Free Postcode Lottery is an anonymous daily cash prize draw funded by advertising revenue.
It may seem obvious to many of you, but I still get bemused, suspicious, and often accusative emails and comments. Here’s a couple of examples from user’s who have been asked for feedback when they have quit:
“your money demand to play lottery is too high.”
“getting lots of bogus phone calls so cancelling all subscriptions.”
“Never won any prize from you .. I believe this is a hoax. Nice trick to cheat people.”
“Selling my name on to spammers, that offer no chance of quitting. I could go on and on. Don’t bother me again.”
Free lunch?
It works in the same way that commercial (non-BBC) TV works. When you intentionally watch Coronation Street (for free), you will unintentionally watch the adverts that pay for the production (and the actors’ interesting lifestyles). When you turn up at FPL to check the daily winning postcode, you are exposed to the adverts on the site which generate the revenue that is given away. The more money we give away, the more traffic turns up to win it. It’s a self-sustaining virtuous circle. The bigger the site gets, the more it can afford to give away.
What is Free Postcode Lottery not?
Firstly, we’re not in any way associated with the another similarly named company who advertise on TV. They charge for entry but give away much bigger prizes. Their approach to marketing differs in a way that may explain 1 or 2 of the comments above.
Websites that give something away for free usually make money by concealing tricks in their Terms & Conditions. Typically, they get your permission to sell details onto their “trusted partners”. Let’s be honest, who actually reads the Terms & Conditions fully when they join a website? And who wants their contact details passed around regardless of how “trusted” the partners are.
Why doesn’t FPL sell your details? Firstly, and most importantly, it’s not a nice thing to do, and I don’t think people will put up with it for much longer. If I wanted to make money by deceiving people there are much more lucrative ways of going about it. Secondly, the ad revenue is enough to cover the costs of the prize money (and a bit more…). The site has had only 2% of postcodes entered so far. If we get 10% we can (all else remaining equal) afford to give away 5 times more (£100 per day!). The biggest obstacle on the way is gaining and maintaining the users’ trust. If I start burying gotchas it the T’s &s C’s then it will never grow.
Anonymous
This is why I only require your postcode (to go into the draws) and your email (to identify you). This is not enough to sell on, and it is certainly not enough to contact you on the phone! I don’t even ask for your name. Effectively, the site is anonymous.