Charity Email Marketing: 7 Raffle Ticket Tips

Effective charity email marketing is the cornerstone of successful fundraising raffles. Our data shows that email consistently drives the highest ticket sales, with organisations like St Scholastica’s seeing three distinct sales spikes from their email marketing campaigns. This guide shares proven strategies for nonprofits, schools and community organisations to maximise their email marketing efforts.

1. Craft compelling subject lines

Your subject line determines whether your email gets opened. Successful approaches include:

• Flattery: “You’re amazing! Here’s why…”
• Personal touch: send from a person (e.g. [email protected])
• Human impact: “Thanks to you, Sara will see again”
• Urgency: “Only 200 tickets left — don’t miss out”

Knox Grammar built an entire campaign on this principle: their 64% sales surge came from a daily countdown in the subject line, with the body copy left unchanged.

2. Make it personal

• Use warm, familiar greetings
• Avoid jargon and acronyms
• Sign off with a real person’s name
• Write conversationally

3. Tell a compelling story

The Cerebral Palsy Alliance saw a $200,000 increase in event proceeds through storytelling emails with:

• 58–69% open rates
• Video content featuring children’s stories
• Personal narratives

An example story format:

“Juliana’s family was struggling after her father passed away when she was just six years old. A bright and eager student, she was ready to take on the world despite her circumstances. For Juliana, having a sponsor to support her education was just the boost she needed to pursue her dreams.”

4. Quantify impact

Show exactly what ticket purchases achieve:

• 1 ticket = 5 crisis calls answered
• 5 tickets = one reading lesson
• 10 tickets = full student sponsorship

5. Clear call to action

• Use prominent “Buy a ticket” buttons
• Hyperlink directly to your raffle page
• Make the next step obvious
• Include one primary action

A single shareable raffle link does the heavy lifting here, and RaffleLink’s features let you attribute every sale back to the person or team who sent it — no separate tracking links to manage.

6. Encourage sharing

Suggest specific sharing methods:

• Social media sharing
• Workplace distribution
• Community group sharing
• Neighbour outreach

7. Express gratitude

Close with:

• Genuine appreciation
• A prize teaser
• A warm sign-off
• A future impact statement

Email is only as good as what it’s selling, so pair these tactics with a prize worth writing about and a send schedule built around the months Australians actually give.