Fundraising Auction Tip: You should always provide potential bidders with a printed Auction Listing of both your Live and Silent Auction items at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is vital for several reasons:

An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order of sale, and what is coming up next. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will simply not bid.

If bidders are not 100% certain of what they are bidding on, they will not bid. A printed Auction Listing should answer any and all questions about what is being sold in order to encourage bidders to bid as much as possible.

Bidders often need time to plan their bidding strategies, especially on multiple and/or larger value items. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Couples often need time to consult with each other about what they are willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Potential bidders need to know the specifics, the benefits, and the restrictions on any item they are going to bid on, especially on travel and/or other higher value items. A printed Auction Listing should answer all of their questions, in writing.

After bidders see that they have lost an item to another bidder, a printed Auction Listing makes it easier for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings generally come in 3 forms:

Printed in the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-inserted into the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-delivered to all attendees, or left on each dinner table in the room.
Auction Listings cost practically nothing to produce and they can make the difference between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You should never conduct a Fundraising Auction without one.

A Case Study

Let me share a real-life experience with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally renowned organization. The event was held in a major hotel, in one of the country’s largest cities, with several hundred “black tie” participants attending. It was an extremely professional event, with the music, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all perfectly timed and choreographed. Everything was done to perfection… exception the Fundraising Auction.

Although I had signed an agreement to serve as their Auctioneer nearly one year in advance of the event, no one bothered to contact me for any advice or help. Approximately one week prior to the Auction date, I contacted the group to see if they had replaced me with another Auctioneer. But they said that I was still their man.

Upon arriving at the event I asked for a copy of the Auction Listing. I was told that there were none. I’m not sure whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether someone forgot to have them printed. This was never made clear. When I asked what I was to use at the podium, I was told to copy the list of Live Auction items from a committee member’s computer. It took me about 30 minutes to copy three pages of hand-written notes in order to prepare for my role as their Auctioneer.

I knew that they had created a PowerPoint program showing the various Live Auction items. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s computer, I was met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and returned to let me know that the slide order did not correspond my notes, and he provided me with the correct slide order… hand-written on a paper napkin. This forced me to re-arrange my three pages of hand-written notes before taking the podium.

There was a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that were to be sold, but the table was not clearly marked, and it received significantly less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which were clearly identified. Since the Live Auction Table was located adjacent to the “Raffle Table”, it appeared that most people thought it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.

According to the event program (which did not include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I was to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the start of the Live Auction to the several hundred people in attendance, and introduced me as Auctioneer. As I approached the podium I realized that photographs of award winners were still being taken… directly in front of the podium where I was to stand… which required me to stand aside for several minutes until the photographers were done. Can we say “awkward moment”?

As the photographers cleared, I approached the podium and began my Live Auction introduction. Approximately one minute into my introduction, the “Raffle Committee” approached the podium and stopped my Live Auction Introduction in order to pull the 8 or 9 Raffle Winners. These drawings lasted about 5 minutes. Upon it’s conclusion I was allowed to resume the start of the Live Auction.

When standing at the podium two intense and extremely bright spotlights were pointed directly at the podium. The lights were so bright that I literally could not see the center 1/3 of the room. I could see the tables on the right, and on the left, but was totally blinded when looking straight ahead. It took perhaps five minutes before the spotlights were turned off.

While at the podium and describing Lot #1, I had to ask someone to start the Lot #1 PowerPoint Slide… because apparently no one was assigned that job.

So with only the Auctioneer’s verbal description, and a PowerPoint slide, it appeared that few people in the room had any idea about what we were selling… or when we were selling it… until it was announced by the Auctioneer. As a result, bidding was extremely light and the final results fell several thousands of dollars short of where they should have been
The learning experience is this:

The Live Auction is where you place your better items, and where the real money should be made at any Fundraising Auction. Let bidders know as far in advance as possible what you will be selling, and the order of sale, so they can get excited about the Auction, and plan their bidding strategy accordingly.

Auction Listings are absolutely vital to the success of both Live & Silent Auctions. In my opinion, revenues at this Auction fell thousands of dollars short of where they should have been, because no Auction Listing was provided to the guests.

If bidders are not perfectly clear on what is being sold, including both the item’s specifics, benefits, and restrictions, they will not bid.

When you have a committee of volunteers, especially volunteers having full time jobs and/or very busy schedules, the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can help to keep the committee on track.

And once you retain the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer… use the services that you are paying for.

In this short article we will be covering the following FAQs about Pay Per Click Advertising:

1. What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
2. Why do Businesses Choose this form of advertising?
3. What are the Benefits?

1. What is it?

Pay Per Click Advertising is an online form of advertising offered by a variety of networks and search engines, including Google AdWords. Every advertiser has the opportunity to create their own advertisements and set how much money they are willing to invest every day.

If you are advertising via Google AdWords, the advertisements are listed on the Google SERP whenever someone enters a search term (a keyword) that is relevant to your advertisement. The more you pay or the better optimized your advertisement and website, the higher up the Google SERP you will climb.

If someone clicks on your advertisement, Google will then charge you the price that you have previously agreed to through your Google AdWords Management Account. This is why it is called Pay Per Click Advertising… you pay every time an internet user clicks.

2. Why do Businesses Choose this form of advertising?

What makes Pay Per Click such a good choice of online advertising for both small and large businesses? Why do so many people now market their businesses in this way? There are three main reasons why and they are listed below:

1. It costs very little to begin: You don’t have to invest a huge amount of money to begin advertising, which means that it is an accessible form of marketing for all businesses, large and small.

2. You can monitor everything: At the click of a mouse, you can see all the action of your advertising campaign online and you can look at the developments/trends of your marketing over time.

3. Global Audience: Pay Per Click is the best way of reaching a global audience and even if your business is not a particularly large one, you might want to target an audience in another country or continent, which this form of marketing allows you to do with ease.

3. What are the Benefits?

When any business considers any kind of advertising campaign, it needs to weigh up the benefits to be had from the advertising against the work, time and money that the advertising strategy would require to get going.

Pay Per Click is full of benefits. It is one of the best forms of online advertising for achieving a healthy ROI and this is why so many people are now investing in networks such as Google AdWords.

But what are the Best Benefits for small and large businesses alike?

1. Immediate Results: If you invest enough money and if you optimize your campaigns well, you can have instant results and your business can soar to the top of the SERP within minutes.

2. Audience Targeting Tools: If you run your advertising through networks such as Google AdWords, you can target your audience by indicating the world location of your audience, the language that they speak and the keywords that they like to use regularly.

3. Low Risk: If you set up a daily budget on your campaign, then you know that you are not risking anything. You advertise within your means and you enjoy the results without financial worry.

4. Monitoring and Evaluating Tools: There are hundreds of different marketing tools to help advertisers monitor and evaluate the progress of their campaigns. These tools help advertisers to improve their campaigns and get more out of their online advertising.

For more of the best ways to get the most out of your advertising and ensure that all of these benefits start working for you as quickly as possible, contact a Pay Per Click Advertising Company and ask them about managing your campaign for you.

Webrageous Studios is a highly experienced, fully qualified Pay Per Click Management Company with plenty of success stories to its name. It would be a good place to start your online advertising venture with them.