📣 We’re very excited to announce: our Luxury Boat Competition is now a guaranteed draw!
What does “Guaranteed Draw” mean?
It means the live draw will absolutely be taking place on 30th November, irrespective of how many tickets we sell between now and then.
The draw date won’t be pushed back and we’ll certainly be phoning the lucky winner on the 30th of November letting them know they’ve won a custom-designed Marwood Makes boat! Yipee!
Thank you!
Together, we’ve made it happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
It’s been a whirlwind challenge to get to this position, and to be able to write this announcement brings us a great deal of joy. It really, really does. It means… a lot.
As far as we know, this is the first ever successful competition where someone will be winning their very own widebeam (or narrow) boat. It feels like quite a big deal.
Although we’re here celebrating making it happen, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. In truth, it’s been a bit scary at times.
There have been many firsts for us. First time running a competition. First time in front of a camera. First time having a website made. First time fathoming out MailChimp. First time getting banned from Facebook (for the total of one hour… I laugh now, but at the time it was not a laughable matter!).
There’s been highs and some lows. We’ll share some of these with you a bit further below. Maybe grab a cuppa!
Why would it NOT have been a Guaranteed Draw?
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. What would happen if we didn’t sell enough tickets to cover the cost of the boat build?
Our policy, as stated on the website since we launched our competition, is to provide a full refund to entrants should we have to cancel the competition because of insufficient ticket sales.
We feel this would be the fairest way to handle the situation in the event of low ticket sales. It also meets our personal values and, very importantly, legal requirements!
Having this policy did however mean we faced a big financial risk to ourselves, but we were happy to take that on. Well, J was… he’s been a true believer that this would absolutely work all throughout, even through the challenging times.
It’s a very common misconception that running competitions is somehow an easy way to make buckets of dosh. People do some quick maths and assume (incorrectly) that we’ll be selling a £180,000 boat for £350,000, pocketing the difference.
In reality, due to the surprisingly high expenses associated with running a competition, it’s much easier to LOSE tens of thousands of pounds on a single competition than it is to make that amount, hence why over 70% of new competition companies go bust within the first 6 months. We’re very thankful that we’re not in that 70%!
The truth is that we’d be over the moon if we simply broke even on this competition (which is looking likely now). It’s more important to us that someone wins one of our beautiful boats!
We genuinely do it for the love of it. 🧡
Would we ever offer a lower value prize, or lower cash alternative, should we not sell enough tickets?
Our policy is to only award the prize that’s advertised. We would never award a lower value prize than what was stated, should we have insufficient ticket sales.
We feel that it’s important to us that we make it very clear about our stance on this, so we shall say this once and for all! We don’t believe in offering lower value prizes in the event of low ticket sales. Our prizes are exactly as advertised. And if we don’t sell enough tickets for a competition, we’ll cancel it, give you a full refund and we’ll try again. Simple!
We’re not just offering a prize, but a dream and a lifestyle that we love.
What it’s taken to get to the Guaranteed Draw!
To reach our dream (and it really is a dream) of offering this guaranteed prize, it’s taken…
- Not 1, but 2 websites built (the first one didn’t cut the mustard so we had to start again from scratch)
- 2 x Very lovely boaty friends who made our current website and help us with marketing
- 1 x Solicitor review of our whole website and Terms & Conditions to make sure we’re running our competition property
- 1 x Debbie McGee driving one of our van conversions on Channel 5’s Million Pound Motorhomes
- 8 x Blog posts written
- 57 x Facebook Ads (and counting…)
- 1 x YouTube Vlog (thanks to Widebeam & Wellingtons for this)
- 1 x Mini-live draw for an epic 3-day Campervan Adventure Giveaway
- 2 x Newspaper features (thanks to Waterways World & Bath Life)
- 530 x Canva Projects (it’s a graphic design package… which recently gave us a badge for making over 500 graphics, haa!)
- We’ve lost count of how many thousands of emails
- Lots of ongoing social posts & stories
- Many, many hours from our little team of four
- Countless team WhatsApp messages, excited phone calls and weekly Zoom meetings
The Highs
We loved holding our first ever prize draw, for the campervan adventure giveaway weekend.
Our prize winner, Helen, is actually having her campervan adventure this very weekend. It feels great to give away that experience that we love so much ourselves. It’s also given us some great ideas for future mini competition plans… more on that to come.
Reading excited comments from entrants about how the boat would change their lives has been a massive high.
Also reading positive messages on Instagram chatting about boat life and light & bright interiors have been super fun.
We love connecting with people who are as bonkers about boats as we are, and we love working together to create this prize.
The Challenges
It’s been a tad scary putting ourselves out there into the public domain so widely.
It’s an odd feeling, both wanting as many people to know about our competition as possible and also feeling a bit shy about seeing our photos on advertisements! As we’ve said before, being in front of the camera is new to us. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support whilst we’re putting ourselves out there. It’s helped us to be brave.
We’ve had to grow some thick skin to accept a small minority of people that don’t like what we’re doing. And to accept some quite abrasive comments in some instances. But on the whole 99% of you love what we do and understand why we do it, and that makes it all worthwhile!
The Financials
The guaranteed draw has always been in our hearts, ever since the day we launched this competition. Even when we were not sure we’d be able to cover the costs with the ticket sale proceeds.
In fact, J wanted to put ‘guaranteed draw’ on the website from day 1! But our little team had to reign him in and remind him about the big financial risk to us. Lol!
Although we’ve now sold enough tickets to cover the cost of the boat shell & materials, we still have a way to go to cover the costs for our time to build it, and our time to run the competition. But we have some days to do that before the competition closes, and we’ll make it work whatever happens.
A Little Request
So, we’re still asking for your help so we can get to a sell out. What a story that would be for our first ever competition! It would certainly help us make our competitions sustainable so we can continue to run them.
Please share our competition with your nearest and dearest, safe in the confidence it’s now a guaranteed draw, to get the word out about our sweet prize and give them the chance to win too!
Thank you as always for your support!
See you online for the Live Draw on Instagram & Facebook. 9pm on 30th November 2023
With love & luck,
Mollie & Jason x
P.S – if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this article, you really are a true supporter!
Enter the PRIZE DRAW
WIN: a luxury boat worth £180,000
LAST ENTRY: 30 Nov 2023 @ 10am
LIVE DRAW: 30 Nov 2023 @ 9pm
Only 0 tickets remaining!
📣 UPDATE (16th Nov) 📣
The boat competition is now a
GUARANTEED DRAW
regardless of ticket sales!
You could WIN a brand new widebeam boat!
Here’s a quick reminder about our exciting “Win a Boat” competition! We’re offering the chance for you to win a brand new, custom-designed stunning widebeam boat of your very own, worth £180,000!
If you’re up for a new adventure, check out the competition to see the amazing life-changing prize!
