Our Boat Competition is a Guaranteed Draw!
š£ Weāre very excited to announce: our Luxury Boat Competition is now a guaranteed draw!
What does āGuaranteed Drawā 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 wonāt be pushed back and weāll certainly be phoning the lucky winner on the 30th of November letting them know theyāve won a custom-designed Marwood Makes boat! Yipee!
Thank you!
Together, weāve made it happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Itās 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 meansā¦ 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 weāre here celebrating making it happen, it hasnāt all been plain sailing. In truth, itās 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 hourā¦ I laugh now, but at the time it was not a laughable matter!).
Thereās been highs and some lows. Weāll share some of these with you a bit further below. Maybe grab a cuppa!
Why would it NOT have been a Guaranteed Draw?
Letās talk about the elephant in the room. What would happen if we didnāt 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 wasā¦ heās been a true believer that this would absolutely work all throughout, even through the challenging times.
Itās 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 weāll be selling a Ā£180,000 boat for Ā£350,000, pocketing the difference.
In reality, due to the surprisingly high expenses associated with running a competition, itās 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. Weāre very thankful that weāre not in that 70%!
The truth is that weād be over the moon if we simply broke even on this competition (which is looking likely now). Itās more important to us that someone wins one of our beautiful boats!
We genuinely do it for the love of it. š§”
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 thatās advertised. We would never award a lower value prize than what was stated, should we have insufficient ticket sales.
We feel that itās important to us that we make it very clear about our stance on this, so we shall say this once and for all! We donāt believe in offering lower value prizes in the event of low ticket sales. Our prizes are exactly as advertised. And if we donāt sell enough tickets for a competition, weāll cancel it, give you a full refund and weāll try again. Simple!
Weāre not just offering a prize, but a dream and a lifestyle that we love.
What itās taken to get to the Guaranteed Draw!
To reach our dream (and it really is a dream) of offering this guaranteed prize, itās takenā¦
- Not 1, but 2 websites built (the first one didnāt 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 weāre running our competition property
- 1 x Debbie McGee driving one of our van conversions on Channel 5ās Million Pound Motorhomes
- 8 x Blog posts written
- 57 x Facebook Ads (and countingā¦)
- 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 (itās a graphic design packageā¦ which recently gave us a badge for making over 500 graphics, haa!)
- Weāve 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. Itās also given us some great ideas for future mini competition plansā¦ 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
Itās been a tad scary putting ourselves out there into the public domain so widely.
Itās 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 weāve said before, being in front of the camera is new to us. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support whilst weāre putting ourselves out there. Itās helped us to be brave.
Weāve had to grow some thick skin to accept a small minority of people that donāt like what weāre 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 weād be able to cover the costs with the ticket sale proceeds.
In fact, J wanted to put āguaranteed drawā 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 weāve 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 weāll make it work whatever happens.
A Little Request
So, weāre 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 itās 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 ā if youāve made it all the way to the end of this article, you really are a true supporter!
