Don’t make ‘em dig for it

How your website is set up, and how you display and organize information depends a great deal on who maintains the site, the amount of time they have available, the skill level of the person involved and so on. A huge issue that I see on many organizations websites is the burying of important information about a raffle or fund raiser.

Remember you’ve only got a few seconds to hold peoples attention online so don’t make your information hard to find! We’ve covered front page raffle picture placement already. Now to the nuts and bolts info.

Your potential raffle ticket buyer has got questions that they are looking to your website to answer, and answer quickly. The main questions they are asking: a) How much are tickets and how do I buy them? b) What are the details and where are more pictures of the car/motorcycle/prize? c) Is this legit? d) When is the drawing date? e) Do I have to be present to win? f) If I win will I have to pay the taxes/go get the car/etc.? and so on. All of this information should be in ONE place that is easy to find on your website (ideally directly linked to your raffle picture on the front page, above the fold, of your website.

This is critical! No matter where your site visitors come from, be it search engines or Pay Per Click Advertising, put the information right in front of their eyes. Don’t make ‘em dig!

A common style of providing this information is in a flyer that can be downloaded in a Word or .pdf format. This is not a horrible system however it has it’s drawbacks. For one thing often people are a bit nervous or cautious about downloading files from an unfamiliar website. Secondly this flyer often pulls double duty as both an informational item and as a ticket order form to be printed, filled out and mailed in with a check or money order or whatever. That’s fine as long as you put all the information on your website a well. If someone comes to your site and all they see is this…

2008 Raffle! - Click HERE to download form

…they may back off. Provide all information to them, reassure them with pictures, information, dates, times, contact information, phone numbers and so on. Also give them an alternative method of obtaining a mail-in form. Maybe via fax. Is this getting a little too picky? Maybe. But each interested ticket buyer is like gold. Scare off, confuse or annoy as few as possible! Thanks! Bill