- Have a Plan - A good plan will help you to understand your audience - who are they, and and what do you know about them? How do you get their attention, what they are interested in, and what motivates them to buy? Understand what else is vying for their attention (other events?) and use all this wonderful information to craft a compelling story about your organization and why their support can make a difference. Work a calendar into this plan that lays out the key points at which you’ll promote the event, where and what those messages will be. Ideally you’d like 6 months, with cycles of promotion around key milestones (Save the Date! or 100 days to go!) and events (Launch of the online catalog! Early Bird Special Ending!)
- It (Just) Takes Two - While it’s tempting to think that simply launching your online catalog will spark a bidding frenzy, sometimes you need to tempt specific people with specific items. Remember, it only takes two bidders to drive the price up, so get your committee around the guest list and identify potential bidders and strategize on how to reach them.
- Strategic Social Media - Online communities like Facebook can be fantastic channels for promoting your event, but to really be successful they require a large and engaged audience. If you can, invest some time in cultivating this audience, then reach out to them with targeted messages about your most exciting items, your key partnerships and sponsors, clever connections to your event (news, holidays, celebrities) and most importantly your cause. Creating an event page will help to organize your event info so that it doesn’t get lost in the general feed; invite your guests to engage with the event and tell others they are going! Above all, allocate resource to manage it and engage back with your guests who make the time to engage with you.
- Newsletters - Consider
- Personal approach - from your committee, auction chair, through