Raffle-Tickets.us Blog

When planning a raffle intended to be a significant fundraiser, it’s very important to advertise it properly. This is one aspect of running a raffle that many organizers forget or neglect. But if you don’t advertise well, you won’t enjoy the highest level of success. Think about it–if nobody knows about your raffle, how can they buy tickets? Many organizations don’t go beyond word-of-mouth advertising to promote their raffle. This is a great way to get the word out, but you really need to explore some more avenues to earn the most money for your enterprise.

Of course, the methods you use to advertise your raffle will depend on the cause you’re raising money for. For instance, if you’re running a school raffle you’ll probably focus on local channels, whereas for a national non-profit organization, you’d want to use channels that had a much wider audience. So start by thinking of that audience. Who are they, and how do they get their news? Where do they shop? What websites are they likely to visit? By asking yourself these questions, you can get a fairly good idea of where you ought to advertise. Some ideas include:

• School and community message boards
• Grocery stores and other local retailers
• Local radio stations
• Local television channels
• Newspapers, local or national
• Your website
• Enthusiast websites (e.g. environmental websites if you’re an environmental NPO)
• Flyers and bumper stickers
• Email lists

I know I’ve talked about advertising being essential to any raffle on here before.  However, I thought that I would give you some tips about what kind of advertising you can do that will really help out your raffle.  Think about what you do doing the day to find out what news is going on in your community.  You read the paper, watch the news on television, or look up the news online right?

Well, the rest of the people in your community do that as well.  Just think, while they are getting their news they could hear about your raffle as well.  If you have the funds to advertise in this way, I highly suggest that you do it.  Using the media to your advantage, you will be able to reach a lot more people about your raffle than just by word of mouth or flyers.

If you have to choose one media outlet, I would suggest a television ad.  It is the most universal advertising outlet out there.  The older generation who don’t know how to use computers well aren’t going to be able to find your add on-line, but chances are they are watching the morning news.  The younger generation of people will be watching television as well.  While this is probably the more expensive route, I would say that it’s also the most beneficial.  Good luck!

There is a topic that I haven’t brought up on here yet that is actually very essential to running a raffle.  I usually deal with behind-the-scenes stuff, but when I am talking to either potential or existing clients I always tell them that their raffle will have much more success if they put a lot of effort into advertising for it.  Publicity can be your best friend when it comes to having a raffle.  Advertising is a priority for raffles, and needs to be treated as such for any group or business that is interested in organizing one.

For whatever reason, most people feel like advertising is too much work.  Yes, publicizing your raffle is going to take some effort.  However, when you share the load and delegate certain aspects of the advertising with other people in your group or business it becomes an easily attained goal.  You can go to plenty of routes when advertising.  Making flyers that hang all over the city and that you pass out to everyone you meet are one way to go.  Another is to do online advertising through Facebook, Myspace, or any raffle websites.  You can use your business’ website to do advertising on as well.  Also, you can put adds in your local newspaper.  How about calling everyone in your business directory to let them now about the raffle?  Uncomfortable maybe, but definitely effective.  How about doing all of these things?!

Don’t let advertising your raffle fall to the wayside or become an insurmountable giant.  While it can be time consuming, it is time well spent.  Also, you will receive back in funds what you put into advertising for your raffle.  There are lots of ideas you can use, the ones I gave you are just a few.  Spread the work of publicity out among your group, and you’ll definitely be able to accomplish a successful raffle.