Relating to key fundraising occasions to your nonprofit, auctions is usually a extremely efficient avenue for rising donations to your trigger. Nevertheless, when embarking on an auction-planning journey, it helps to have steering to get began. Karrie Wozniak, CMO at OneCause, outlines six important ideas on this article. Karrie has greater than twenty years of expertise in advertising and fervour for serving to nonprofits broaden their attain, main business analysis, advertising technique, and fundraising consulting initiative.
Planning an public sale occasion is usually a huge enterprise. Taking an public sale hybrid can imply even extra shifting items to handle.
But reworking your conventional silent public sale fundraiser to include each digital and in-person engagement opens your occasion as much as elevated accessibility and comfort for company. If deliberate nicely, this may carry elevated income and deepened donor relationships to your group.
A hybrid silent public sale usually includes on-line, real-time bidding performance in-person from a specified venue in addition to for distant contributors. It’s a bit extra logistically sophisticated than a totally in-person or digital public sale, so success will hinge on cautious planning.
If hybrid auctions are a brand new enterprise to your staff, we’ve put collectively this fast information to assist inform your planning technique. For one of the best outcomes, bear in mind these tried-and-true, research-backed ideas:
- Put money into highly effective public sale software program.
- Make it mobile-friendly.
- Guarantee your occasion displays your mission.
- Don’t overlook about occasion promotion.
- Goal two distinct occasion audiences.
- Accumulate and leverage your public sale knowledge.
Able to dive into every of those finest practices and discover out extra about planning a profitable hybrid silent public sale to your trigger? Let’s get began.
1. Put money into highly effective public sale software program.
Hybrid auctions, by their very nature, rely extra on expertise than a conventional in-person public sale does. Because of this, investing in the suitable instruments to handle your bidding experiences is extra essential than ever—for each the company who take part and the staff behind the scenes. Let’s take a better take a look at every:
- For company: The 2021 OneCause Giving Expertise Examine reported ease of use because the #1 motivator and engagement driver for digital and hybrid experiences. When there aren’t any roadblocks within the giving, bidding, stay streaming, or different participation processes, occasion attendees will likely be extra prone to contribute extra to your group.
- For employees: Having a strong occasion planning resolution permits employees members to handle each side of your public sale from begin to end with as little issue as doable. Know-how can assist handle merchandise procurement, registration, bidding, and check-out processes, saving your staff beneficial time and sources to reinvest in constructing relationships with donors.
Fortunately, the suitable silent public sale software program can play a major function in streamlining each visitor and employees experiences and offering a optimistic consumer expertise for everybody concerned. This manner, no matter whether or not attendees take part on-site or from afar, they’ll expertise an organized and cohesive public sale occasion and assist the mission they care about with ease.
2. Make it mobile-friendly.
In line with fundraising statistics from 360MatchPro, greater than 50% of all nonprofit web site visitors final yr got here from cell and pill customers. Which means it’s of utmost significance that you just prioritize the cell expertise to your company. When planning your occasion, listed here are just a few key features to think about:
- Enable company to register and bid from cell gadgets. Step one in rising supporter engagement in your public sale is to get company registered within the first place. Then comes the precise bidding. In each instances, it’s very important that company have full performance to your public sale platform from their cell gadget, permitting them to register, buy tickets, make bids and donations, and take a look at from whichever gadget they select.
- Ship real-time outbid notifications. You’ll be able to’t at all times depend on bidders to be glued to their cell gadgets throughout your public sale, anxiously ready to see in the event that they’ve been outbid. However by sending real-time notifications to contributors’ cell gadgets, you’ll be able to recapture their consideration and encourage them to up their bids to win the merchandise.
- Routinely resize content material to suit smaller screens. Simply because your internet content material masses on a cell gadget doesn’t imply it’s mobile-optimized. As a substitute, make sure your textual content, pictures, and interactive content material routinely resizes to suit the usually portrait-mode orientation of a smartphone, free from useless zooming and horizontal scrolling. Circumvent this challenge fully through the use of bidding software program that’s constructed particularly for cell use, whether or not on-site or distant.
Offering a mobile-friendly consumer expertise is vital for maximizing engagement. In any other case, you threat lacking out on a good portion of your supporter base just because your hybrid expertise was not accessible.
3. Guarantee your occasion displays your mission.
Past ease of use, the 2 subsequent two vital engagement motivators uncovered in our Giving Expertise Examine have been a connection to the mission and an understanding of the affect of every donation. With a purpose to maximize these parts, you’ll want to constantly reiterate how your occasion and the income raised will go to assist your nonprofit’s mission.
Take into account the next finest practices for constructing “mission moments” into your hybrid public sale:
- Select a related occasion theme. Setting a theme is an effective way to extend participation and reiterate the which means behind the occasion. Plus, our research discovered that 59% of donors reported occasion themes to be a extremely participating aspect of hybrid occasion experiences they’ve attended.
- Inform constituent tales. Among the best methods for supporters to actually perceive the significance of your mission is by listening to it from those that have straight benefited from it. With their permission, take into account sharing actual tales of constituents and the way they have been positively impacted. You’ll be able to even carry constituents in to inform their story in their very own phrases at your public sale occasion!
- Tie income to concrete impacts. As a result of donors prefer to know the way their hard-earned cash is getting used, it’s a good suggestion to spotlight giving tiers to raised talk affect. For instance, take into account sharing metrics like $X raised goes to assist Y variety of beneficiaries in a selected manner.
It’s essential to repeatedly remind company that they’re collaborating in your occasion to assist your nonprofit and its imaginative and prescient for social good. It’s not only a enjoyable night time out or a strategy to win unique prizes—though these are definitely glorious advantages of a fundraising public sale as nicely.
When attendees perceive the affect that their contributions make in your mission, they’ll be extra prone to assist your group by giving nicely above the truthful market worth for the gadgets up for bid or by making donations outright.
4. Don’t overlook about occasion promotion.
With a purpose to guarantee an efficient occasion with excessive turnout, taking a strategic method to occasion promotion is a should. We advise a multichannel advertising technique with the next key strategies of communication:
- Junk mail: Sending bodily invites through junk mail can seize supporters’ consideration and improve pleasure to your upcoming occasion. As a result of junk mail is likely one of the extra expensive promotional techniques, take into account reserving this methodology for participating with high-value donors and historic occasion attendees.
- E-mail: E-mail is likely one of the best and lowest price methods to get a message out to a variety of supporters. To verify your message stands out in recipients’ already crowded inboxes, nonetheless, you’ll want to select an attention grabbing topic line and deal with the reader by title.
- Social media: Your group’s social media presence can go a good distance for selling your occasion and boosting attendee engagement beforehand. Make sure you share info on platforms like Fb, Twitter, and Instagram, and encourage supporters to work together with and share your posts as nicely!
- Internet presence: Your nonprofit web site is probably going the hub for all kinds of details about your upcoming public sale, together with the best way to be taught extra or register for the occasion. Use this invaluable useful resource nicely by directing visitors to a devoted occasion internet web page or digital occasion heart out of your different advertising channels.
It’s essential that you just don’t go away occasion advertising as an afterthought! Get began early on within the planning course of to make sure your supporters are conscious of the upcoming alternative in addition to perceive what a hybrid public sale is, the best way to become involved, and all that it entails.
You’ll additionally wish to decide the way you’ll deal with the 2 audiences of digital and in-person attendees. Will you promote one expertise to sure kinds of donors extra closely? How will you clarify the digital bidding course of in order that even the least tech-savvy supporter can take part? Answering these questions beforehand can go a protracted strategy to guaranteeing a seamless and well-thought-out expertise for every group.
5. Goal two distinct occasion audiences.
Planning a hybrid occasion includes juggling plenty of shifting items. Particularly, you’ll want to include two twin experiences, concentrating on two totally different audiences, inside a single coherent occasion.
To take action, it’s essential that you just take the time to plan for every expertise primarily based on what that individual viewers is thinking about. For instance, donors have reported that sure parts are rather more participating throughout digital occasions than others. These elements are inclined to cater nicely to digital and distant audiences:
- Cell-optimized occasion platforms
- Image-in-picture expertise
- Reside-streamed content material
- Actual-time chat breakout rooms
- One-click donations
However, these parts have been favorites for participating face-to-face audiences:
- Occasion themes
- Chatting with different company
- In-person audio system
- Reside leisure
Different parts like raffles, public sale bidding, matching presents, and on-line promotion beforehand will likely be skilled by each distant and in-person occasion audiences. Whatever the elements you incorporate into your plans, you’ll want to take into account the way in which your varied teams of supporters will work together with every. And bear in mind—nobody viewers is extra essential than the opposite!
6. Accumulate and leverage your public sale knowledge.
Monitoring your occasion efficiency via fundraising knowledge is an impactful strategy to find out about what works nicely together with what leaves room for enchancment. For those who’re in search of key efficiency indicators (or KPIs) to trace for a hybrid public sale, take into account the next knowledge factors:
- Share of attendees who interact in-person vs. on-line
- Common bid measurement
- Extra donations past ticket gross sales and bids
- Variety of bids on every merchandise
- Common time attendees spent collaborating
- Occasion ROI (return on funding)
To take advantage of out of your occasion knowledge, you’ll want to decide which KPIs to trace early on within the planning course of and sustain together with your progress all through. Then, check out your outcomes by analyzing public sale knowledge and seeing what you are able to do higher the following time you propose an occasion.
To get began planning a hybrid public sale, it’s essential that you just do your analysis and equip your staff with the instruments they want beforehand. Then, you’ll be able to get into the small print and launch a fascinating expertise for all attendees, each in-person and distant.
Once you supply a hybrid occasion like a silent public sale, you’ll be able to improve engagement and deepen relationships with donors, laying the groundwork for steady assist, bigger presents, and much more profitable and accessible occasions sooner or later. Blissful fundraising!