2. Get people who want to buy items at auction:

Now that you’ve built a reasonable inventory of cool and desirable items to auction off, you need to get patrons excited and eager to attend. This breaks down into two main priorities. (1.) publicize and reach your desired audience, and (2.) create an auction event that is both inviting and compelling.

Let’s look at each priority and how to achieve each.

1. Publicize and reach your audience:

Most auction events are held by organizations that have a defined list of patrons. Reaching those folks is accomplished easily today with emails, and other correspondence, such as direct mail invitations etc. Other organizations such as schools also have a defined geography and a built-in communications protocol with their patrons. Very few organizations holding fundraising auction events today have an unknown or undefined audience base. For the few that do a few suggestions:

• Publicize your auction early and often. People need constant reminders with their hectic schedules, and always assume there is constant competition for their time.
• Talk to everyone
• Have everyone involved with the auction talk to everyone
• Send out mass emails to your list of patrons
• Advertise in local papers, newsletters, and electronic boards.
• Target your audience within your nonprofit community by promoting the auction in appropriate trade publications
• Hang flyers in local shops, coffee houses, etc.
• Try to get some local radio time donated.
• Select a unique item in your auction and advertise it in all local media
• Call your local TV station and try to get an interview about the auction and its goals.
• Hire an Auctioneer who is willing to consult and advise your organization

2. Create an auction that is both inviting and compelling:

First and foremost, establish an auction committee, set benchmarks and assign responsibilities. Recruit volunteers for the preparatory work as well as providing help at the auction event.

Pick a venue that will hold your audience and provide enough room for all of the items, the entertainment, and the volunteers. Many auctions have failed simply for lack of space. We’ve heard stories of items not being displayed simply for lack of table room. Don’t let that happen at your event. Space is a priority and that means for both the audience as well as the auction inventory.

Another very important feature for your location is lighting and access to electric power. Your event will need to have good lighting to allow everyone to study the items up for auction, whether silent or live, displayed on tables throughout your venue. You will also need plenty of power outlets to support desktop lighting, or laptops playing slide presentations of your inventory. 

The date of the auction event is very important for success. Holiday weekends should be avoided, unless the holiday is part of the theme of the event.

Following are additional tips to follow inside your carefully selected venue to assure a successful auction event:

• If you are combining a live auction with a silent auction (which is almost always the best course of action), then hold both of them in the same room.  This provides much better audience control and easier communications.

• Keep the silent auction tables open for as long as possible, even through the live auction activity.  This will enhance the success of the silent auction and keeps people interested and motivated and entertained. It also allows for stragglers. The people who waited to bid on an item in the live auction but were outbid, or changed their mind, and now the event is over and they have money burning a hole in their pockets. Capture them by assuring that there are still items they can bid on in the silent auction.

• Don’t carry too many items in the live portion of the auction event. A live auction has its own arc, with a beginning, then a building momentum, a peak and then a slowing momentum and an end. It is critical to build an item list that follows the arc of a live auction. Be sure to build the value of the items so that the auction peak occurs about half way through the list of items, which should be somewhere between the12th to the 15th item.

• Try never to have more that 25 to 30 items in the live auction because momentum almost always slows after about 15 items. Be sure to have your best items in the front of the cycle because you want to be sure the best items get the highest bidders who tend to drop off as the momentum begins to wane.

• Be sure to have energetic and entertaining bid spotters located throughout the room. Bid spotters need to be animated, visible and not shy. You should try to have a minimum of one spotter for every 30 people.

• If your auction event is serving dinner, (always a good idea), then begin the live auction portion before the dinner is over. A good time is between the main course and dessert. The tables have been cleared but everyone is still in place waiting for dessert. During the main course have the spotters and the auctioneer walk table to table and help promote the key items in the auction. Encourage tables or individuals to band together for some of the more expensive items.  Build excitement and a competitive spirit prior to starting the live activity.

• Use a professional auctioneer. We cannot stress this enough. We have seen far too many live auctions fall completely flat because the auctioneer was inexperienced or sadly incompetent.  If you are committed to using an auctioneer who is not a professional then at a minimum have a practice prior to the event, and cover your bet by having animated and lively bid spotters.  Be absolutely sure that the auctioneer has studied the list of items and can describe and discuss all of them.  This is critical for the unique items and the travel packages. If an auctioneer cannot ‘sell’ your audience on the trips or the items, then your audience will not bid as high as they are able.

• Use technology whenever possible. Get a good sound system and if possible employ a large screen and projection system. This type of display technology was difficult and expensive to get only a few years ago but is simple today. Any laptop can attach to a display projector, and you can run a PowerPoint presentation for all of your items.

• Build PowerPoint slides on all your live auction items. Use lots of photos. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is absolutely true in a live auction. (For that matter this adage applies to silent auctions as well.) If you are auctioning trip packages, build several slides for the trips incorporating lots of photos. Bidders want to ‘see’ themselves on the trip. Go to ‘Google Images’ and you can easily build a fast photo presentation on just about any travel location in the world.

• Use laptops in the silent auction to loop images of items being auctioned.  This is particularly effective for any items that are not physically available on display. Items like trip packages, gift of the month clubs, customized items, or services, are difficult to display, and presentation boards with too much text generally get overlooked. An auction, whether silent or live, is a little like window shopping in that people need to buy by just looking, so the more you provide for the eyes the more successful the event.