Mehreen Baig
With the popularity and diversity in the types of raffles, more and more businesses are using them as promotional strategies. Businesses can hold their own raffles or sponsor an external raffle, but with the use of proper advertising and strategies, they can gain brand recognition and loyalty as well as additional profits.
For a retail store, having a raffle event in stores can be very beneficial. Not only will this bring in profit in terms of the cost of raffle tickets, it will also bring more customers in store for the actual event. These customers may then shop in the store itself, bringing in additional profit. The best way to earn the loyalty of customers by a show of goodwill is to donate the proceeds earned from the sale of raffle tickets. Advertising and marketing will be key for the success of this raffle. The charity being supported should be prominently featured, with emphasis on exactly what the funds will be used to provide. Specific examples will be very important, such as showing what the proceeds earned from the sale of one ticket will be able to do. A realistic goal should also be specified. The store will have to foot the cost of the prize itself, but that will be the only substantial cost along with advertising, as the venue will be the store itself. The store will be able to keep additional profit earned by customers who came in for the event and ended up shopping. By publicly donating to a charity or cause, the store will attract more customers in the long run, and these customers will be more willing to support a charitable organization recurrently. Larger retail stores or stores with well-known products can also donate prizes to externally held raffles. This will increase brand recognition along with additional goodwill.
Service businesses may find it harder to hold their own raffle fundraiser, but they can also sponsor one being held elsewhere. Publicly sponsoring and attaching their name to one for a notable cause will increase their goodwill. Larger service businesses could also do a private raffle for their regular customers, which would not only encourage them to check in with the business to find out the results, but the repeated visual of the company will also help with brand recognition in the future. Smaller retail stores and service businesses might not be able to utilize raffles at the same scale that larger businesses can, but they can still use them to their benefit. The best way for these businesses to benefit, especially ones with some sort of online presence, is to use social media to promote their raffle. Word of mouth in person or online will be very good promotion, especially if the business is known to be a smaller privately owned business. People will be more inclined to participate if they believe less people are participating, as the odds of winning are higher. The prize should be heavily featured, and it should be advertised as a private raffle.
For all sorts of businesses, holding your raffle around certain important dates and events is a good strategy. Businesses with online presence can make their raffle well known around times when there are more people online, such as Cyber Monday. Holding a raffle around Christmas time, when everyone is shopping in stores already and is in the spirit of giving, is a good time fore retail stores to hold a raffle. If businesses can pinpoint the time when they will already be in the public eye, they can get promote themselves even further and make their raffle a bigger success, as more people will now find out about it.
Raffles can be a huge benefit to any sort of business, if used in the right way. Identifying the proper strategy for the relevant type of business is a must, but by having a proper goal and sticking with your strategy, any raffle can be a success.