Essential Tips to Create a Successful Business Raffle

Raffle fundraisers can be very successful and relatively easy campaigns for businesses. Great for boosting publicity, attracting a bigger customer base and raising funds for a good cause, raffles are cost-effective way to make a big difference. Interested consumers and potential clients are immediately attracted to a business through a successful and well-promoted raffle, and it allows you to showcase your products and services to gain new attention.

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or an old hat corporate company owner, the benefits of holding a raffle fundraiser can certainly be reaped. It just takes the right planning, advertising and integrity to help make it a successful one. So how do you make your business raffle worth the time, effort and expense? Here’s a few tips to get you started:

Pick the Right Prize

What is a raffle without a killer prize? A pretty dull one! So picking the right prize for the customer base is paramount. You need to put yourself in your audience’s shoes—what would you like to win if you were forking out money for a raffle ticket? Having the right incentive will help sell more raffle tickets and in turn, generate better funds and a bigger impact.

Choosing the right prize isn’t just about making the fundraising campaign more attractive – it’s also about budget, audience and the scope of the raffle. Vacation packages, cash, gift cards and new electronics all tend to be big hits when it comes to raffle prizes, and depending on your audience alcohol should be avoided as this limits the potential entries. Consider donated prizes to cut down funds too; you can ask corporate supporters or partners to help with this.  Determine whether you want to have one big prize or smaller ones for second and third too.

Set the Scope and Fundraising Goal

It’s essential that you nut out the scope and goal of your fundraising raffle to determine the target demographic, community limits, budget and costs and the marketing and sales timeline. You’ll need to consider how big the raffle fundraising campaign is going to be; is it just within the community or are you going on a bigger scale industry wide? This will decide how many tickets you’re going to need to have printed out and work hand-in-hand with the way you promote the raffle.

Work out what the best price will be to sell the tickets at. You don’t want them overpriced so people are reluctant to purchase them, but having them too low will offset the budget and cost of prize (or prizes).  Consider the value of the prize that’s up for grabs, how much you’re wanting to raise and all the costs associated with making it happen to ensure you’re not losing out on money.

Use Custom Printed Raffle Tickets

Like with any marketing and promotional materials, it’s important to have everything consistent with your corporate branding through quality business stationary printing. Fundraising raffle tickets are no different. Printing the tickets is usually a step that’s overlooked—but it’s one of the most vital parts of implementing your raffle campaign. Raffle tickets are a valuable form of advertising space for your business so jeopardizing on quality should definitely be avoided.

Thus, it’s a smart idea to stay away from ‘cheap’ printing. Keep in mind that people will need to hang onto the raffle tickets for some time too so you want them to stay looking good come event or draw time! Consider the ticket layout and make sure it reflects your current corporate branding, color schemes, cardstock or paper and pictures and logos. Tickets will also need to include a space for the purchaser’s name and contact details and information about the draw including organization name, contact details, date of raffle and major prizes. A ticket stub will need to be teared off for the purchaser to keep too.

Promote It Properly

Marketing your raffle fundraiser is just as important as building it. One of the main reasons fundraising campaigns fail is because the marketing was poorly planned or executed. Posting a few updates on social media isn’t enough. You should be creating a hype in the lead up through emails, newsletters and other forms of marketing materials. Encourage people to share the details and communicate the message multiple times to your target audience.

This is why determining a target market for your raffle fundraiser is vital; trying to get anyone and everyone to enter will suck you into a shotgun approach. Create a Facebook event page, update cover photos to reflect the raffle event and talk to industry supporters to get the information out there.

Make Sure It’s Legal

There’s legal requirements with any business fundraising raffle that need to be carefully abided by. Every state and territory has different rules on raffle campaigns so be sure to check what’s applicable in your location. Not every raffle needs a permit or license to make it legal, but many do require one so it’s essential to apply for any necessary paperwork early in the process.

A major area or liability can come from entrants who challenge the contest if they don’t win. Thus, it’s paramount to set the raffle rules clear on how the winner is chosen and the details of the contest. This information should be posted somewhere clearly where people can easily find it.

Plan the Draw

Consider the type of raffle you are wanting to run, how it’s going to be set up (you may need a float for selling tickets too) and how it’s going to be drawn. Create a checklist to ensure the event runs smoothly and all important steps are covered and assign tasks to relevant staff. It’s a good idea to have the prizes on display at the stand or event to entice people to make a ticket purchase. Once everything is complete, ensure the tickets are drawn by an official (who hasn’t purchased a ticket).

After the draw is complete, you’ll need to finalize donations and keep to any legal requirements about how much goes to charity or your organization. Winners should be notified by the stated date, if not at the event, through social media, email or other means. It’s important that ticket purchasers are aware of when and how they will be notified if they do win. Present the gifts to the winners and voila!

Corporate raffles are great for attracting people to your place of business and can be used as positive promotional enhances and to gain loyal customers. When will you be conducting your fundraising raffle?

Author: Jayde Ferguson writes for G Force Printing – a Perth based printing company with over 20 years’ experience specializing in corporate printing, design, print management and finishing. You can catch her on Google+.