One of the building blocks of a successful event is undoubtedly a dynamic registration process. More than being a spreadsheet for sign-ups, event registration is an area worth putting a considerable amount of effort into for both securing and maximizing event participation. In fact, according to statistics, only around 45% of event sign-ups turn into actual attendees so you’d better believe that a basic registration system simply won’t cut it these days.
So, if you’re looking to pump those rookie numbers up, here are some event registration best practices to boost attendance.
1. Valet-Park People to Your Event with Your Registration System
With each additional page an online user gets redirected to and every individual field they have to fill in, their patience, attention span, and willingness to push through to that final confirmation button wanes. Hence, there is a need for an efficient, appealing, and user-friendly event registration process.
As you send out your invitations and promotional content, make sure to always have a clear call-to-action button that allows people to sign up with a snap. Limit fields to the basics like email, full name, and company details to keep things straightforward and avoid appearing sketchy.
Read: 5 Tricks to Make a Perfect Online Event Registration Form
To keep attendees wanting to know more, you have to get crafty. Captivate audiences by designing vivid and visually enticing landing pages and forms that are on-brand and are consistent with your event website and promotional materials. While we encourage you to keep things simple, you have to admit that an ordinary google form can only do so much.
Then again, if all of this simplification sounds too tedious on your part, you might want to invest in an event management software package. An all-around event platform can equip you with all the tools you need to set up a seamless registration system for everyone’s convenience.
Read: 7 Ways Event Management Software Is Essential For Organizers
2. Establish the Event’s Agenda on Your Landing Page
When considering an event, most attendees will want to know as much as they can before they commit. Why would they invest several hours of their lives on a webinar when they’re uncertain of its value? While we’re not suggesting you give out your entire script, getting clear on your event’s agenda could greatly help you seal the deal with potential attendees.
This is where optimizing your event landing page comes into play. Besides laying out the necessary information, you should be answering the all-pervading question of: ‘What's in it for me?’ along with eye-catching CTA widgets.
Give people more reasons to commit to your event by including a FAQ section, your bit-by-bit program schedule, speakers, guest info, and even some testimonials from previous event attendees. Without spoiling your event, let people know why your event is unique and the myriad of ways they will benefit from it.
3. Integrate with Social Media and Email Marketing
Now it’s time to focus on harnessing the power of our modern-day platforms to get more people clicking on that registration link. Since email and social media marketing are two major but distinct arenas of their own, we highly recommend you dive into the following articles we’ve published. But if you don’t have the time for that, here’s a speed read of the main points (you’re welcome):
5 Ways You Can Boost Events Using Email Marketing
Launching a strategic, informative, and eye-catching newsletter can help your event gain a steady amount of interest. In this article, we provide a step-by-step procedure on how exactly you can do so by incrementally revealing details about your event and stir up FOMO with event goodies, special offers, fascinating graphics, and by capitalizing on your nearing event date.
Four Easy Ways To Boost Event Attendance Using Social Media
Take full advantage of the power of social media by creating Facebook pages, using branded hashtags, investing in social media advertisements, and utilizing contests to gain exposure for your events and grip the attention of passive scrollers.
4. Get Your Speakers and Connections in on Your Promotional Strategy
Your speakers’ backgrounds can have a massive impact on selling your event to the public. These guests most likely have a substantial following who are eager to look into what they’re up to, so get them to share event registration details and promotional content with their followers. This is also where you can include in-depth profiles of your speakers and their relevance to your event.
You would also do well to encourage any of your employees to get the word out. Besides telling them to share promotional materials among their networks, have them include a link to the event’s registration form in their email signatures. This has the potential to draw in a good number of guests since they might also be interacting with people in the same industry who could be interested in your event.
5. Maintain a Proper Timeline for Reminders and Be Creative with Them
After announcing your upcoming event to the public, it will be followed by updates that will continue to build hype around your event. Now, you’ll of course want to keep drawing attention to your event, but you should also be careful not to bombard your audience with too much information. One social media post a day per platform is usually enough. And unless you’re sending out emails for a major media publication, you should be putting the brakes on after you’ve sent two event newsletters in one week.
However, as your event date nears you should be trying to communicate a sense of urgency. You can do this by posting more reminders than usual in the form of countdown timers, time-sensitive content, and even last-minute deals to get those final indecisive stragglers to commit to your event.
Lastly, let me offer up a personal anecdote. Recently, a pretty neat feature I noticed on one event I signed up for was the option to add it directly to my digital calendars. Because hey, we’ve all been guilty of missing something important due to nothing else but plain forgetfulness, right? With this example in mind, I implore you to think up creative ways to keep reminding attendees about your event. Anything could prove to be that brilliant strategy that shifts individuals from “hmm maybe later” to...
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