How to Market Your School Fundraiser

School fundraising marketing tips

If you want to market your school fundraiser successfully, you'll need to tell as many people about it as possible. If you only rely on the initial enthusiasm of your students to drive your sale, you may end up being disappointed with the outcome.

But if your goal is to push for fewer but more effective sales events this school year, you should make every attempt to get the most out of your next campaign as possible.

Here are some marketing ideas that will help you meet or even surpass your projected sales goals:

Presale Fundraiser Marketing

Why attempt to tell people about your sale before it happens? It's to get your students excited and to make parents aware of what to expect. There are several things you can do to announce your kickoff in advance, like:

• Sending home notices to parents. You can let them know what they'll be selling, something about the prize program as well as the purpose for the sale.
• Announce your fundraiser on Facebook and Twitter. If your company has an online store, make sure to announce the link in your posts.
• Announce your upcoming sale during your morning announcements. Start building excitement with your students by mentioning some of the prizes they can win.
• Announce your kickoff date on your school marquee.
• Place promotional posters around your facility.
• If your company provides a promotional video, you can show that at your back to school night or first PTA meeting of the year.

By building up your fundraiser before your kickoff, you are turning your kickoff into an anticipated event.

In-Sale Promoting

Don’t think that your kickoff is going to be enough to keep your students interested. You have to promote your sale on a regular basis by:

• Talking about it during your morning announcements.
• Get creative by incorporating prize drawings where students can actually win prizes and special privileges during the sale.
• Send home sales reminders.
• Post updated information about your fundraiser daily on social media.
• Periodically show your promotional video to your students.
• Have an energetic volunteer dress up in a costume that's related to your purpose and interact with your students. For example, one of our schools that used our magic show as their prize program had members of their fundraising committee dress up in bunny costumes as they greeted students and collected their prize drawing coupons. The students loved it.

There are many other things you can do to maximize awareness and excitement. Your primary goal as you market your fundraiser is to maintain a high enthusiasm. The atmosphere you create will definitely bring in more sales.

For planning ideas for your next campaign, download our free fundraising tips eBook from our school fundraising tips page.

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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.