5 Top Tips for Increasing Ticket Sales and Engaging Donors

Posted by Jordan Morris on 9 August 2024

The Problem:

Event ticketing is a tried, tested, and trusted source of income for fundraisers, but it can be cumbersome. Many small and medium-sized nonprofits rely on paper tickets and offline tracking of sales, guest data, and revenue. This entails a heavy administrative burden, often straining fundraisers as they try to maximize their already limited time. Sadly, when ticketing becomes a worry, its true potential as a tool to engage donors is lost.

The following five top tips are designed to help you remove the stress from ticketing, ensure high sales, and keep donors engaged.

1. Keep Ticketing Simple:
Donors consistently tell us that if the process is simple and easy, they’re more likely to give. For fundraisers, this means providing the option to buy tickets where the donors are. If donors can buy tickets with just a tap of a button on their phone while relaxing at home, nonprofits instantly increase their chances of connecting with a broader audience.

However, using an online ticket provider, although easier for the donor, does not guarantee simplicity for your organization. If one event is managed by multiple fundraising platforms, there could still be added administrative stress and complexity in managing data from separate sources. One event requires one holistic fundraising platform. By using such a platform, you guarantee continuity and the seamless transfer of data from the donor through to your event management system. No more paper trails, no more repetition.

2. Be Flexible with Ticket Options:

Providing an array of ticket types increases accessibility at events and broadens the range of income streams available to you as a fundraiser. With a smart ticketing platform, you could sell single or table tickets to an event or offer sponsorship packages at different price points for different levels of donors. Strategically thinking about the levels of packages you offer can increase intrigue from guests. For example, a gold-tier sponsorship may appeal to corporate guests whose reputation is paramount, resulting in your organization receiving an upgraded donation.

Alternatively, including a promotional code for special discounts or group bookings could boost sales for those who want to attend but have stricter budgetary concerns. The key is to give your donors options. Online ticketing is a simple way to add more choices without creating a stressful additional workload.

3. Keep Guests Informed:

With traditional paper tickets, the possibilities of engaging your donor before or beyond the act of buying the ticket are limited. However, with an integrated online platform, engagement can easily continue through the use of automated messages. Keeping guests in the loop by scheduling email or SMS updates about the event involves them throughout the campaign journey. It also increases the opportunity for guests to share information about your event effortlessly across their social channels. The more chances you give your guests to talk about the event, the more they will. A smart online ticketing solution can be the gateway to connectivity and shareability, helping you increase sales in the process.

Finally, automated messaging functionality ensures your guests’ journey doesn’t end at the event. Send them thank-you notes or even nudge them towards your next campaign to help keep your organization in their thoughts. These little bonuses, only available when the ticketing process goes digital, make a big difference when looking to grow engagement over time.

4. Strong Branding:

Reading this far, you may have gathered that we think the ticket can be so much more than something just thrown away after use. It’s a door to donor insights and one of the crucial first steps on a donor’s journey with your organization. So, the ticket should look the part. Brand them strongly so that they are easily identifiable with the themes of your event, aiming to excite donors for the day itself. If you’re looking for an additional revenue stream, provide space for sponsors to include their logos.

The trick is to keep the theme of your imagery and messaging consistent to create an identifiable identity for your event in the mind of the donor. This can, and should, begin with the ticket.

5. Know the Donor:

When using a smart ticketing platform, it’s possible to gain more valuable insights than would otherwise be possible through traditional methods. Gain necessary information on the purchaser and the guests they’re purchasing for by asking customizable questions during the ticket-buying process. Then use this information to inform your event and how best to cater to your donors’ needs. Again, if you use a complete platform, digital ticketing allows for the automatic syncing of data to your event management system, so the extra data comes with less administration.

Knowing the donor as well as possible means you increase the likelihood of meeting their expectations on the night and convincing them to give. The devil is in the data!

Find Out More:

The Givergy platform helped nonprofits raise over $33 million in ticket sales alone in 2023. That meant an incredible 200 tickets were sold every single day through the Givergy fundraising platform. Find out how you could raise more from your ticketing here.

Jordan Morris

Givergy

Jordan joined Givergy after studying Politics with International Relations at the University of York. He has over two years experience within the charity sector working as a face-to-face fundraiser and as a constituency campaigner. After experiencing the sector from within and knowing first-hand the impact digital solutions can make to fundraising strategies, Jordan is now dedicated to innovating the way charities fundraise to ensure they maximise returns from every fundraising campaign.