| by Howard Gottlieb, President, Easy
Fundraising Ideas
Discount Card Fundraising: Identifying Merchant Partners
Pa Three
In the last article, we spoke about the value that fundraising
discount cards offer. We spoke about how important it is
to offer a fundraising product that people actually feel
good about buying year after year. Groups that sell discount
cards repeat this fundraiser continuously and their supporters
actually look forward to getting a new discount card each
year. So, how do you create a discount card that is worth
much more than its asking price?
Discount
card fundraising takes a little thought and planning.
But spending that time will pay enormous dividends.
If you are part of a fundraising group, plan on holding
a short brainstorming session. Ask everyone in attendance
to identify ten local merchants that they patronize on a
regular basis. You do not need to limit the number to ten,
but that is a very workable number. Depending on how many
people are at your meeting, you could have hundreds of potential
candidates.
Once everyone has identified which merchants they frequent,
compile their lists to determine which local merchants are
among the most popular. Record these merchants in order of
their popularity on a sheet of paper. You should then feel
confident that a discount card containing special offers
or deals from a selection of these merchants would be easily
saleable.
As you further hone your list of potential merchant partners,
be sure to include a strong variety of merchant types. You
will most likely find that restaurants are noted more often
than other types of businesses and should accordingly be
included more often. Each card can include a number of different
merchants. If, for example, you plan on developing a card
with twelve merchants, try to limit the number of eating
establishments to eight. We suggest that you also include
car washes, dry cleaners, landscapers, auto repair centers,
oil change facilities, tanning salons, health clubs, veterinarians,
and other businesses.
Now that you have identified your target merchants, it's
time to decide if you want to sign up the merchants yourselves
and dramatically increase your profits or turn your list
over to a fundraising company and let them sign up the merchants
for you.
This is a big decision to make. Typically, discount cards
sell for $10. Depending on how many cards you sell, your
cost for a turn-key discount card (one for which the merchants
are signed up to participate by a third-party) will be around
$5, giving you a 50% profit, or $5 per card. However, if
you choose to sign up the merchants yourselves, your cost
per card can drop below $2 and might even get as low as $1.
That means your profit margin might increase all the way
up to 90%, or $9 per card. That is a huge difference in profit.
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