How To Boost Nonprofit Ticket Sales Online

You put so much time into dreaming, planning, and preparing for your supporters’ ideal online event. Make sure you understand how to maximize your ticket sales, so they don’t miss out on the high-impact event you have planned for them! 

We want to help you fill those seats and make a greater impact for good. Discover all the ways you can boost your nonprofit’s ticket sales online!

Ways To Sky-Rocket Your Ticket Sales

Be Intentional When Creating Your Nonprofit Event

Before you begin promoting your event page, make sure it’s an event YOU would like to attend as the event organizer. The best way to boost ticket sales is to create an event that will get your supporters excited to attend. 

You can do this by choosing a fun theme, inviting special guests and speakers, and offering exciting prizes and raffles (door prizes, drawings, auctions, etc.). 

It’s important to not only make it fun for your supporters, but make it relevant to your mission and what resonates most with your donor base. For example, a glow-in-the-dark 5k might sound fun to you personally, but a cooking competition would probably make even more sense for your food pantry’s supporters.

List Out All Of The Exciting Details

Make sure you effectively communicate why people will want to attend your event. Here’s how: Once you have your event planned, create a list of event highlights to reference in your event promotion. Having this listed out ahead of time will make everything else a lot easier!

Your team will feel more organized and your registrants will have a clear understanding of what they can expect from purchasing a ticket for your virtual event.

Create A Communication Calendar

Whether you’re doing a full-on campaign or just incorporating event promotion into your existing communication strategies, you will still want to plan out all of your event communication ahead of time. This way, you can sustainably build excitement and hype for your event!

Build momentum for your event by beginning promotion 6–8 weeks before your event day. Come up with different ways to frame your event and share details over time so supporters aren’t just hearing the exact same message over and over again.

Gather Your Advocates

To help spread the word, gather a formal or informal group of supporters. This can be a host committee (board members, major donors, staff) or just the people you know who are in your corner and rooting for your success. Either way, this group of World Changers’ primary role is to sell tickets and promote your event.

The key to success is defined goals and lots of support. Be sure to make it clear what you are asking for:

• How much you’re trying to raise
• How many tickets you’re trying to sell
• How many emails you’re asking them to send
• How many social media posts your asking them to share

Make it as easy as possible for your advocates by suggesting or even providing copy, graphics, contact ideas, talking points, and by setting up a meeting or training time to answer any questions they might have.

Market Across Channels

On average, it takes around 8 touch points with a potential buyer before they make a purchase. This isn’t true to everyone and every organization, but it’s a helpful metric to be aware of! 

With that in mind, you’ll want to use every channel of communication available to your organization to maximize your reach:

• Email blasts
• Direct mailings
• Newsletters
• Social media posts
• Community flyers
• Community calendars
• Press releases
• Website banners
• Text messages
• Phone calls

Appeal To Supporters

There are different communication techniques you can use to appeal to your donor base.

A few include:

• Fear of missing out (FOMO): “Special guest...can’t miss!”
• Sense of urgency: “Only a few days left to register!”
• Scarcity: “Seats are filling up fast; save your spot today!”

To make these messages even more compelling, share photos and videos from past events (if this is not your first year hosting this event) to remind people who attended last year how much fun it was. Plus, this will excite new attendees to want to join in on the fun!

Tier Your Event Ticket Prices

Create ticketing tiers to boost your event sales. This looks like offering different ticketing packages for different prices. The higher the price, the more goodies, benefits, and perks a purchaser will receive.

The best way to do this is to offer a compelling “deal” for attendees, where they can get more out of their top-tier ticket for not that much more money than the base-tier option.

For example, a base-tier ticket might be $25 and include entry,  whereas a top-tier ticket might be $40 but include entry plus a limited edition t-shirt. You’ll want to make sure they can see the benefits of the higher tiers before highlighting the higher costs.

Create A Seamless Checkout Experience To Buy Tickets

The quickest way to lose people during the checkout process for ticket purchasing is to put them through a slow, confusing, or clunky process. Checkout optimization can increase conversions by 35.62%.

Try these tips to create a more seamless checkout process:

• Minimize the amount of clicks it takes from beginning to end to make the process more user-friendly.
• Limit the amount of fields you’re requesting supporters to fill out to save time for supporters.
• Make sure it loads quickly (57% of shoppers will abandon if they have to wait three seconds for a page to load) and is mobile friendly (39% of mobile users abandoned their carts because of difficulty entering their personal information).
• Include easy access for supporters to check out with their bank accounts.

Ticket Sales, Your Way

Start selling tickets your way with Givecloud. With customizable registrations, you can configure your registration page exactly the way you need it. Add as many custom fields and headings as you need, and easily track inventory—no matter how complicated the event. We’ve got you covered.

Plus, with upsells and donations, you can leverage the shopping cart to increase your average order value and save on transaction fees. This includes multiple registrations on a single payment, and the ability to upsell donors on other items or fundraising appeals.

Say goodbye to complicated processes and hello to customized ticket sales with reporting, automated confirmations, and QR codes with Givecloud.