The more, the merrier. At least, that’s generally true when it comes to silent auction registrations. The more people register for your fundraiser, the more likely it is that every item in your silent auction will see bids that drive revenue and get people excited.
But learning how to promote a fundraiser to increase silent auction registrations isn’t always easy. Even if your event has fun, desirable items for attendees to bid on, connecting with your audience and getting them excited to register can be challenging.
At Bid Beacon, we’ve learned a few tips about getting people involved and promoting fundraisers to ensure you get the best silent auction registrations possible.
Why Are More Registrations Better for Your Fundraising Event?
Learning how to promote a fundraiser to get more silent auction registrations can be critical to the success of your fundraising event. To put it plainly, every silent auction needs to have people registered so they can place bids on auction items.
Even if a silent auction has a great assortment of exciting items, some may not receive bids if there aren’t enough people registered and attending. There’s a limit to how much any individual bidder is willing to spend and how many items they’ll be interested in.
With more silent auction registrations, your fundraising event will generate a competitive atmosphere that will bring out higher bids and more revenue for your fundraiser.
5 Effective Tips to Increase Fundraising Event Attendance
Getting more silent auction registrations means learning how to promote a fundraiser effectively, but there’s a lot more involved than fundraising marketing alone. These 5 tips to increase fundraising event attendance will set you on the path to event success.
1. Define Your Audience
Who are you looking to attract to your fundraising event? While you may be looking to boost your silent auction registrations, that may not always mean targeting the widest number of people possible. You want to connect with the right audience.
For example, for silent auctions that feature high-end, often expensive items available for bidding, it’s beneficial to focus on attracting people with higher disposable income.
There are a few key things to consider when you’re defining your audience and promoting your fundraiser to increase silent auction registrations:
- Demographics: Everything from age and gender to location matters as you plan your silent auction, as people from different demographics will be interested in specific types of items—as well as entertainment and activities if you’re hosting an in-person event.
- Interests and values: You’ll have more success boosting silent auction registrations if the money raised goes to causes your target audience supports. Knowing other events they enjoy and their preferred social media platforms can help you attract and connect with your audience.
2. Use a Mobile-Friendly Platform
Online silent auctions have rightfully gained more popularity in recent years, and with good reason. Organizations that use digital fundraising see a 12.7% increase in growth, and using a mobile-friendly platform like Bid Beacon will drive results.
It can also increase your fundraising event attendance in a tangible way.
Setting up a silent auction with Bid Beacon makes it easy to invite guests and promote a fundraiser in a couple of key ways:
- Easy Invitations: Importing your guest list and sending out an invitation ensures that everyone you want invited gets notified and feels welcome.
- Sharable Custom Link: A custom link is created so that you can invite guests to register early and check out items they can bid on through social media or your website.
- Global Participation: Even those who can’t attend an in-person event can still participate through mobile bidding. All items are displayed on the Bid Beacon app and can be bid on from anywhere.
- Custom QR Code: A custom QR code can be added to printed posters and other fundraiser marketing materials so people can easily register and browse items to bid on.
- Simple Social Media Sharing: Social media posts that directly link to items can be created and shared.
3. Have Items Ready to Browse Early
While your online silent auction may only run for a set amount of time, posting items for potential participants to browse before is a great way of boosting silent auction registrations.
With Bid Beacon, you can start promoting your auction and the items that will be available while you get the fundraiser set up. The platform will update in real time as more items get added, giving potential bidders a reason to check back again and again.
When people see items they really want, it naturally motivates them to participate, so posting items in advance is a great way to get more silent auction registrations.
4. Offer an Irresistible Event Experience
You want guests attending your event to have a great time. You also want them to look at what’s planned and say to themselves, “That’s an event I can’t miss.”
Once you know your target audience, consider what will appeal to them most as you think about how to get people involved. If it’s young professionals, will a golf tournament or outdoor activity like a fun run attached to your fundraiser help increase silent auction registration? If it’s families who comprise your target demographic, a kid-friendly event like a carnival night might be perfect for how to get people to participate.
By using a mobile bidding platform like Bid Beacon, your silent auction can run seamlessly with the rest of your fundraising event. There’s no waiting around bid sheets with mobile bidding. Instead, participants get notifications right to their phone when someone outbids them so they can enjoy the festivities at your fundraising event without stressing out about items they truly want.
5. Use Social Media
There are many ways to promote your fundraiser to increase silent auction registrations.
Whether it’s Facebook or TikTok, LinkedIn or Instagram, social media offers a wide range of options to get the word out about your fundraiser and start building excitement for your silent auction. Partnering with influencers can further expand the reach of your social media efforts and lead to more silent auction registrations, too.
Hashtags are a great way of getting people engaged, too, as they’re easily accessible on every social media platform, and other users can get in on the fun and promote your event themselves, which raises awareness among other groups of followers.
Bid Beacon makes using social media to promote your fundraiser easy, as you can share items and promote your online silent auction to social media directly through our app.
Bonus Tip: Use an Awareness Campaign
While social media is an incredible tool for driving silent auction registrations, it’s not the only tool available as you try to build awareness and figure out how to get people to attend an event.
Press releases can get the attention of local media, who are often eager to spread the word about great causes in the community, while radio ads and email marketing help drive silent auction registrations.
While it might sound small in scale compared to the reach of social media, printing out posters that promote your fundraiser can have a big impact. With Bid Beacon, you can even include a QR code on your posters so that anyone can visit your silent auction’s link and check out the details, as well as what items are available.
Potential bidders can’t attend your fundraising event if they don’t know about it, so anything that gets the word out to the people you’re looking to attend will have a positive impact on silent auction registrations.
Increase Silent Auction Registrations with Bid Beacon
Increasing silent auction registration is a priority for almost every fundraising event, and Bid Beacon can help you connect with the audience you’re looking for. To date, organizations that have used Bid Beacon have sold upwards of 143,000 items and raised over $30 million dollars.
Our online bidding platform will help you increase participation and makes promoting your fundraising event easy through email, social media, and more. To get started planning your fundraising event, contact us today.
