that if he devoted 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, to analysing cards and scratching only winners, and sending the rest back for refund, that he could break about $40k a year.

Not bad for a guaranteed income, though scratching lottery cards full-time would be pretty awful after a while, but he got paid more in his current job.

Before you start wondering, he reported the phenomenon and the scratchcard company fixed them up.

[Shpaget]

53 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Depending on what they've won, if it is something of worth like a journey or a new car, don't use email. Write a neutral postcard.

If it's just a toaster, a voucher, a calender or even a tv, keep it. I'm serious. But that's just me.

:-)

It's a season ticket (valid for one year for one named individual plus three more in his company) to our exhibition/gallery thing. If the winner used it every day (which is certainly allowed, but not really sane) it would be worth almost $3000. Realistically, it won't be used nearly as often, but even if it is used twice a month or so (and we do have paying customers that are that regular) it comes to about $200.

However, keeping it doesn't make much sense, since it is of little value to us. I believe that a marketing value of giving it away is much more profitable than taking the money they would have spent if they had to pay the entrance fee a few times during that year (they most likely would not come twice a month if they had to pay).

[Green Baron]

That is a special one. I would expect that people who are interested will know what it is worth if they see it. So, just send the mails (or postcards) but, since you want to have the people in your gallery, give them like 2 weeks to actually do their first visit and begin the term. Otherwise try the next until all three are actually "active". I am sure interested persons will understand.

If that helps, idk ...

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by Green Baron

[pxi]

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

I've always wondered, if you went through your life entering every single "FREE PRIZE DRAW!" and scratching every free scratch card, filling in every survey and evetering every competition, lottery or otherwise competetive or probabilistic challange or marketing campaign thaht comes through your door, falls out of your magazine or appears in the back of your local paper. Everything, all of them.

Taking into account how many are scams, how many offer worthless prizes but also taking into account the sheer volume that you are exposed to - could you make a decent living?

On a related note to your musings I came across this presentation from Defcon 24 which was pretty interesting and shows what can be done with relatively minimal effort:

 

[kerbiloid]

21 hours ago, Shpaget said:

How should I write the email so it gets the attention it deserves, but also conveys the message that the recipient of the email has actually won a prize?

"We have your kitten"

"When you will take your money back?"

"A single-day action "I'm not a loser!". Send SMS with text "I'm not a loser" to the short code "xxxx". The more times you send, the more you are not a loser."

20 hours ago, Green Baron said:

i delete everything i do not know where it's from

Exorcist?

[Green Baron]

Realist. Never caught something bad until now.

[kerbiloid]

Nice way, I prefer it, too. Alas, HR and others have a bad habit here to call, not to e-mail.