We recently got a great question by email from a Raffle Secrets newsletter reader.  I think a lot of small groups wonder about whether they can pull off a raffle.

Hi Sandra-

I want to have a “travel give away” raffle. I was thinking about giving away a 4 day cruise and the raffle tickets would be about $20. I think I would need to sell about 200 to make a profit of $5,000. However, my question is how would a “grass roots” organization pull of a successful event like this?

Thanks,

Kenita Pierce-Lewis, CEO & Founder
H.O.P.E, Inc
Duluth, GA

Hi Kenita, this is a great question!

First of all travel is one of the best prizes that you can give away!  People love the idea of winning a trip or even a mini-vacation.  I’ve been on three cruises myself and would instantly be attracted to a raffle with a cruise as a prize.

Now the next thing to consider is the ticket price.  Is $20 the best ticket price? As I mentioned I love cruises, so if I was already a supporter of H.O.P.E. or was a friend of yours or one of your volunteer ticket sellers I’d be happy to buy a ticket at $20.  However, if I were not familiar with your cause, I might hesitate at $20.

With tickets at $20 you would need to sell 250 tickets, for a gross profit of $5000.  If you were to get the prize donated then you would still need to factor in ticket printing and any advertising costs in the budget.  So depending on those, the real profit would be $4500 – $4900.

I always recommend setting a higher goal in order to account for both the budget and unexpected circumstances.  For example, you might give a volunteer a pack of 10 tickets to sell and they come back with only half of them sold.  So a goal of 300 tickets @ $20 each would help you reach your goal.

On the other hand, if you decided to sell tickets at $10 each, the goal would need to be at least 600 tickets sold.  Close friends, family and current supporters would still be encouraged to buy at least two tickets and yet the lower ticket price would attract people who are less familiar with your cause, but attracted by the prize.

All that math aside, let’s get back to your question!

There are two ways that even a small group can be successful with a raffle fundraiser: motivated volunteers and ticket buying incentives.  These are so important that we devoted a separate chapter to each of these topics in the Raffle Secrets guide.

Your volunteer ticket sales force

Board members, committee members and other volunteers can sell a lot of tickets to their personal networks. The personal touch is often the best way to sell the most tickets.

If your state and locality allow, have volunteers sell raffle tickets directly to coworkers, friends, and family. (When encouraging volunteers to sell tickets at work, advise them to check with their supervisor first. Some companies have a prohibition against sales in the workplace.)

Incentives for your ticket sales force

As an incentive, offer one or more prizes to your ticket sellers. Each ticket sold may count as an entry into a separate random drawing for a prize, or you can award prizes directly to those who sold the most tickets.  Again, gift card work well for these awards.

If volunteers cannot sell tickets, you can still reward those who motivate ticket sales. As tickets are sold, record who told the ticket buyer about the raffle. Offering referral bonuses to ticket buyers is another way to encourage word-of-mouth ticket sales.

In addition to individual prizes, competition among teams can drive ticket sales as organized groups of volunteers strive to outdo each other. Individuals who don’t see value in their singular effort can be highly inspired when asked to work as part of a team.

Ticket buying incentives

Besides offering incentives for ticket sellers, create some enticements for people to buy tickets.  These special offers make it even easier for volunteers to do their job of selling tickets. Here are a few ideas:

• Secondary prizes at the final drawing – Adding additional, smaller prizes gives ticket buyers more opportunities to win.  So with better odds of winning something, people are more interested in buying a ticket. Secondary prizes should appeal to the widest audience so items such as gift cards work great.
• Interim or “Early Bird” Drawings - To inspire ticket buying from the very first day, schedule prize drawings at regular intervals before the main drawing. These drawings spark sales and maintain deadline urgency between the excitement of the launch and the anticipation of the big event.
• Multi-Ticket Discount – Offering bonus free tickets or a reduced price for a larger number of tickets encourages people to buy more tickets. For example, $10 for one ticket, $20 for 3 tickets. Or $20 for one ticket, $50 for 3 tickets, $100 for 8 tickets

Ready?

With motivated volunteers even small groups can be successful with a raffle fundraiser.  Add in ticket buying and ticket selling incentives and you are even more likely to achieve your goals.

Raffle Secrets includes more details on all of these strategies that can make a raffle for a group, large or small, a big success.