How do sponsors choose a winner when you can enter both online and via mail-in methods?

There are many different ways that sponsors can choose a winner when the entries come in through different sources. The response we received from our survey showed that most agencies consider it their "trade secret," although a few sponsors did tell us how they choose their winners.

One agency chooses a predetermined number of different entries (for example 25) from the online entries and puts them into a separate online folder, then they choose the same number of mail-in ones, and people there key the information to be in the same format as the online ones. They then put those messages into the same folder (so that they are all individual text files or messages or something) and then randomly choose from those.

Marden-Kane says that they make ALL of the entries similar before they choose anything, so that ALL of them are similar before the drawing. I think they are using a scanning device and scanning the return addresses from the envelopes, or assigning each entry a unique number and choosing from there.

Most responses stated that the final choosing was done in a computerized manner, which indicates they are combining the information from your mail-in entries with the online entries in some way. Only one instance showed us that they "picked an entry from a hat" so to speak. That sponsor picks a winner from the online entries by gathering all of the entries into one mail message folder, and then randomly choosing a message. He then does the same thing from the mail-in entries. Then, someone writes the information from the online entry and the mail-in entry onto different pieces of paper, and they choose from those.