If you have a bingo hall or are hosting a bingo event for your charity fundraiser, you need people to attend and buy bingo cards. If you’re a local business owner, you’re always looking for a way to boost sales by reaching new customers. For your next bingo event, why not partner with a local business to cross-promote your events, business, and organizations? This will enable you to promote your bingo event while giving a local business (or businesses) the opportunity to advertise to a huge audience. In addition to advertising the event via all your typical channels, have your partners advertise the event in their shops and restaurants, as well. 



Here are a few creative ideas to promote your bingo event by featuring local businesses.

Promote Your Bingo Event by Giving Away Small Freebies

One great way to promote your bingo event is to make it clear that everyone will leave with something. A bingo event is an excellent opportunity for local businesses to give away free and affordable swag that’s fun for people to collect.

Drink koozies, magnets, keychains, stickers, and T-shirts are low-cost items that many businesses have on hand to give away. Why not give a bag of swag freebies to everyone who makes a bingo card purchase? This not only gives people an exciting reason to show up; it also acts as cheap advertising for the partnering bars, restaurants, or retail stores.

Build Excitement with Bigger Gifts

After you’ve made everyone feel welcome with the freebies, it’s time to get down to business! Feature higher-priced merchandise as prizes for bingo wins. Start out with smaller, less-expensive items for the easier games and basic patterns — something like thermoses for winning a straight across or up-and-down bingo pattern, for example. If someone can fill out a more complex pattern like an airplane or a Christmas tree, reward them with something truly special like a high-end cooler or a kayak.

Use Service Vouchers as Prizes Too

When you promote your bingo event, make it clear that the prizes will consist of more than just physical goods and merchandise. Give local businesses the opportunity to offer vouchers for whatever service they provide, as well. People will be just as excited to play for a voucher for a dog grooming session, a complete car wash, or a home gutter cleaning as they will to play for electronics or camping equipment. Organize the vouchers along with the merchandise prizes before the event, awarding the lower-cost ones for games when there will be multiple winners and saving the high-dollar ones for more complex game patterns when only one lucky person will be calling bingo.

Bring Customers Through Local Business Doors with Gift Certificates

Another excellent idea for partnering with local businesses to promote your bingo event is to have them offer gift certificates to their store or restaurant. This gives the business the added benefit of actually bringing customers through their doors. This will increase the likelihood that the prize winners will spend money in the business for which they’ve won a gift certificate (after all, if you walk into a restaurant with a $25 certificate, it makes sense to bring the whole family and spend a bit more to treat everyone to dinner, right?). Once they’ve actually spend time shopping or dining in a local establishment, they’re much more likely to return or encourage friends to go.

Visually Advertise for Your Local Business Partners

Finally, make sure to take the time to put up visual advertisements letting your bingo customers know which businesses are taking part in the event. This could mean specially-designed posters and flyers or placing business cards around the venue. It definitely means taking advantage of cutting-edge bingo flashboard technology to create customized, high-definition ads for the partners who have helped promote your bingo event and make it a success.

Do you need high-quality equipment or bingo paper for your event or bingo hall? Check out the Arrow International website and sign up for our newsletter to keep up on the latest in charitable and social gaming news.