3 Low Hanging Fruit Tactics that Grow Catalog Sales

Simple ways to raise more money.

Regarding the general meaning, most people know what we mean by ‘low-hanging fruit’. Regarding school fundraising, there are ways to grow catalog sales by employing strategies that will cost the sponsor little to no money. And who doesn’t want free money? Because that’s essentially what we’re talking about here.

There are two types of sponsors. One type looks for the easy road or the next best idea. They long for the wonder product that everyone will be eager to buy without having to invest much effort into promoting their fundraiser. And yes, plenty of school fundraising companies tell you they have it.

Congratulations if you happen to find that miracle product that sells itself. However, for the sponsor who understands that to succeed, there will be some promotional work involved, the following low-hanging fruits are for you.

1. Incorporate No-Cost Fundraising Incentives

You don’t always have to spend money on extra prizes to grow catalog sales. Pizza parties and top-seller prizes are great, but you can reward students with special privileges if your budget doesn’t allow for these things. For example, one great idea that many of our schools use is our prize drawing game. Every time students sell five items, they get to turn in a prize coupon for a chance to:

• Be the ‘Line Leader’ for the day
• Get a ‘No Homework Pass’
• Earn a ‘Sit Where You Want’ Pass
• Be the ‘Door Monitor’ for the Day
• ‘Extra Recess Time’ Pass

The key is to understand what motivates your students to sell. Notice that these are just a few ideas. You can probably come up with many more unique to your school. The great thing about special privileges is that they can reinforce positive academic goals, like a ‘Free Library Pass’.

2. Encourage and Promote Team Selling

By team selling, we’re referring to regularly reminding students to ask their parents to become involved in selling. If you want to grow catalog sales, this is probably the most significant way to help your students raise more money.

3. Get the School Staff Involved

Another idea worth considering is to arrange to have your teachers collect your prize drawing coupons. Ask them to place them in a hat, randomly pick one name, and agree to purchase that student.

Then, reward the teacher who collects and turns in the most coupons on random days by covering their playground duty time, for example.

Another great idea is to convince the principal to do something fun or crazy if the school reaches its fundraising goal. You might ask them to:

• Dye their hair
• Wear their pajamas to school
• Pie in the face

Consider having your students vote on what they’d like to see the principal do from a short list of options.

See our brochure fundraisers.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.