Make a Raffle Mailing List

I’m sure your organization has some sort of mailing list for members and donors. Could be either a traditional snail-mail list or an email list, or both, but it’s got something, right? Your organization uses this list to keep in touch with members or supporters and lets them know when you’ve got new projects going on, triumphs, needs and news. 

What I’d like you to think about is starting a separate email list for your car or motorcycle raffle, especially if you are holding, or plan to hold, an annual raffle. Even if you’ve got a mailing list sign up form on your organizations main page (which hopefully you do) it probably won’t do too much for online raffle ticket sales. There is a good chance that some, or a great many, of the people who are interested in your raffle really don’t care too much about your organization. At least they may not care enough about it to sign up for your newsletter. And that’s okay! There’s nothing wrong with that and it is by no means a slam or dig at those folks. It’s just the way it is. 

However! Since we know they are into your current raffle, and would probably like to know about your raffle next year, you’ve got a good chance to get them on a raffle mailing list. They don’t care to hear about your organization but they sure might want to know about your annual raffles! And it’s really easy. All you’ll need to do is put a simple email sign up form on the front page of your raffle website (or raffle page within your main organizations’ site). A few lines of code is all it takes and you’re off an running building a list of raffle afficianadoes. 

The best and easiest way to get this down is through a 3rd party list service like Aweber.com. These services make sure your emails comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and your organization does not get dinged for spam. Nobody likes spam. And even if your intentions are good (remember what the road to hell is paved with…) spam complaints cause all sorts of problems that nobody wants. I’ve tried other systems, free services and even tried to do it through my outlook for the email lists on some of my other sites. Don’t do it. Use a good service - it’ll save you headaches, your emails will get through and you’ll be pretty well protected from spam complaints. 

Whats the point? As you build up a list of active online raffle ticket buyers you can send them updates on the current raffle (”Only 23 tickets left!“) and once your raffle draws send out a Congrats email (”Congratulations to Jane Doe of Sryacuse, NY. on winning the raffle!“). Now the best part of this is after your current raffle is over you can keep the folks on your list primed for your next one! Not every week of course but every couple a months a little update email like “Next years raffle prize has been chosen and here it is!” or “With all the money we raised on our last raffle we did A, B, C and D. We look forward to your support on the next one.” or whatever. Then as your next raffle begins you’ve got all the people on your list ready to go!

Stop trying to get a whole new batch of ticket buyers every year. Start using a service like Aweber.com, get a list going and sell more tickets with a bit less effort! Thanks for reading and best of luck!