Reader contests?

Hi all, just putting a feeler out there to see if others are still able to run 'reader-based' contests?

I grew up with them both in our major state paper and in our local community paper and always took part. I remember clipping out my football picks and riding my bike to the downtown office near the city park to drop of entries for my dad and I.

I've worked to bring those opportunities to the community paper that I work for. It seems the ad department has struggled to sell them in recent years, but we power on and offer whatever meager prizes we can muster.

I run a 'Just for fun' NFL Fantasy Football League (just had the draft tonight), and we do a college/NFL football pick'em in the fall, too. (I've opted to not include high school picks years ago...lol).

We also run a popular March Madness bracket contest each March.

These have all gone to online-exclusive formats in recent years.

 

We run a football picks contest every year. Still get incredibly high participation. Ad department loves it --- it's an easy sell because the interest is so widespread and strong. I'd encourage any paper without one to start one. I started one when I was at a small daily 28 years ago. It kicked ass and the publisher and advertising people loved me. It still runs today.

 

Have a contest to be a volunteer copy editor for a day. But you'll have to tell the English teachers it's triage, not surgery.

 

That's the crazy part...I thought these would be easy sells too, but our ad department says it's a struggle.

 

Frederick says the ad departments hires incompetent folks so this shouldn't be a surprise

 

This seems like a way to overwhelm anyone who thinks they can copy edit the paper correctly. However, if a reader does a better job than the copy editors on staff, hire him or her.