How to win at competitions

Competitions are amazing for giving opportunities you could only dream of experiencing. Whether it's sunning yourself in the Caribbean or meeting your favourite celebrity anything is possible in the world of what competition hobbyists fondly call comping. This article will give you some great tips on how to win at competitions.

Entering competitions has been a fond hobby of mine since 2008 when I got jealous of all the prizes my brother was winning. I didn't win much at first and my first prize was a cookbook. However I persevered and my comping hobby certainly paid off. I can't list everything but here's a few of the larger prizes I have won:

• Fly Cadburys trip to Berlin with hotel stay, Segway tour, dinner at the Sky Kitchen Michelin restaurant and £500 spending money.  There was also all the chocolate we could eat! Read my full review of our Cadburys trip here

• Trip to Belfast with a tour
• Trip to Paris for the Tour de France staying at a Radisson hotel on the Champs Elysees.
• Makeover with Remington
• iPad
• iPad 2
• iPhone 4s

So now I have whetted your appetite lets get onto the tips!

Enter as many competitions as you can
This one is pretty obvious. The more you enter the higher chance you have of winning a prize. Make sure you do only enter for what you want to win though or when you do win it won't be as exciting as you think.

Go for smaller prizes
Whilst that holiday to Australia is amazing and I highly recommend you enter it, your chances of winning are quite slim. With any high value prize whilst everyone has the chance to win it's just not as likely as a smaller prize. Smaller competitions are still good and offer useful prizes for you and your family. Also opt for competitions where there's more than one prize like 100 sets of makeup for example.

Get creative
People love to enter things that are simple as they're quick and easy. If you want to up your chances of winning get creative! There are many creative competitions that can involve submitting photos, coming up with a witty slogan, making a video or drawing or writing a story. They do require more effort then normal but if you have a certain skill you can draw on it to win some prizes!

Make your entry stand out
Whilst you can't make every entry stand out, for example a prize draw competition, when you have the chance it's worth trying to maximise your chances. If you're sending a postcard off to enter a competition and you're sure it's not a automatic processed entry (you can tell by the address) use colourful postcards with pictures on to increase your chances of being picked.

The art of entering competitions is ultimately to be patient. If you enter a lot and don't win you can get disheartened and give up. Believe me I've been there. All it takes though is that one amazing win and you're right back on cloud 9. Head to The Prizefinder to get started. What has been your most amazing win to date?