Know Your Target Audience

Knowing who you are selling to will help you determine how the holiday fundraiser will most effectively be run.  Figuring out the person most likely to be doing the purchasing from your evergreens fundraiser helps you determine the avenue that most efficiently speaks to them. 

For instance, if you are running a school fundraiser, you may know that parents are likely going to be helping the students sell or doing the purchasing.  In this case, you can reach the parents by utilizing a weekly send home folder or weekly e-newsletter to spread the word about the wreath fundraiser or to pass our the paper catalogs.  If you are running a church fundraiser, you know the congregants are your customers.  Perhaps passing out catalogs in the Sunday bulletin would be most effective, or tacking up a poster in the Fellowship hall for people to see during after service coffee.  If you are running a scouting fundraiser, your target audience is not quite as obvious.  It depends on what the leadership would like to focus on.  You may want to primarily reach parents and those the scouting families are in regular contact with.  Or perhaps your scout fundraiser participates in a Christmas Tree lot sale, and that opens up your audience focus quite a bit.  Your scouting fundraiser may also have experience with table sales in front of grocery stores, which means the target audience is the general public, like at the Christmas Tree lot.  In both of these cases, you want to create something that will catch the eye of passersby.  Some groups find great success in targeting local businesses like car dealerships, realtor offices, accounting offices, etc. who may want to send out client gifts.  In this case, it's beneficial to know that an item that delivers directly to the client may be the most desirable item for a business to purchase.  Sherwood Forest Farms' Direct Delivery Gift items are ideal in this situation.

Overall, think of who you would like to sell to, and from there, determine your method of selling.  It helps your holiday fundraiser succeed!