Marketing Tips to Sell More Tickets for Your Charity Gala

There’s nothing that drives earnings from your nonprofit or charity auction quite like selling more tickets to the event itself. After all, the more attendees at a given event, the more bids you will naturally get on your fundraising auction items.

However, selling more tickets to a charity gala can be tricky when you don’t want to come across ultra salesy and pushy, or the alternative: too soft. With years of experience optimizing nonprofit auctions, BlueTree Marketing has great tips on selling tickets to your fundraiser.

Tip 1: Make buying tickets easy

Do your potential attendees need to fill out hard paperwork in order to receive their ticket? Is the online registration link wonky or difficult to locate? Has the event not been broadcasted often enough, and the email invitation gets lost in an email black hole? For people to purchase admission tickets for any given charity event, ticket buying should truly be dummy proof. We recommend email evites, and a simple, straightforward RSVP process where multiple forms of payment are accepted.

Tip 2: Create different ticket types

For fundraising events, ticket types are not one-size-fits-all. Just as potential guests have various financial statuses and donation allotments, tickets should have various price points and benefits. For example, a higher-priced VIP ticket may include prioritized seating or early bidding access; a lower-priced General Admission ticket might appeal to a larger audience and make the event more accessible. Perhaps you can even offer day-of tickets with different benefits for last minute stragglers.

Tip 3: Use multiple channels to sell tickets

It’s very easy to miss event registration if it has only been announced at the end of a meeting or in the bottom banner of an email. For this reason, BlueTree Marketing recommends advertising your nonprofit auction fundraiser throughout multiple channels. Providing constant reminders through social media, email marketing, radio announcements, and even snail mail will ensure that fundraiser registration remains top-of-mind for your community and target audience at large.

Contact a BlueTree Auction Specialist today and let us help with your next auction!