Home > Blog > Silent Auctions > Drive Up Bidding With The Lucky Line
Hello, my Fabulous Fundraisers!
Today, I’m going share an easy way to incentivize bidding in your Silent Auction.
Are you feeling Lucky?
This quick strategy will entice your bidders to skip a few lines on the bid sheets and stretch their bids.
There are lots of factors to increase bidding in a silent auction, but today we are going to look at a specific way to incentivize your bidders to skip a few lines and give a generous bid on that item they want at the top of the night driving up revenue on your silent auction.
Here’s how The Lucky Line works.
If you are a bidder, and you bid on the Lucky Line of any silent item’s bid sheet, you get entered into a drawing to win a fabulous prize.
Prior to your auction, you need to take a peek at all your silent auction bid sheets and identify what line you want to highlight as the LUCKY LINE.
The key with the lucky line is that your bidders should be stretching to increase the bids over last year increasing your Return on Investment.
Now, some groups just go universally for the 7th line and call this Lucky Line 7.
If you are short on time, this may be the preferred option.
Some folks randomly use a green highlighter on a line and refer to this as the Green Line while others put a gold or silver star next to a line and call this the Bid on a star.
Whatever your choice, let me offer you some strategy.
When selecting your lucky line, look at the item and the history of the bidding on this item or type of item.
If historically it sells well, place the Lucky Line at a higher bid amount.
If it hasn’t performed well in the past, and you’ve opted to keep this item in your auction, place the lucky line strategically to increase revenue, one or two bid lines higher than where it sold in previous years.
If you have a seriously popular item, let the Lucky line be at the Buy-It-Now option.
Remember: the goal is to drive up your overall revenue on the Silent Auction, so place your lucky line strategically on each item.
Now I mentioned there was an INCENTIVE for bidding on the lucky line.
YES.
Every bid sheet that has a bidder on the lucky line will be entered into a drawing to win some fabulous item.
A vacation to the beach?
A special pampering package?
Or it could be a credit for up to $200 on Silent Auction purchases.
You get to be creative on what your prize will be.
When it’s time to select your winner, there is no need to write down all the numbers and draw from a bowl.
In an effort to keep your night moving along smoothly, take all your bid sheets with a lucky line bid, and fan them out allowing a volunteer to select a bid sheet.
This is your winner.
You can tell your auctioneer who won before the auction starts, and they can award the prize at your desired time in your program.
Now, let’s go raise some money!!
