As a professional who organises fundraising events, you’ll already know just how much hard work goes into this process. With so many different tasks to stay on top of for the event itself, it can be easy to overlook the importance of marketing and promotion.
Why is it Essential to Promote Your Fundraising Event?
Adequately promoting your event can be the difference between a sell-out success and a fundraiser that is poorly attended. This is naturally important because it can impact how much money you raise.
If you don’t have a big budget to promote your event, then don’t worry. This simply means you’ll have to be even more creative, which is half the fun anyway!
The following five tips will help you to create a powerful marketing strategy for your next fundraising event.
1. Launch a Dedicated Landing Page
Listing your event information on your website is great, but it’s better to go one step further with a dedicated landing page. This is the best way to make all of the relevant information available in one place.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a brand new webpage that you create for a specific purpose. In this case, the landing page would be a comprehensive source of information about your fundraising event.
This page should always be designed with a clear focus in mind, and it’s this specific intention that makes a landing page so powerful. The page will have a clear call-to-action (CTA), which is usually to obtain further details or to make a purchase, such as a ticket sale. In fact, the CTA should typically be the only clickable action that a user can take on the page.
When you’re undertaking additional promotional tasks, being able to share this page will be key. In particular, landing pages are a fantastic destination to link to from any organic or paid advertising campaigns that you’re running. This is because your page will serve as a simple way to clearly explain how to buy a ticket and to direct people to the appropriate place to do so.
Click here for further advice and guidance on launching a dedicated landing page.
2. Social Media
Social media should be an integral part of your marketing plan when you’re promoting a fundraising event.
With social media marketing, you’ll want to have two separate audiences in mind — those who are already following you and those who aren’t.
To reach your existing followers on social media, you’ll want to regularly post about your event. This involves continuing to share interesting and exciting updates as the date gets closer.
If your organisation has a presence on Facebook, then you’ll want to create a Facebook event. A Facebook event is a great ways to spread the reach of your fundraising initiative and will be a valuable place to share updates.
One of the best things about Facebook events is that those who are interested already can share the event page with their own network, which is essentially free advertising for you!
To reach brand-new audiences, you might want to engage in a paid advert campaign. If you’re not familiar with paid advertising on social, then click here to take a closer look at what this involves!
3. Email Marketing
Hopefully, email marketing will already feature as one of your regular promotional activities. If this is the case, then this means you’ll likely have a loyal following of engaged readers who open your emails.
Reaching out to these people to share information for this specific event is a fantastic way to spread the message to people who are already very interested in who you are and what you do!
When it comes to email marketing, it’s not possible to communicate with people who haven’t consented to receive these emails, which may feel like somewhat of a limitation. However, you can consistently work on expanding your email marketing subscriber list via your social media profiles and through your other marketing activities.
Dividing your existing subscriber list into different segments is a great way to go one step further with your email marketing efforts. This allows you to send different emails to people depending on a wide range of things, such as past purchase behaviour, age group, or location.
4. Incentivise Attendees to Buy Tickets Early
Selling tickets early on is an excellent way to have confidence that your event is going to be a success — but achieving this can be a challenge. Offering exciting incentives for early ticket sales can therefore be a good idea.
Early bird pricing for a limited number of tickets can help to get the ball rolling. Even a small discount on the price of a ticket can encourage people to express their interest early on.
Offering additional exclusive perks for early bird ticket holders is an additional way to boost interest. A perk might be a gift, a free drink during the fundraiser, or even a discount on future events.
When you’re selling early bird tickets, it can be helpful to advertise how many of these special tickets are left. As the number continues to go down, people will start to be afraid of missing out and are therefore more likely to purchase one. Alternatively, counting down to when these tickets will no longer be available can also prompt people to make a sale!
If you’re implanting early bird tickets, be sure to send this offer to your email subscribers first. This is an easy way to demonstrate how much you value your existing followers and how you’ll reward them for their loyalty.
5. Print Ads
You may be guilty of thinking that physical adverts out in the offline world are essentially a thing of the past, but they do still have great potential to attract attention!
If your organisation has a physical location, then putting up banner ads outside is a great idea. People who regularly walk past your building will see them and might express an interest in your event. If your fundraiser is going to be in the local area, then this will certainly help to drum up interest.
Similarly, print ads in local newspapers, magazines, and associated publications are an easy way to reach your local audience.
Consistency for Success
In order to maximise your efforts as you promote your fundraising event, you’ll need to be consistent in your strategy. Be sure to give ample attention to each of the tasks on this list, as well as any additional methods you decide to implement.
It’s also a great idea to take time after your event to assess which of your marketing and promotional activities had the most success. When you know what works and what doesn’t work so well, you can continue to adjust your plan for the future.
If you’re in the planning stages of your event and need some inspiration, then check out our 14 Fantastic Online Fundraising Ideas!
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