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Raffle Tickets 4U

Part 7: Promoting Your Event

 promote your event part 7

Raffles are often held as part of a bigger event, such as a summer fair, Christmas party or themed event night. To increase your chances of selling more tickets, you need to make sure the highest possible number of people attend.

Your existing supporters must know about your event. But you also need to inform potential new supporters and encourage them to join in on your fundraising.

Promoting your raffle fundraising event effectively is the key to spreading the word throughout your community. Don’t think about promoting your event as marketing and sales. Instead, think about it as communicating your message and getting people engaged with what you’re trying to achieve.

The methods you choose to promote your event will heavily depend on your budget and timescale. That’s why we’ve included a variety of options for every possibility in this next part of our guide to running a successful raffle.

Combining various promotional options will give you the best chance of success. So take a look at our top raffle promotion ideas and see which works best for you and your organisation.

How to Promote a Charity Fundraising Raffle

Printed Material

Promoting an event using charity raffle posters & flyers is a tried-and-tested method of spreading the word. You can easily include all your key information on a printed flyer and poster to make sure everyone who sees it is aware of your raffle (and wants to join).

Top Tips for Promoting Your Raffle with Printed Media

Great graphics will help you stand out from the crowd and grab your reader’s attention. So make sure your raffle posters are eye-catching and full of impactful images.

You can easily reach a large audience if your posters & flyers are distributed in the correct areas. Think about places that your existing supporters and potential raffle players will be. Ask yourself:

  • Where are the busiest areas in your office or school?
  • Do you have a communal area?
  • Do you have the budget to spread printed media across your town?

 

Designing and printing flyers and posters could be costly. But there are plenty of ways to improvise and save your budget.

Get creative and ask your colleagues, pupils or volunteers to make the designs for you. Not only will they be free, but they’ll also be completely unique! And if you ask your local print shop, you may even be lucky enough to receive free printed credit as a gesture of support for your charity.

Printed media has always been an effective way to advertise an event. No matter the size or scale of the event, it’s an affordable and impactful promotional strategy.

Word of Mouth

Simply telling everyone you meet about your upcoming charity raffle is the cheapest, easiest and possibly most effective way of making sure everyone knows about your event.

When people are passionate about a cause, they tend to talk about upcoming events or achievements anyway. So you don’t need to expend any extra effort with word-of-mouth promotion. And when you speak to people directly, they’re more likely to listen and remember.

All you need to do is talk, talk, talk to anyone who will listen!

Top Tips for Promoting Your Raffle Through Word of Mouth

Make sure the information is spread beyond your existing supporters to new people who haven’t yet engaged with your organisation or cause.

You could try talking at a local event, to your local paper or to any local celebrities or industry experts who may have a strong influence on your audience.

Don’t be afraid to tell your local high-street shops about your event as well. You could even ask to leave some tickets with the staff to sell. Then you can pick up the stubs and donations at a later date.

You can always combine word of mouth with traditional print. Carry raffle flyers with you wherever you go. Then, if you get talking to someone who is interested, give them a flyer as a reminder so they don’t forget the key information.

Social Media

Social media is essentially taking your word-of-mouth strategy online.

Promoting your event on Facebook or another social media platform removes the restrictions of geographical location and allows you to reach a wider audience. Even if your event is local, you can give people a way to donate or sponsor you online. That way they can support your cause even if they can’t physically attend.

Top Tips for Promoting Your Raffle Using Social Media

Facebook and Twitter (now called X) are two great social media platforms for posting fundraising content and engaging with your supporters online. You can even create online event invitations and keep your supporters up to date on the latest news of your organisation.

Your social media profile is also a great place to link to your website or donation site. This gives everybody who connects with you the opportunity to donate online. This may be more convenient for them and can help you push your fundraising efforts even further.

The best thing about using social media to fundraise is that it’s free. It also takes minimal effort to set up a profile and post about what your charity or group gets up to. So don’t hesitate to get yourself and your organisation signed up.

To help you maximise your fundraising efforts, check out our useful guides for raising money online:

 

Your Website

If you have a website, this is the perfect place to raise awareness of your upcoming charity fundraising raffle.

Your website is a hub of information that supporters regularly visit. So whenever you have an update, it’s easy for them to see. It’s a one-stop shop for all the information about your upcoming event. And rather than going out to find supporters, you can let them come to you.

Top Tips for Promoting Your Raffle on Your Website

The easiest way to promote your charity raffle online is with a blog.

Every time you’re preparing for an upcoming fundraising event, make a post telling people what they can expect. Go into detail about the prizes they can win and how their donations will help your chosen cause. And don’t forget to give them all the information they need about the time, date and location, and where to buy tickets.

To generate even more engagement, post blogs about how your recent fundraising events went, too. Include plenty of photos of people having fun and link to any businesses that made prize donations. That way, you can build an engaged community and grow your number of supporters for your next event.

Another great way to spread the word is by making short videos. You can host these for free on YouTube and embed or link to them on your website.

These videos can be similar to your blog posts, showing off your prizes and talking about how people’s support will make a difference. And to ensure long-term support, you can film people having fun at each charity event you host and use this material to make people want to attend in the future.

Increasing Your Donations at Short Notice

If you’re short on time then some marketing methods won’t be applicable. Instead, try to concentrate on your immediate supporters to ensure they know when and where the event is held. After all, it’s much easier to engage your primary existing supporters than it is to gain brand-new ones.

Continue telling everybody you know about your fundraising raffle. This includes all the parents at your school, your colleagues at work and those in your local community. You should also send out an email to your mailing list.

What’s The Next Step?

Regardless of which raffle promotion ideas you use, they’ll help you increase your number of attendees, sell more raffle tickets, raise more money and secure more long-term supporters. So grab a team of people and spread your message to promote your latest event!

Next time, we’ll be looking at how to maximise raffle ticket sales. So join us for expert advice on how you can leverage timing, prizes and awareness to raise as much money as possible. Alternatively, if you still need help designing your raffle tickets, please re-read our previous piece discussing this in greater detail.