In what has quite possibly been the fastest giveaway prize fulfillment period in ToolGuyd history, we selected winners and have already ordered or sent out the prizes.
Thank you to everyone for your entries, and congratulations to the winners!
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Also, I changed our giveaway policy slightly. I sent the giveaway prizes to the email addresses tied to the entries. This was done for expediency, and to ensure that the winners could take advantage of the current Labor Day deals if they choose.
Milwaukee M12 Cordless Power Tool Bundle
Winner: Mike
Bonus Gift Cards
Winners:
I know I said 1 winner and then 1 more for every 150 entries, but I decided to choose one additional winner.
Milwaukee Wrench Set Bundle
Winner: Pete O
(Pete, I placed the order and you should receive your new wrenches in about a week.)
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Bosch Laser Giveaway Package
Winner: Dan S
This giveaway got way away from me. I had planned on following it up with an “awesome everyday tool favorites” giveaway, with the intention of sending everything for both giveaways out at the same time. The end-of-year and New Year rushes slowed down the process of picking up tools for that follow-up giveaway, and then the COVID-19 pandemic had me shelve the idea temporarily.
Dan – I’ll be reaching out via email to ensure your address is still valid. Sorry for the delay!
That follow-up giveaway will still take place, hopefully next month.
Future Giveaway Ideas?
I’m all ears!
Adam
Congrats!
Jim Felt
Stuart.
Good job well done. Very nice indeed.
Popgun42
Congrats to all winners…
Koko The Talking Ape
Thank you Stuart! I know everybody says it, but I REALLY don’t ever win anything!
Frank D
Thank you for doing the various giveaways.
Jon
The little kid in me says, “aw shucks! I wanted to win!”, but I struggle past that to say Thanks for ToolGuyd Stuart – great articles, reviews and giveaways, and congrats to Mike, Koko, Tom and Alex. Yours is one of a very tiny number of blogs / sites that I look forward to seeing in my inbox on a regular basis.
(Oh…and if you’re giving away a 36v Makita xcu03 or xcu04 chainsaw sometime soon keep me in mind!)
Pastor Dan
Congrats to the winners, and thanks to Stuart and his sponsorship partners!
Joatman
Congrats to all the winners! Thanks for the chance!
Will
Thanks for the giveaway, congrats to the winners!
A W
Thanks so much Stuart! Congrats to all the winners.
Joe
Thanks for having a giveaway that didn’t require registering or email spam.
Congratulations to the winners. I’m going to celebrate by having another beer.
Pete O.
Amazing, thanks so much! I also never win anything. I’m very grateful.
Plain grainy
Nice! I’m happy for all of the winners! Enjoy!
Josh Anderson
Congrats to the winners!!
Now comes the decision, do I have it in my tool budget to buy that rocket light deal…or does it need to wait…?
Mike
I was literally reading a post about dust collection when the email came through about the prize. Great site with people and posts to help make new purchases and see things I would normally not think about trying or using. Friendly too especially for new people trying to get their feet wet, great community.
Boomhauer
Congrats to all the winners!
MichaelHammer
Well done! And thanks for posting the winners. It’s nice to see my fellow followers of Toolguyd win some sweet prizes. Thanks again Stuart for all your hard work on a fun and informative site. So glad I found you!
Clay
Thanks for doing this!
Nathan
Thanks for doing it. As far as another giveaway – who knows I guess it depends on the deals that come up next.
Perhaps you’ll get some promotional stuff from Lowes or Ace hardware etc.
schill
Congratulations. And for those of us that did not win, the wrench sets are down to $95 at Home Depot.
Eric H
Thank you Stuart! I’ll put the gift card to good use!
Jerry
Congrats to the winners
Tom Jensen
Thanks so much. Was nice to look at my email after the long weekend and see I was a bonus winner! Really appreciate it!!!
James R.
I’d love to see “blind” giveaways. While I don’t post super often, I do frequent the website and share when I have something to input.
I’ve noticed these giveaways have hundreds of posts with people coming out of the walls just to try to snatch something for free.
Would be awesome to see some of the frequent fliers be rewarded for their loyalty.
Stuart
We do unpublicized and special give-backs every now and then, but due to their nature, you’ll rarely hear about them.
In regard to who enters giveaways, a lot of readers are content to read and not contribute, and that’s perfectly okay. I read a lot of sites without chiming in, and I browse different forums and reddit boards as well, rarely if ever actively contributing.
Commentors and passive readers are all appreciated.
I don’t like “you must comment x-number of times in the next y-number of days/weeks” giveaway entry requirements, as it increases qualification-checking work on my end, and also leads to a high number of inorganic comments spread around the site that are only submitted for giveaway purposes.
James R.
Those are all valid points, thank you for sharing your view.
I’ve also seen your contests listed on “giveaway” lists and such sites. Those are attracting people who aren’t loyal to the site, and are just swinging in to snag something for free, which just doesn’t seem very exciting for those folks to win.
This is also very obvious when you have qualifications for your contests like “Tell me about a home project that kicked your butt” or “What would you do with this tool?” or “Don’t post after XXX date.” And you’ll just see “ID LOVE TO WIN OMG” in the comments for days after the contest closes.
Very candidly, I’ve stopped entering the giveaways, just based on the sheer number of applicants. When your normal articles have 20-50 comments and then a giveaway breaks 600+, it’s disappointing to be competing with people that aren’t here for the site’s content, and only for the opportunity to get a free thing.
Stuart
Looking at analytics, >82% of hits to the wrench giveaway page were from returning readers. The rest, if they are all new visitors, seem to have come in via Google News or ToolGuyd’s social media posts.
It’s similar for the M12 giveaway – 86% of visits to the page were from returning readers. I don’t see any “giveaway sites” in the top referral sources/mediums either.
Please keep in mind that, similar to any group setting (a class, tour, media presentation), it will be rare for everyone to speak up with a question, comment, or opinion.
Let’s say that that 100 people visit ToolGuyd on a specific day. 5 people might comment every day, 10 people might comment frequently, 5 people might comment occasionally, and then when we have a giveaway we might see 20 people comment. These numbers are purely hypothetical.
I can usually see when non-regulars are entering giveaways, and that didn’t seem to be the case here.
Also consider that someone coming in through say a Google News link, because Google picked up on their interest in the giveaway tool topic, that entrance might be the start of years of ToolGuyd readership.
Entry requirements could be simpler – I could just say “put your name in the box for a chance to win.” Part of the reason is as you mentioned, but it’s also a way for me to learn about different users’ preferences, tendencies, and backgrounds.
I have referenced past giveways when it comes time to move collections of older samples that I can’t justify giveaways for due to complexity or interest.
The difficulty with regular reader or frequent commentor-only give-backs is that it’s very difficult to sort our (1) who are the regulars, and (2) what might they want or need?
With these giveways, we were wrapping up a Home Depot sponsorship, and so it was logical to focus the ToolGuyd-funded giveaways around Home Depot deals and gift cards. But as you might have seen, gift card giveaways are rarer here than product giveaways, and with product giveaways it can be hard to match what I have or am willing to buy with readers who are eager to win it.
I have considered mystery box-types of giveaways, where regulars might win a box of misc. tool review samples, but it gets tricky (and pricey) with things like cordless power tools, which is why I have avoided mystery box sample giveaways in the past. Giveaway requirements might be along the lines of “you must have commented at least 10 times not including giveaway entries”, but then what about the everyday readers who check out every most but choose not to comment?
There’s no easy answer to the “how do we give back to ToolGuyd readers” question.
Also consider motivations. Encouraging new visits (via Google News or from social media followers) and for less frequent commentors to actively participate is a good thing.
That’s why I treat giveaways and give-backs or giftaways differently.
I hope you can see that I’m not arguing about special give-backs for regulars, because that is something I have done and am willing to do in the future. What I’m saying is that just because the number of people entering a giveaway is much higher than the number of people you might see commenting on a regular basis, that doesn’t mean those giveaway entrants are not also regular and long-time returning readers.
I have a few ideas that I’ve backburnered over the years due to time constraints. Packaging, verifying addresses, labeling, and shipping giveaway prizes seems simple, but can be complex, time-consuming, and it can take up a lot of room.
I am also of course open to new ideas.