1. Personalise your lottery

Give your lottery the personal touch and inspire confidence among your supporters. You can do this using text messages - supporters receive text messages from your charity each week to confirm their entry into the lottery. These can be personalised so that supporters are receiving brand friendly communications on a regular basis. You can use these messages to update supporters on whatever is going on at your charity. Here are some examples:

- Share case studies and videos

- Tell supporters about what you are up to (current events, ongoing campaigns, success stories)

 - Any current news on your lottery (recent winners, additional prizes you might be offering, how much your lottery has raised so far)

You can edit these text messages by following the instructions here. There is some essential wording that must be included, which is shown on the pop-up box when you edit the message.

2. Learn from other charities

Don’t do it all on your own! If you are new to running a society lottery, it might feel a little overwhelming. Donr has a Mobile Lotteries Community on Facebook which all charities are invited to join. This is a great place to share ideas and learn from fellow charities, ask questions, or brainstorm with those in the same boat. You can join here. Remember to say hello and introduce yourself once you have joined!

3. Mix up your marketing methods

You can market your lottery in any number of ways. The way you choose will depend on your supporter base. Here, we will outline a few different methods you could use, and what kind of supporter they would work for. 

Canvassing

If you are a local charity like a hospice or animal shelter, with a strong local supporter base, canvassing could work brilliantly for you. Whether going door-to-door, or canvassing on the high street, Mobile Lotteries can inspire confidence in supporters as they can sign up on their own devices. Canvassing can not only encourage existing supporters to sign up for your Mobile Lottery, but also help you to gain new supporters!

Posters and Flyers

If your charity has a premises that is frequented by supporters, then posters and flyers that display your Mobile Lottery could be for you. We have templates available for use which can be personalised to your charity. If your premises are mostly office based however, we would suggest prioritising other methods of marketing. 

Social Media

If you have a large following on social media, then both paid and organic socials are a great option.

Organic social media is a great way to raise awareness of your lottery amongst existing supporters. You can utilise posts that announce your lottery, drawing initial attention, and continue to maintain awareness of your lottery through updates. These updates could include the number of players your lottery now has, any winners that your charity might have seen, and any additional prizes you might be offering. 

Paid social media is an excellent tool for promoting your lottery to those who are not yet following you on socials, or perhaps are not yet familiar with your charity. This tool enables you to perform precise targeting, so that you are reaching people who are likely to enter your lottery. If this prospect is daunting, or you are not experienced with running paid social media, we recommend relying on a marketing agency to help you out. 

4. Create additional pages if necessary

You can create as many lottery pages as you need. This has a couple of benefits. Firstly, having multiple pages means that you can promote different pages in different places, which means you can test which methods are working for you. For example, you may link to one page in emails and another on social media.

Secondly, having multiple pages means that you can target audiences in even more detail. For example, an animal shelter may wish to have a page with dog imagery, to promote to dog people, and another page with cat imagery for cat people!

5. Make sure you know the regulations! 

Any promotion of your lottery must contain a few different pieces of information to meet regulations. 

1. The lottery is for people over the age of 18 only

2. The lottery is for residents of Great Britain only

3. Each ticket costs £2 per week

If a text message call-to-action is used (e.g. text LOTTERY to 88000 to find out more), you must state “texts cost one standard network rate message”. There are also advertising standards which should be adhered to. Full guidance on promoting your lottery is available here.

If you have any questions about Mobile Lotteries, most of the answers can be found in our Knowledge Base.