9 Secrets for your events success...
Added: (Thu Mar 18 2010)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Event Management is an art form – conferencing, breakfast clubs, corporate celebrations, exhibitions, meetings...the list goes on. Events provoke business innovation, relationships, celebrations, inspiration, and often profit-generating business-leads! But - to help you achieve excellence with your events you need entrants!
In developing SignUp4.co.uk, we have found some great ways to enhance, not only the event registration process, but to increase the awareness of your corporate profile too. The fantastic thing about online systems is that most of these things can be automated – you get all the benefits and none of the hassle!
The result: happier registrants, and no more headaches for you and your team!
The following ‘insider secrets’ will ensure:
• Attract more registrants to your events
• Your company profile has more awareness
• Your life is made easier as a result
1. Take your time to design...
Online registration tools are designed to enable you to build them quickly – great. What’s not so great is if you build yours without thought. The creation of the events web presence need not take you hours, but some considered thought time in the design process could be key in your events success. Give yourself at least a week to design your questionnaire – ask others for their thoughts, especially those who have had previous experiences with online registration. Putting in this time in the initial stages will save you far more time later on fixing and re-writing questionnaires.
2. Give your registrants time...
Allow yourself plenty of time before an event to gather attendees – people perceive an event to be much larger, and more worthwhile, if there is a longer registration period. Don’t take it to the extreme though and plan your events years in advance!
Within this, tiered pricing structures can be an added benefit to your event, and entice more registrants early on. For example, for people who register within the first 2 weeks of publicising you could offer a 25% discount on entrance fees, or offer them a free brochure?
3. Be Consistent...
Most registration providers should provide you with the option to customise your events registration website and online forms so your logo, brand name and company colours are displayed. Attendees feel much more ‘at home’ this way, and you will benefit from increased number of payments.
4. Make it easy!
Give potential attendees all the opportunities to sign up for your event. Link them from your website to your registration form, and (if your registration provider offers it) put plenty of calls to action in the events homepage. It may sound obvious, but make it easy for your entrants to say yes!
5. Communicate...
An event registration should be an on-going conversation between you and your delegate – remind them why they are giving up their time and/or money in choosing your event.
To give a potential delegate that little push they need to sign up for your event, outline the registration process in the initial stages of the process – for example -
“In the following 3 simple stages you will have successfully signed up for your chosen training day – ‘How to hold a fantastic Event’. The registration process starts with your contact information, then your preferences on the day, and finally, payment. We look forward to seeing you there”.
Communication after registration is key to ensuring your delegates are satisfied with your service. Thank you for registering emails will only confirm their delight in registering for your event, and may even provide a subtle reminder to invite colleagues and friends along too! For a not-so-subtle reminder, you could also offer them a free meal for two after or during the event if they refer a colleague.
All quality event registration systems should be offering you the ability to use an automated email service, and even better event registration providers will give you the option to personalise these emails so that your delegate feels even more special and increases potential referrals!
6. Dig a little deeper...
Ask your delegates their expectations from your event – rather than simply “How did you hear about us” – ask them “How do you want to feel after this event?” and “Why are you attending this event?” Not only will this ensure your delegates are looking forward to your event but tell them you will take their comments on board and tailor your event to their expectations – that will give them something to be excited about!
Most registration systems will allow you to fully customise and tailor your questionnaire so that you can not only ask the questions – but record and manage the responses for email and SMS marketing activities afterwards.
7. Add Value...
Why not get your delegates looking forward to your event by offering pre-event merchandise, such as t-shirts, books from guest speakers, or ask them to make a charitable donation to your corporate charity or sponsor? This can be done by the creation of extra fields within the registration process – a function most good systems should facilitate.
8. Bring back the abandoned...
Inevitably, you will get some people who start filling out a delegate entry form, and never complete it. Firstly, you should take all the steps to avoid this from happening – you need to walk them through the registration process (as outlined in step 5) and also, give your delegate as much information as you can about your event during the registration process. Also, enabling people to telephone whilst registering will give them the security they need to press that submit button.
9. Do your homework after the event...
You have done the hard work during your event – but post event follow up is so important to ensure future successful events. You could use this as a marketing opportunity – and most systems should enable this function through reports.
You can, with most systems, also specially target specific delegates, for example, asking all marketing professionals at your event what their thoughts on your events’ marketing activities were, and how they could be improved. This will not only facilitate networking and continual conversations, but may generate ideas you can use for your next event.
We hope you have taken some, if not all of these little secrets on board and wish you every success with your event!
If you are looking for an online registration provider who can help you achieve your events potential visit www.signup4.co.uk - creating real business benefits for users who want an easy-to-use event management system, that delivers cost and time savings to both organisers and delegates.