James Corbitt
Throughout all my years of life experience through schools, jobs, and the military, raffle fundraising has been one of the most memorable and fun experience I have had. Recently my wife and I attended a Christmas party with my Air Force Reserves squadron and raffled off a 70 inch television. The personnel in charge of raffling off the tickets charged ten dollars for one ticket and made bundle deals for the more tickets you purchase. When the time came to announce the winner, we all piled into a room with so much excitement in the air. As soon as they called the winner, I could hear the sighs, the sounds of disbelief, and laughter. The winner was shockingly one of the leaders, as a result he kindly said, “What I am going to do is, I’m gonna auction it right here and every penny will be donated for next year’s Christmas party!” Soon enough, people started screaming numbers and the auction began. With the raffle and the auction combined, the squadron tripled the profit and is now easily capable of hosting numerous parties for this upcoming year. Raffle fundraising can be extremely profitable and fun at the same time!
A few idea’s to help maximize sales of raffle tickets is offer deals to people who refer others. This will help with network marketing and gives a positive reward to those who unintentionally help sell. For example, for every referral a person gets, you receive one free raffle ticket. Also to help maximize raffle tickets, the giveaway needs to be broadcasted and promoted. Many people are afraid of being scammed. Therefore, many of the raffling companies lose interest due to customers being afraid of the unknown. Raffling needs to not only broadcast the selling and marketing, but also the people winning!
Secondly, the prizes that encourage and stimulate ticket sales should always be appropriate for the event and or occasion. A few items that would generally be fine to be fit as a prize could be, televisions, entertainment systems, electronics, homeware, kitchenware, and games. Maybe even giving away prizes for every certain number of tickets a person purchases or giving away rewards to a certain number of people a person refers. Giving away awards for good actions can be a positive motivation for many people!
Lastly, to motivate people to sell tickets is to reward their hard work. As a student who has volunteered many times, I understand that the volunteers do not get paid. But to help motivate volunteers, they should be able to reap the rewards that the customers get to receive and possibly even more. For example, if the volunteer sells a certain amount of tickets, he or she earns one free ticket and or prize. Maybe to help make it a friendly competition, they hold a raffle between the volunteers. Whoever sells the most tickets receives a prize completely separate from the actual contest. The overall goal is to promote good actions with positive motivations.