Once you’ve decided that you’re going to host an online charity auction, you need to come up with a plan to market and promote it. This is crucial as it will help you to raise more funds and drive more people to your auction. 

With live auctions, you know that you have an engaged audience who are just waiting to make their bids. But, with online auctions, it can be harder to keep people as interested. So you need to do more than simply create your online auction page and link it on your website.

With an online charity auction, you really need to up your game and change your standard strategies. So without further ado, here are 8 top tips to promote your online auction.

1. Market Your Auction Through Your Existing Channels

First things first, you should always market your online charity auctions through your organization's existing channels. This includes posting it on your website, social media profiles and sending out an email announcement to your email list of donors and supporters. 

Doing this will alert people who are already interested in your organization’s cause. These could be past donors, volunteers, or simply people who believe in what you’re doing. Thus, there will likely be a good number of people who will be interested in participating in your online charity auction. 

2. Social Media Campaigns

Almost everyone uses at least one social media platform. So, it is essential that you take advantage of advertising on various platforms to reach more people. You can target people based on their interests or demographics so that you can easily market to your target audience and drive them to your online auction. 

You should start running your social media campaigns a few weeks in advance to garner some suspense and give people enough time to prepare. If you want to preview your auction items, this gives interested bidders time to peruse your selection and decide what they want to bid on. 

Alongside the professional-looking pictures you use for your campaign, you should also include a link for people to register for your online auction. This makes it easier for them to sign up to take part in your online charity auction and they won’t have to go and find the form somewhere on your website. 

3. Create A Facebook Event For Your Online Auction

Creating a Facebook event page for your online charity auction is not only a good way to see how many people might be interested in participating, but you can use it to post updates. 

This way, once someone has clicked that they are attending or are interested in attending your online auction, they will automatically receive notifications about it. These notifications could include reminders and previews of auction items to keep people interested. 

Make sure to insert the link to your online auction in the location section of the Facebook event or somewhere else that is easy for people to find. Facebook will notify people when your auction goes live and then they can easily click through and start bidding! 

4. Get Your Supporters Involved 

Another good tactic is to get some help from your supporters. Asking people to share a post about your online charity auction with a direct link to your site is a great way to reach more people. If you manage to get a share from an influencer within your community, it can make a world of difference!

By asking people to share, you can quickly turn one supporter into a hundred as it can substantially broaden your reach. 

5. Focus On Twitter Outreach

Marketing your online charity auction with social media campaigns is different from an outreach campaign. Twitter is a great place to reach out to your bigger supporters, local influencers, and well-known voices within your industry. Simply asking them to retweet a post about your online auction can help engage and drive their audiences to your event. 

6. Provide An Incentive

Everyone likes a freebie or to win a prize. So, providing an incentive could help attract more people to your online charity auction. When doing this, it’s important to consider what your donors and target audience would respond best to.

For example, you could give out a gift card or coupon for a local brand to the first five bidders on a specific item. Alternatively, you could set a low starting bid for one or two of your auction items so that people will see a better deal and start to bid. 

These incentives are entirely budget dependent. But, just spending a little extra on a gift card for a lucky bidder can help encourage more people to bid and ultimately raise more funds for your nonprofit. 

7. Create Posts For Each Auction Item

Creating specific posts about each auction item is a great way to get people’s attention. It gives potential bidders a sneak peek at what they could get if they participate in your online charity auction. By taking creative photographs, you can pique curiosity and create some suspense. 

For example, post some pictures of the corners or edges of your items, or give some hints if you have items like getaway packages or activities on offer. Then, once someone clicks on the link, it takes them to your auction page where it reveals the item and provides more details. 

This is a great way to get more people to click through to your auction page. Not only this but once there, they’re bound to start browsing through your other items. 

8. Partner With Another Charity Or Nonprofit Organization

Lastly, partnering with another charity or nonprofit organization can be mutually beneficial. If both you and another organization donate some items and then split the funds raised, you can both end up making more than if you were to host individual auctions. This is because you can double your audience, which will result in more bids. 

The Bottom Line

Hosting an online charity auction is an effective and efficient method of raising funds - when done right. Follow all these tips to make sure that your next online auction is a success!