Incentives Used to Boost Cookie Dough Sales
(Richmond, VA)
I am a member of the Band Boosters for my son's high school marching/concert band, J.R.Tucker Tigers, in Richmond, Virginia.
We use funds to support the band in many ways - uniform and instrument maintenance, purchase of props, spring band trips, competitions, etc.
The boosters have sold cookie dough and pizza-making kits for several years I think, and have always had successful sales.
My son is a rising junior, so I have only sold cookie dough for two years, but I can verify that it is a great fundraising product. People at my work are constantly asking me when we will be selling the dough and kits.
This coming year, we are planning at least two selling campaigns to attempt to raise extra funds to refurbish our six aging tubas! I am even going to be in charge of fundraising this year!
The best story I have is this past year, I sold items to people at my church. One lady is famous for her baking and her children are very discriminating cookie consumers. She liked the idea that she could bake fresh cookies whenever her kids wanted them without having to go through the dough-making process.
I was very nervous when I delivered her dough, since I wasn't sure it would pass the quality control tests that her kids would perform. Happily, she reported that the cookie dough was a big hit, both with her children and with her husband. She has already requested that I let her know when we will be selling the dough again. She wishes she had bought more than one tub, and had tried different kinds of dough.
As an incentive to sellers in the fundraiser, they are given a free tub of dough for every 12 items sold. My son is a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies and wanted that free tub of dough all to himself. The day the tub came into our house, he baked the entire tub. As a new cook, he tried baking in the toaster over (doesn't work well), on regular cookie sheets (much better) and also on the pizza stone (very best results).
The cookies went into a ziplock bag and into his room for snacking during video game sessions and during movies. The rest of us only got to smell the chocolate chip goodness. Thankfully, I had purchased a tub of the chocolate chip dough, so we did get to taste them eventually. That free tub of cookie dough was great incentive - he plans to earn more than one tub next time so that the cookie orgy can last longer.
Another incentive that has been used is movie discount tickets offered by the local Regal Cinema. Two discount tickets (good for 1/2 price movie ticket purchase) were given to folks who participated in the sale. That guaranteed that students sold at least one item during the campaign - everyone wanted those tickets!
The best incentive is the quality of the product sold. We used a company that operates locally and provides very high quality cookie dough and pizza kits. People really love them, so it makes it much easier to sell the products.
Timing is very important, also. We try not to schedule sales right at Christmas (everyone's money supply is otherwise spoken-for) and the selling period is at least two and a half weeks to allow for timing of paydays of customers. It also helps to try to sell when other organizations are not doing fundraising.
When my son graduates, I'm going to try to find a new band member to come to my work so that all of my son's customers will have access to the products that my son sold to them. Its a great idea, and a tradition in the band membership, to have graduating members share their former customers with the remaining band members so that customer base is not lost. Some even give customers the name and number of the younger band members to contact!