Advertising experts know that the three sweetest words in the English language are “win,” “free,” and “money.” Nothing arrests the viewer’s attention more than these delightful concepts, which, when strung together, turn the average person’s thoughts to a positive assessment of any message that follows.

While the cash raffle is an unsanctioned option in the UK, you can still make an impact with your prize draw by taking advantage of the love of winning.

Communication is key: pricing your raffle tickets reasonably and offering prizes that are desirable are the first steps, but your overall sales are determined in great part by your ability to share the potential good fortune you have to offer a few lucky winners. How can you use these words to your best advantage?

Where to Sell Raffle Tickets

• Email subject lines: Don’t mince words. Whether the prize is an HDTV or free housekeeping services, announce it boldly in your online communications. Grab their attention with the wonder of the free prizes in .
• Article titles: Whether you’re writing a press release, a blog post, or an article for a local paper, make your case with a eye-catching headline that informs the world what they can win.
• Word of mouth: Of course, you’re going to talk up your prizes when you’re selling raffle tickets, but you should also consider talking up those prizes when you’re not attempting to sell raffle tickets. That is, the salesperson in you can easily slip references to winning into other conversations, turning any interaction into a potential sale.
• Targeted ads:If you have the funds to do so, you may wish to use ads on Facebook, Google Adwords, or similar platforms to draw traffic to a webpage where you are advertising your prize draw or selling raffle tickets. Employing the important focus words will increase your click through rate.

Sell Raffle Tickets without Fear

Be shameless in your promotion. The more tickets you wish to sell, the more important it is to find supporters willing to take a small gamble on a big prize. Everyone is a potential customer; it’s up to you to promote yourself. If your cause is just, your prize fabulous, and your ability to sell motivated by enough desire, you can sell raffle tickets anytime, anywhere, to very nearly anyone.

Don’t sell yourself short. Find the right words to advertise and just sell!

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“Buy a raffle ticket?” the bigger one said, waving a single ticket in my face.

“Um…” I replied.

“What’s it for?” my friend asked.

“For our school.”

But what would that ticket do for his school? The little chap couldn’t say. He didn’t know anything about the cause for which he was raising money. All he knew was the name of his school, but he couldn’t say whether they needed to raise funds for a new gym floor, to send the band to a competition or (as is the case with some schools) to purchase base essentials like paper and pencils!

“You can win $500!” the kid continued. “And the ticket is only $1!”

“But how many tickets do you think you’ll sell?” I asked. “How many did they print?”

The child didn’t know. And while $500 is a fair sum, the odds of winning depend only the number of tickets sold. For a cash raffle with a prize of $500, they would need to print at least 1000 raffle tickets and sell them all to make an appreciable profit. A “50-50″ cash raffle is the standard, although, by selling enough tickets, one could offer a large prize and still keep an even larger profit. In the case of a $500 50-50 cash raffle, that $1 ticket has a 1 in 1000 chance of winning.

But I couldn’t calculate the odds. I simply wasn’t given enough information to be moved by the child’s pitch, and these boys were old enough that there were no adults kept handily about to answer my questions. (Meaning, of course, that they were old enough that I wasn’t moved by the cuteness factor of their pitch, either.)

This underscores the need to prepare your sales team, whether they are seasoned professionals or 10 years old. Make a list of all the questions someone might conceivably ask about your raffle before you start selling booklets, and coach your crew to memorize the answers.

Needless to say, those kids didn’t sell me a raffle ticket that day.

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Your fundraising needs may be extensive, and your schedule is important, but you must keep in mind the needs of your donors as well. If you intend to sell Raffle Tickets for multiple prize draws in 2011, it is in your best interest to stagger them out.

Our experienced correspondents note that constant requests for money, particularly in a sluggish economy, can be irksome for your supporters. You may need it quiet badly, but remember that your fans are also experiencing the economic downturn. If they are good enough to give money a few times a year, the last thing you want to do is alienate them with repeated solicitations that seem endless.

Instead, schedule your prize draws so that you are selling Raffle Tickets at particular times when you are most likely to have success. A big raffle at the end of the year is a good idea, as is one that corresponds with a large event you hold annually. If you hold too many raffle, however, you may trigger a compassionate burnout, where followers begin to resent your request. Rather than continual, small draws, combine your funds or your prizes to hold a few larger draws at fortuitous times throughout the year.

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First, consider a large shop or department store where you know there will be increased foot traffic this month. If you represent a charitable organisation, or one that works for children, perhaps the owner will allow you to set up a table outside. This lets you bring your Raffle Tickets to your supporters, rather than forcing them to find you.

Second, man the booth carefully. If possible, have children or teenagers at the table, selling the tickets for you. Their pathos will improve sales. If your group represents a sport team, a band, a scouting group, or any club in which members can be identified by uniforms, make sure everyone wears their uniform!

Finally, if you can manage it, bring the prizes to the table. Set them up in an appealing arrangement. This raises interest levels in your prize draw and encourages people to purchase Raffle Tickets upon falling in love with your prizes!

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To what advantage? Stapled ticket booklets help make your prize draw a financial success by encouraging donors to purchase multiple tickets, rather than a single Raffle Ticket: one step toward multiplying your profits by 5! It’s simply a matter of convenience for you and for your supporters. Stapled booklets are simple to sell. You can encourage multiple sales by pricing tickets appropriately, and ensuring that the price of 5 tickets is an even number. Sell 1 ticket for 2 pounds and 5 for 10 and watch your profits soar!

Keep checking this blog as the winter progresses for more expert advice from fundraisers who have traveled this road before and know the best route to take.

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For instance, do you depend on a paid sales crew, or a group of dedicated volunteers? Have you not considered asking others to help? According to our most successful contacts, you’ll sell far more Raffle Tickets if you send stapled booklets to all members of your organisation. Consider the size of your mailing list. If each member receives 5 tickets to sell, how many additional sales would that create?

Include a letter asking each member to purchase the tickets themselves, or to sell those 5 tickets to friends, family, neighbors, or colleagues. It’s a small number, but it will truly add up. Just be sure that you provide a method for the home office to track these sales, so you can be assured that tickets entered in the prize draw have been bought.

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This version can truly benefit both organisations:

• Increases brand awareness for both groups
• Garners good will for both groups
• Provides attendees with a value-added bonus
• Boosts traffic at the sponsor’s shop

It works best at a charity event sponsored by a brick-and-mortar shop. Here’s how you do it.

Inside the venue, set up a small display of prizes: merchandise from the sponsor’s shop. A volunteer should monitor these prizes and sell Raffle Tickets, perhaps for a pound each. Other volunteers can certainly move about the venue selling more Raffle Tickets, if you wish to push sales.

At the gate, all entrant receive a Gift Certificate, good for a free Raffle Ticket for, say £50 of merchandise at the sponsor’s shop. Here’s the key: the Gift Certificate can only be redeemed for a Raffle Ticket at the sponsor’s shop. Donors who attend the event must stop by the shop to benefit from the prize draw. If the display inside the venue is done properly, customers will be eager to visit the brick-and-mortar location to see more goods.

In the meantime, the first prize draw adds an extra element of festivities to the evening. Guests can examine the merchandise, purchase tickets, and await the draw. You can increase excitement by awarding prizes throughout the evening, continually reminding people that there is still time to buy more Raffle Tickets (save the most valuable prizes for last) and that they can visit the sponsor’s shop after the event to arrange for another Raffle Ticket!

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Diehard fans support your organisation, no matter what. They’re always willing to help, and, provided you haven’t hit them up too many times in the last few months, they’ll buy some Raffle Tickets, just to help your cause.

Sometimes fans support your organisation in theory, and they’ll support you financially, if they like your prizes, and if your tickets don’t cost too much, and if they haven’t just bought a 3-D TV they need to pay off.

Obligated buyers may not care about your mission or your prizes. They’re buying Raffle Tickets because they know your sales team personally. The bigger and more gregarious your sales team, the more of these supporters you’ll have.

Gamblers like to take a chance. They’re not interested in the prize or even the odds so much as they care about taking a chance. They love possibilities, so remind them about the thrill of winning.

Prize lovers don’t want to hear about your goals. They just want to know whether you’re offering the gadget they desire (but can’t afford). They love MP3 players, new phones, and trucks. They’ll pay a little extra for a Raffle Ticket as long as you offer a great prize.

New supporters are future diehard fans. They love your charity; they’ve just never heard of it. Your sales team can bring them into the fold, turning them into loyal supporters, as they sell them Raffle Tickets.

Big spenders love buying things while others are watching. Catch a guy with a fat wallet and a pretty date and he’ll buy some Raffle Tickets just to prove that he can.

Miscellaneous buyers are those occasional, extra sales. They didn’t plan to buy a ticket, they didn’t really need a prize. You just caught them at the right time, in the right mood. They took a chance. And that’s why you sales team need to take more chances, too. The more people you approach, the more tickets you’ll sell.

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The most popular types of prize draws are those awarding holidays and vehicles. Are you ready to capitalise on this information? Indeed, these are big-ticket items, but with proper preparation, you can organise and manage a big-ticket prize draw. It takes only some advance planning, some networking, and some hard work and you’ll be well on your way to selling more Raffle Tickets.

Some organisations have the funds or the connections to pull this sort of promotion together effortlessly, but most of us will need to think about it. Who do we know in a position to donate our large prizes? Travel agents? Collectors? Do you know the owners of a car dealership, a bed and breakfast, or a company that offers day trip adventures? Begin by making up lists. Don’t think merely of the people you know. Consider their friends as well. If someone in your organisation has a rich, philanthropist uncle or an old university chum who collects antique vehicles, put them on your list, too.

Now, create your pitch. In many cases, it’s helpful to write your script down first. Remember to include:

• You name
• The name of your organisation
• Your group’s mission statement
• The specific intention for the fund you will raise
• A specific donation request

Do your research. Find phone numbers and contact information for everyone you wish to reach. When you do reach them, speak politely but confidently. Don’t feel any shame in asking for a donation: you are working for a really worthy cause, and people will be happy to help you out! Consider how happy you’ll be when you’ve secured your large donations and can get down to the happy business of printing your own Raffle Tickets online. It will be easy to choose a design that reflects the nature of the prizes you offer, and those prizes will be spectacular.

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• Prizes: You know your supporters best. They may be willing to take a 50 p chance on a small prize: a new football, for instance, or a skein of yarn, or a gift certificate to a popular independent book shop. Perhaps they will pay money to gamble on the possibility of a free lunch with someone in your organisation, or a lesson on something your administration may teach.
• Raffle Tickets: So easy to print online! You choose the perfect design, enter your event details into a ticket template, and click on a few buttons. Your Raffle Tickets are professionally printed, with perforated stubs, lines to collect customer information, individual numbering, and other security features.
• Supporters: Get the word out, in your print or email newsletter, on websites and web forums, at local meetings and other brick-and-mortar events, through local media, and with printed Posters or Fliers. Don’t forget phone trees, word of mouth, and door to door sales.
• Distribution: Take advantage of one of many online sites that sell Raffle Tickets for you. If you already have a sales team, offer them extra prizes and let them do their job. Or, incentivise small children with appropriate rewards and let them sell. Sell Raffle Tickets on your own website, at meetings, or at summer festivals. Wherever people are, that’s where you should be selling Raffle Tickets.

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