How a Raffle Within a Raffle Can Prime Profits
A raffle within a raffle? “Impact a Life” college scholarship essayist Kyle Sharpe details a unique and profitable twist on how to sell more raffle tickets. Thanks Kyle for your original perspective and good luck!
A dream within a dream. A raffle within a raffle.
Non-profit organizations can have a hard time selling raffle tickets. But I believe with clever marketing, a good deal of elbow grease and plain, old fashioned hard work they can have incredible raffles. There’s three subjects that need to be addressed before you can ensure that an effective and money positive raffle will take place. You need to maximize sales, inspire your volunteers and provide adequate prizes. In the following few paragraphs, I’ll introduce you to what I believe each of these looks like.
The first subject I’d like to address is how to maximize sales. Beyond having a worthwhile cause to begin with, one of the most important aspects of any raffle is presence. You have to have boots on the ground out looking for people to sell raffle tickets to. No one is going to buy one over the phone, and even in this digital age, no one is going to buy a raffle ticket over the internet. But how do you motivate volunteers to sell raffle tickets?
This is where the idea of raffle-ception comes into play, a raffle within a raffle. Each time a volunteer sells ten raffle tickets, they earn a raffle ticket of their own for a private, volunteers-only prize-pool. Although volunteers aren’t volunteering for the specific purpose of winning a prize, it’s a nice way to say thank you and to encourage a sales mindset. The prizes need not and should not be expensive, but they will be appreciated.
But what do you raffle off to the public? While there are many options, I don’t think you need to re-invent the wheel every time you do a raffle. One of the most popular options for raffles will always be baked goods. Sweets are loved all over the world and are a very inexpensive way to fill up the selection of prizes. This is a very cash-light operation as many volunteers will offer to bake goods as well as sell raffle tickets. This way, you don’t run the risk of losing money on your raffle and get back into the black much sooner than you would had you bought expensive prizes that you may not recoup your investment on. Besides, a lot of the time, if someone wants a more expensive item, they’re already likely to have it. This is why I believe baked goods are one of the best, if not the best options for prizes.
So in recapping we have three strategies that should be followed for a great raffle to take place. The first is to have a presence, in person that enables you to sell the most amount of raffle tickets. The second strategy is the idea of “raffle-ception,†or a raffle within a raffle where you reward your volunteers for their hard work.
The last strategy is to find an inexpensive, yet popular item to fill your prize pool. In this example, I’ve chosen baked goods. I wish you luck on all your raffle endeavors!