6 Marketing Tips to Ensure a Successful Online Auction

Creating and managing an online auction is an easy way to improve your fundraising. Compared to organizing and running an in-person event, an online auction takes significantly less time and can help you maximize your efforts.

When you’re doing a fundraiser, every dollar you have to spend on renting venues, buying table decorations, and food cuts into the amount of money you can use to serve your charitable mission. With a real-time online auction, these costs are gone. Using the right online auction software, so much of the stress of fundraising is gone, too.

Without any further ado, here are our six marketing tips for marketing online auctions:

1. Quality Auction Items

When it comes to getting people excited about your online auction, you need great auction items to draw them in. The better your auction items, the better your fundraising will be.

In the eCommerce world, organizations create buyer personas to understand what types of items will appeal to buyers. You can analyze your nonprofit’s database to gain insight into your donor base and think about the types of auction items that would appeal to them but make sure the items will inspire people to bid.

What works best? Autographed music and sports memorabilia, home accessories, fine dining and restaurant certificates, spa/self care, travel, and unique event experiences typically provide the highest return above fair market value in online auctions.

You should also keep in mind that since anyone can bid in an online auction, your items can appeal to a broader segment of the population than just local donors.

2. Strong Imagery and Descriptions

Here’s another place where you can take a cue from the eCommerce world. You need to make sure the images and descriptions you use show your items in the best possible light. The more appealing you can make it, the more likely someone will want to bid.

They will also help when you’re marketing your online auction on social media or asking volunteers to share. These images can catch people’s attention and encourage them to participate.

3. Engage Your Donor Base

Use every available tool at your disposal to get the word out. Encourage board members, volunteers, family, friends, and donors to leverage their social and email networks to let people know about your online auction. This can grow your base significantly and it’s free.

You should also encourage local businesses that donated items for the online auction to let their customers know as well. They’ll get some credit for supporting your nonprofit and can help tap into their customer base to participate.

4. Leverage Social Media

Use a mix of content across platforms. As social media algorithms search for the most relevant content for their users, it considers the type of content that people have clicked on in the past. Some people click on videos while others are more likely to click on text and images. Use a mixture of posts.

Each platform has idiosyncrasies. Facebook users typically respond better to video posts. Instagram users like high-resolution photos. Twitter users click most often on text with images. Pinterest users prefer images and infographics.

For online auctions, it’s easy to showcase different products that will be featured in separate posts or a slideshow. You might want to use a fact or two about your mission and then encourage people to bid. You can record a short video version or a live video walkthrough of your auction site.

One emerging trend on social media is Stories. Half a billion people use Instagram Stories daily, and Facebook’s version isn’t far behind. These appear on a bar right at the top of your feed, so they are highly visible. You can add stickers, overlays, and polls. One effective online auction marketing strategy is to add a countdown sticker that updates automatically to create a sense of urgency. You can use this leading up to the event and to let people know how much time is left to participate.

5. Communicate Early and Often

Less is more does not apply here! Email your database beforehand to build interest, during the auction to keep them engaged, and as your auction is wrapping up to drive urgency. Once underway, multiple emails over the final 24 to 48 hours can help drive bidding higher.

Post top-performing items on social media and remember to talk not just about the item, but how taking part in the online auction supports your mission.

6. Effective Storytelling

There’s one thread that should run through everything you do: storytelling.

Let’s say you’re running an online auction for a charity that supports guide dogs for the blind. An effective strategy would be to showcase people receiving the dogs and let them tell the story of how it changed their life. This can create a powerful emotional connection that reaches a passionate donor base. It’s likely to get shared on social media by your ambassadors as well.

If you’re auctioning sports memorabilia, showing a short video clip or image about a famous moment in sports history that’s tied to your items can evoke a visceral response.

While we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, we make purchase decisions based on emotion. Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious. When you’re trying to get people to participate in your online auction, it’s most effective to target the subconscious mind by triggering an emotional response.

For example, an auction item for a trip to Hawaii using a picture of happy people relaxing on the beach is better than a picture of the gift certificate or logo of the travel agency that donated the trip.

Online Auction Marketing Strategies

When it comes to online auction marketing strategies, there’s no “one size fits all” approach. However, following these six marketing tips can help spread the word, make an emotional connection with your target audience, and create a sense of urgency to participate.

BetterWorld is a free online platform for nonprofits that makes fundraising easier. You can quickly create auction sites and manage your online auctions. There’s no coding involved. You can have an auction up and running in just 60 seconds and add as many items as you want. We also support giveaways, crowdfunding, ticketing, and donations. Our platform of tools is interconnected so can create a more seamless donor experience.

Go to BetterWorld and learn more about creating real-time auctions. And yes, we provide 100% free lifetime access to all our fundraising tools for nonprofits.