Fundraising Auction Tip: You should always provide potential bidders with a printed Auction Listing of both your Live and Silent Auction items at any Fundraising Auction. A printed Auction Listing is vital for several reasons:

An Auction Listing informs bidders of the order of sale, and what is coming up next. If you keep your bidders guessing, they will simply not bid.

If bidders are not 100% certain of what they are bidding on, they will not bid. A printed Auction Listing should answer any and all questions about what is being sold in order to encourage bidders to bid as much as possible.

Bidders often need time to plan their bidding strategies, especially on multiple and/or larger value items. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Couples often need time to consult with each other about what they are willing to spend on something. A printed Auction Listing helps them to do that.

Potential bidders need to know the specifics, the benefits, and the restrictions on any item they are going to bid on, especially on travel and/or other higher value items. A printed Auction Listing should answer all of their questions, in writing.

After bidders see that they have lost an item to another bidder, a printed Auction Listing makes it easier for them to re-strategize on what else they can bid on.
Printed Auction Listings generally come in 3 forms:

Printed in the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-inserted into the Event Program or Auction Catalog.

Printed on loose sheets of paper and hand-delivered to all attendees, or left on each dinner table in the room.
Auction Listings cost practically nothing to produce and they can make the difference between the success and failure of a Live and Silent Auction. You should never conduct a Fundraising Auction without one.

A Case Study

Let me share a real-life experience with you. Once I was hired to conduct a Fundraising Auction for a nationally renowned organization. The event was held in a major hotel, in one of the country’s largest cities, with several hundred “black tie” participants attending. It was an extremely professional event, with the music, singing, lighting, speeches, and awards all perfectly timed and choreographed. Everything was done to perfection… exception the Fundraising Auction.

Although I had signed an agreement to serve as their Auctioneer nearly one year in advance of the event, no one bothered to contact me for any advice or help. Approximately one week prior to the Auction date, I contacted the group to see if they had replaced me with another Auctioneer. But they said that I was still their man.

Upon arriving at the event I asked for a copy of the Auction Listing. I was told that there were none. I’m not sure whether they felt that the Auction Listing wasn’t necessary, or whether someone forgot to have them printed. This was never made clear. When I asked what I was to use at the podium, I was told to copy the list of Live Auction items from a committee member’s computer. It took me about 30 minutes to copy three pages of hand-written notes in order to prepare for my role as their Auctioneer.

I knew that they had created a PowerPoint program showing the various Live Auction items. When I asked whether the PowerPoint slide order corresponded to the order of sale I had copied from the committee member’s computer, I was met with a blank stare. The committee member left to check the slide order, and returned to let me know that the slide order did not correspond my notes, and he provided me with the correct slide order… hand-written on a paper napkin. This forced me to re-arrange my three pages of hand-written notes before taking the podium.

There was a Live Auction Table with descriptions of the Live Auction items that were to be sold, but the table was not clearly marked, and it received significantly less attention than the Silent Auction Tables, which were clearly identified. Since the Live Auction Table was located adjacent to the “Raffle Table”, it appeared that most people thought it was part of the raffle and therefore paid very little attention to it.

According to the event program (which did not include an Auction Listing), I knew approximately when I was to begin the Live Auction. At the designated time the Master of Ceremonies announced the start of the Live Auction to the several hundred people in attendance, and introduced me as Auctioneer. As I approached the podium I realized that photographs of award winners were still being taken… directly in front of the podium where I was to stand… which required me to stand aside for several minutes until the photographers were done. Can we say “awkward moment”?

As the photographers cleared, I approached the podium and began my Live Auction introduction. Approximately one minute into my introduction, the “Raffle Committee” approached the podium and stopped my Live Auction Introduction in order to pull the 8 or 9 Raffle Winners. These drawings lasted about 5 minutes. Upon it’s conclusion I was allowed to resume the start of the Live Auction.

When standing at the podium two intense and extremely bright spotlights were pointed directly at the podium. The lights were so bright that I literally could not see the center 1/3 of the room. I could see the tables on the right, and on the left, but was totally blinded when looking straight ahead. It took perhaps five minutes before the spotlights were turned off.

While at the podium and describing Lot #1, I had to ask someone to start the Lot #1 PowerPoint Slide… because apparently no one was assigned that job.

So with only the Auctioneer’s verbal description, and a PowerPoint slide, it appeared that few people in the room had any idea about what we were selling… or when we were selling it… until it was announced by the Auctioneer. As a result, bidding was extremely light and the final results fell several thousands of dollars short of where they should have been
The learning experience is this:

The Live Auction is where you place your better items, and where the real money should be made at any Fundraising Auction. Let bidders know as far in advance as possible what you will be selling, and the order of sale, so they can get excited about the Auction, and plan their bidding strategy accordingly.

Auction Listings are absolutely vital to the success of both Live & Silent Auctions. In my opinion, revenues at this Auction fell thousands of dollars short of where they should have been, because no Auction Listing was provided to the guests.

If bidders are not perfectly clear on what is being sold, including both the item’s specifics, benefits, and restrictions, they will not bid.

When you have a committee of volunteers, especially volunteers having full time jobs and/or very busy schedules, the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer can help to keep the committee on track.

And once you retain the services of a professional Fundraising Auctioneer… use the services that you are paying for.

As a savvy marketer, you’re always looking for an edge. Competition for customers is keen. You need to generate leads, build your brand, and promote your products and services.

Fortunately, online video marketing helps you do that. And when it’s properly integrated you’ll see results in a zip.

Simply put video marketing works and now ranks as the sixth most popular content marketing tactic. Seventy percent of B2B marketers create online video.

Let’s examine five compelling facts about online video marketing:

Fact #1: Online video marketing is exploding

To say that video marketing is growing is an understatement. Its rate of acceptance and adoption is remarkable. Alexa, for example, ranks YouTube, as the third most popular website in the world. In just the U.S., YouTube has over 189 million unique viewers.

But effective marketing must be targeted. For B2B marketers that’s not a problem. Today, 83% of senior executives watch more online video than last year, according to a survey by Forbes Insights.

This means you can achieve greater exposure. More viewers – viewers that matter – lead to more customers. And more customers lead to more sales. You won’t have to explain this to your boss.

Fact #2: Online video marketing is versatile

One reason online video is so popular lies in its versatility. Marketers can use online video to repurpose other marketing materials such as white papers and case studies.

Also, marketers can promote their products and services using a fresh delivery method that informs, educates and even entertains prospects.

Internet videos can be found in e-newsletters, blogs and websites. And prospects and customers can subscribe to them as RSS feeds.

Let’s not forget social media. Videos abound on sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, to name a few.

Versatility translates into extraordinary marketing power. Video introduces a new way of communicating. It enhances existing marketing platforms by bringing them to life, such as email marketing.

This uncovers a sea of new consumers who perhaps wouldn’t “read” your content. Viewing videos is faster and in many cases more preferable to reading text. Now you’re reaching a wider audience.

Fact #3: Shareability is fast and effortless

In the same Forbes study mentioned above, 54% of senior executives said they share

videos with their colleagues every week. A slightly greater percentage, 59%, says they receive work-related videos.

Again, these statistics show that online videos are highly shareable. More important to B2B marketers is that decision makers share and receive these videos.

The future for sharing videos online is bright. The data suggest this trend will significantly increase. Younger executives share videos at much greater rates. While 47% of all executive say they post videos to social networks, that percentage increases to 69% for younger executives.

Fact #4: Video Search Engine Optimization Extends Reach and Access

Search engine optimization work wonders for textual content. And it works especially well for videos. As with text, video content has to be useful. Relevant and valuable content attracts prospects.

For videos embedded on your website, you can optimize videos by including keywords in the title. And use those keywords in the description.

On YouTube you have three opportunities to add keywords. A form pops up that includes fields for the title, the description and tags.

Optimizing your videos makes them easier for your target audience to find. Keep those senior executives in mind when optimizing your videos.

Fact #5: Internet Video Achieves Great Impact with Low Cost

By now, I’m sure you agree that video marketing has great impact. It reaches millions of viewers, depending on the platform you use. Its shareability is instantaneous. And it does a good job in reaching and attracting your target market.

Video drives action. According to a Forrester report, click-through rates easily double and even triple when inserting video into emails.

Michael Miller, author of The Idiot’s Guide to Video Marketing estimates that a business can invest as little as a $1,000 dollars to develop quality videos. Some businesses may not need an investment at all.

Round Out Your Marketing Campaigns with Video

If you haven’t already integrated videos into your marketing, consider adding it now.

You can easily rev up your lead generation and branding by adding online video to your marketing mix. Video has many advantages with no obvious downside.

It adds another dimension to your marketing content, while expanding your prospect universe. More viewers lead to more conversions. More conversions lead to more profits.

Striving to persuade others to impact on their behavior and the way of thinking is shown one of the essential needs of human being to his social living improvement .The ways of encouraging and convincing the audience, as it comes later, has had a great influence on human beings’ minds throughout the history.
The tablets found by the archeologists among the ruins of Babel, tell us about the primitive advertisements. This tablets which is belong to 3,000 B.C are about a kind of ointment and also a compliment about a person who has been skillful in sewing shoes.( MirHosseini 2004) But regulated persuasive refers to some centuries before Christian Era, when it was common among the people called sophisticated. The World War 2 ended to more comprehensive and scientific studies. Along with vast spreading of the mass media, such as newspapers, radio and television, advertising became more significant. We cannot deny advertisements` effects on our decisions and on our every day lives.

From the advertisements point of view, it is a new version to exhibit a good or service, with emphasis on specialized debate which is presented by beneficiary individuals or groups. The aim of writing this article is to answer this essential question; how advertising without its economical essence would be represented in cyber space. It is possible to put vivid distinction between the persuasive ways in internet with other media, and if the answer is yes which benefits is provided for cyber users in this distinction, owing to the fact that we live in an interactive world in which the relation between the advertisers and the customers has completely changed. I’m trying to analyze these changes with emphasis on active audience of this universal media and with stress on the role of advertisements in this space; I want to set these effective parts to find a clear view of future.

Essence of advertisement
In the terms of Tankard and Severin there is an obvious distinction between persuasion and advertisement. They refer to Roger Brown who gives a definition about nature of advertisement. Advertisements are those kinds of persuasive attempt which are made only for sender interests; and even may run to loss of the receiver. (Tankard and Severin ,1992, p299) Lasswell in 1937 defined advertisement as an affective technique in human acts, which works with manipulating audible, discoursing and drawing signs. (Tankard and Severin ,1992, p148).
Opposing to some theorists who believe advertisement contains any kind of commercial content and matter which companies utilize it for giving more information to consumer. What we focus on it is the scientific way of persuasion each commercial aim is one of its aspects. We can say, consequently, that advertising is a regular process to produce reasonable information about specific subject which is used to make an intensive effect on audiences minds’ and acts’.

Traditional methods of advertisements had been constructed on the basis of imagery. The effectiveness of advertising was limited by this very need to reach and influence the widest possible audience. The manipulation of images was necessary because advertisements should have attractiveness for the passive accumulated viewers. As much as the advertisements became more global, it was more needed (of new methods of audience attraction) to utilize modern of new methods. But the methods of satisfying and exciting viewers which had been forecasting single and lawful results in the mass audience up to this time, abolished by entrance of virtual space .For internet was an interaction and informative base media; so users traverse an active stage, to find their desired websites. Because they want to reach definite information about a company, a service or a product. Any irrelevant images or tampered information would dissuade them from continuing their way.

Apart from professional design of a website, its agents should be interacting with their costumers. They should know the costumers’ needs and should answer them in a good manner and the most important thing is assembling the information which the costumers are in search of them. In view of the fact that they would lose their audience easily with decreasing or increasing the information .A propaganda would be effective when it could use all the facilities of cyber space to be able to assemble attractiveness, giving awareness, interaction experience. Levinson considers a website as an island which the advertisement is a bridge to reach it. He believes the aim of convincing people to buy or use the products cannot persist no longer; in case that in internet we are leading the viewer to watch the advertisement an our website.(Levinson 2004)

Osgoodby believes that advertisement in cyber space is like a party , until you didn’t invite others into it, nobody would come to see you. More over information you are demanded by your guests, would mean that they are more fond of your party .He also believes that advertisement methods in internet are the most attractive methods from the audience point of view.(Osgoodby, 2005) We should consider how and in which language the message is being packaged .In the other words , “we should be careful in using words because using incalculable of language can reveal advertisement in a treachery way”. (Mehdizade, 2001, pp 65-66)

Traditional advertisements have been inclined their affair to the creation of reading sense in the vast spectrum of the audience like the television extensive advertisement. But in virtual space you can base your activities on analysis of individual needs and definite needs of its viewers for reaching the product. As it was said before, in virtual space, the user is not a mass audience in front of a charming media that some global reliable websites would prohibit from more professional advertisement methods and have vast spectrum of global audience ,but if we believe in an audience as an analyst and critic individuals we should accept that he would use other opportunities which have then not always but sometimes he won’t be captured easily by direct advertisements. Of course, we should bear in mind that audience would enter to this space sometimes for fun. This audience would face to the advertisement messages with less critic view and his searching in virtual space is more for fun and satisfying his inquisitiveness. He would guide easily from one page to another page and he has no aim for this circulation. As a result he would be objected of these messages and he would be impressed by them. In a research which I have done to study the advertisements and the utilized technique in these advertisements, I have reached to an obvious image of such advertisements. The advertisement websites, which I have named them popular, had been used the least methods of scientific documentary evidence or intellectual well reasoned to code their convincing messages. In my opinion if we factorize from special form of such websites which would recognize from these contents, we would see that summarizing and more benefiting from images are inseparable from advertisements. The reason of this subject is in the hyperlink feature of virtual space. Whatever the message sender needs is to attract the attention of receiver. The audience should push the bottom of mouse on this message among other different subjects and then the message communicator would have enough time to give information to the audience and identify the existence of viewer who are considered as a message receiver.

Other points are hidden in accessibility of information. The audience can catch more information in less time about advertisement. This information could obtain from even conflicting resources. The most important distinction of advertisement in traditional media and cyber space could be defined as follows: in virtual space, the audience would always change his role from audience to producer and from producer to consumer. The possibility of using cyber space would be possible for all people. In such space, the user can show off her/his idea or product with using of convincing skills and depend on the way of presenting it could reach to success .In other word cyber space is on the contrary of the traditional media. There is no selling of idea or product; but they would sell viewing the site or advertisement. Now if we are capable to convince our superiority to the users, we would reach to success. The forms of traditional advertisement have many limitations in case of commercials form .Size and vast distributing; in a case that virtual space would assemble the possibility of showing any advertisement in various cyber pages and in a cheap expense. In other words, there is no real limit in volume and kind of advertisement presentation.( Jim Calloway and Don Murdock 1998)

How we can get more benefit from this space?
Today the world can not be imagined without advertisement .The audience and people would learn from advertisement what they should eat, how they can dress, which book they should read and how they can think about a special subject. In the age that is full of advertisement messages, there should be more attention to this science. Today the virtual space and the media channel would be discussed in our real lives as the main media in 21 century. By emphasizing vast and complex communications which are possible in this space we would understand that we have unique chance to effect on the unlimited spectrum of viewers, the chance which was not possible in dry previous media. from this point the importance of using advertisement messages would be declared .Our current era has been named the communication and advertisement age .Pratkanis believes that the messages construct our world .We are in thought of other satisfying in our social lives . There are many bulletin boards, subway and bus advertisements in streets.( Pratkenis , 1999).But whatever we are facing to as an advertisement in global media of the internet, has differences with such messages.

Effective and Successful cyber marketing means taking full advantages of the medium to offer all kind of customers an interesting, informative, interactive experience, a give and take of needs, wants, and information. Virtual space is not transient and temporary phenomenon. It is at the beginning way of its evolution. Today, the goal of much advertising is not to make the sale but to direct people to websites. It means we have to be really cautious about what we are presenting. Internet advertisement would not neither be a passing affair a phenomenon forked of the internet influences .Although today the internet advertisement is facing to problems and obstacles and we have no attention to using such an opportunity; but we should believe that in cultures, civilizations, belief, ancestors and all nations pillars which are forming identity are in confrontation with each other, prosperity is with a group which could use better form of convicting skills and methods.