Use your local contacts for advertising online.

As a part of your Charity or Non-Profit organization you are no doubt a solid member of your community. You know people. And if you don’t know them they will know you…or at least the organization you’re a part of. Rather than hitting these people over the head to buy a raffle ticket right…

off the bat start by leveraging these folks to help you sell more tickets online.

Let’s look at the normal pillars of any town or community. You’ve got your Fire Department, Police Department, Town Government, churches and synagogue’s and other houses of worship, Boy and Girl Scouts, Boy’s & Girl’s Clubs, Library Branches, Hospitals and on and on.

Sure you’ll approach these folks to buy tickets and maybe get a notice in their newsletters or hang a flyer in their windows. But there is one big step that a lot of organizers skip over.

You want your raffle (pictures, video, information, etc.) on their websites. How many of the people in your town, that you may not have personal contact with that visit the websites of the Fire Dept, Police Dept, Hospital, Library, Town Government site, Chamber of Commerce and so on? Tons.

(Now sure, there may be some of these institutions that won’t, or are not allowed to, put some other organizations raffle on their site. It’s gonna happen. If they can’t put a picture at least they may be able to put a link? It can’t hurt to ask!)

Now imagine you get a picture of your raffle car or bike posted on the Town site, the Fire Department, the Hospital and the local Chamber of Commerce. Everyone of the visitors to those sites would know about your raffle who you may never have been able to reach. (Even if these folks have heard about your raffle already the more they are exposed to it to more probable it is they will buy it. On average people will “say no” to a sales pitch (which, face it, selling raffles tickets is) SIX times before they say yes. Wild, eh?)

And why not? Your organization is doing fund raising for the good of the people in your town or city. These organizations exist the help those same people. It’s a win-win situation.

If you don’t know the people at these organizations get to it. Meet these folks, get their contact info, and see what they can do for your good cause. Of course be prepared to return the favor later on.

By doing this sort of “Local-Online” networking you are casting a much larger net to capture potential ticket buyers than just posting your raffle on your organization site. You can expand this idea beyond the local governmental and non-profit area to local businesses…with a bit of a twist.