Carnival is one of the best and most fun ways to raise a significant amount of money for your school. Amount of work that goes into turning a carnival in the law, money making machine, however, can be intense. Here are five suggestions you can use to really listen to the income producing potential.
1 We use the latest technology into your marketing campaign
basic tenet of marketing is to get the message out to the audience in a way to consume information. Since the primary market is families with small children, you can safely assume that a large percentage of these parents are active on the Internet. Therefore, you should make sure that you are using social networking outlets as the primary means for spreading the word.
Creating Facebook fan page for your school and fill it with quick posts such as:
° Important dates / times for carnival
° Information on the sale of the cuff
· Cool activities you have booked, such as the bungee run and inflatable jousting
° popular entertainment acts are scheduled, as well as local bands or a high school cheerleader
° incentives as the main shaving head if 80% of pupils at the school prior to purchasing wristbands
° Each specialty store you will find being sold in the carnival, as well as deep-fried Oreo cookies
get this information in real time, and especially ask your readers to pass the word about sending e-mail links or suggest to your friends you should check your school fan site out.
I would also suggest hiring a few students who are big-time texters. Ask them to start "text-tree" where the text of ten of his friends and family members. Then, each of these ten text ten friends of their own, and so on, until the number explode. This may be a simple message like "Do not forget to buy carnival wristbands from today." It can be a very powerful tool for you.
Do not forget to ask your school district, if you use their automated telephone warning system, if any. This is a phone system that calls at home to keep you informed about school cancellations or anything like that. Many times, schools and systems are used to tell parents about the school play or plays. request for approval to use the system for your school carnival notification to parents at their home or mobile phones. This is a very effective means of communication available. If you got it, use it!
2 Be honest in their marketing
to face, it's hard getting people to spend money to charities, schools that, in a bad economy. People are scared and want to keep your money. This is understandable. However, it is also true that the school needs to raise money for things, important things, that the budget will not cover more. Therefore, I would suggest two very important messages really hammer home in their carnival marketing plan.
First, be very specific in their material. Tell your parents exactly what money you raise will go. Work with principals and teachers to come up with a list of items that depend on fundraising. Tell the parents that these items will be reduced if their goals are not met. even go so far as to create a priority list, the name of the item to be cut first, so the message can still be ignored by some, but for others, this reality check will be a good incentive. and at least you can say, were warned.
Second, make sure you start advertising your carnival a long time before it happens. I'm talking about six or seven months ago. Then, once you have them what their money will go for, especially the point that families need to save for your event. If you give them six months (24 weeks) and ask them to put away only $ 3 a week, it was $ 72 during the event. If your school has 250 families and only half of them (125) to save up to spend $ 72, you receive $ 9,000. 75% on that amount would equal over $ 13,000. Would it be beneficial to your school?
I would even go so far as to start the school wide project in which children get coffee cans or milk jugs and decorate them in a personal savings for the school carnival. Even on a tight budget, many families can find ways to scrape together $ 3 per week. It is only 43 cents a day! But, you're going to have to lay out a plan for them.
if the family knows the specific needs and receive a specific plan on how to meet the goal, you will not be able to raise the money your school needs.
3 Pre-sale wristbands activity
in the sections above, I made mention pre-sales activities and games wristbands. Basically, this is a concept in which people get a discount for buying all of their access to game tickets ahead of time. If a person decides not to buy pre-cuff, he or she will have to pay more at the door on the day / night event. Usually $ 5 discount for buying in advance is enough incentive.
I would suggest setting up a school wide goal for the sale of wristbands. This will mean that either the director will have to do a great job with their children about monitoring their progress. Once per day or one week, the calculation should be announced in school about how you're getting close to the goal.
This can be done with a simple "goal thermometer" that have made a couple of thick black Sharpie marker and a red sheet of large poster board. It need not be fancy to make a point. Really the children to the fire. Of course, this will mean that you have to offer them something pretty good in exchange for their efforts.
Although the oldie-director getting his head shaved in front of the school is a great motivator (unless the principal is already bald or a woman who refuses to submit to the Clippers). However, things such as assembly, free day at school, a day off from school (if private), or anything else that does not cost you any money would also be good.
Until a lot of sales activity wristbands, not only in front-loaded revenue, but you also get a good start on an estimate of how much food you will need to have on hand. By adding the goal / reward system for pre-sale, you are pro-actively pumping their income.
4 Be smart about spending on awards prize packages to use
It is easy to want to splurge on rewards give children the games they play. Some schools are really into it and set the "Prize Redemption" station, where children trade tickets they won from playing games for a variety of rewards, it is very similar to how the arcades to do.
I would suggest staying away from this system. While kids love it, it is a logistical nightmare for the organizers of the carnival. You have to understand all the math how many tickets each child could win every game, every time he or she plays. Then you will have to determine how small, medium and large rewards you should buy based on how you think the children will actually do. And you better not screw up so do not have enough "big" awards. You could have some disgruntled youth in your hands ...
In addition, it takes incredibly long for children to decide which award (s) they want. Have you ever stood in line, after seven years at the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese? It takes eons for them to figure out how to spend all of their tickets. You will have a line snaking all around the school, trying to manage it!
solution, though it is not the most fun for kids, is to go with a packaged prize packages that are all the same. You can create separate folder for boys and girls, if you like. good prizes were pens, coupons for McDonalds, small candy, go home, a few small toys, rub on tattoos, etc. In the long run, the child will not be disappointed with this bag of loot, and have saved a lot of grief for everyone involved.
5 Items like crazy with the money-making extras
Ok, so you've got people buying their activities wristbands and some food, but how else can you get them to part with some of my heard-earned dough?
From the time the family went to his carnival, they should be overwhelmed with opportunities to spend money. Games and activities are invited, but you can set a bunch of other money-making cells that are very appealing as well.
For example, you can sell "cascarones". These are decorative egg shells, which are hollowed out and filled with confetti. After you have filled and decorated, paste the small cover on the hole to make confetti in.
are volunteers make this a dozen, and then sell them individually at a carnival. One person buys cascarone, he or she sneaks behind friends and breaks it over his head, confetti rains down on that person. It was a good laugh for everyone. just seems that the person buying the egg does not know their target to hurt it breaks down too hard on the head.
There are many articles online, giving instructions on how to create and decorate eggs. Do a simple search on Google to find out more.
Another good idea is to set up a prison at the carnival. For a fee, as well as 2 tickets (around $ 1) you can rent one of the guards in prison for "arrest" one of his or her friends. "Arrested" a person must remain in jail until he or she pays 4 tickets (about $ 2 ) to get out.
in prison must be in a conspicuous place where everyone can see who has been arrested.
If you really want to ratchet up embarrassment factor, that the prisoners sing to the audience, while in prison. I once had to sing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" while waiting to get out of jail. , It was very uncomfortable, but a lot of fun
!Another idea to make some extra money in your carnival will be voluntary, which is handy with a camera to be candid shots all night friends having fun together. With a digital camera and a portable color printer, you can print copies for sale. Price for moving pictures, and make sure the photographer is also a good salesman to motivate people to buy.
Conclusion
These are just some of the many strategies you can use to make more money in the next school carnival. The most important tip is to make sure you give people what they want. more ways you can try them, the more money will be spent.