Cat Davidson is the Director of Buyer Expertise at EventMobi, bringing over a decade of hands-on experience in occasion expertise and planner success. Having labored straight with hundreds of occasion professionals since 2014, Cat has an intimate understanding of the day-to-day challenges occasion planners face when implementing new applied sciences to attain their occasion targets. Of their present function, Cat leads initiatives that assist occasion professionals maximize their expertise investments whereas delivering distinctive attendee experiences.
Whether or not you’re operating a members-only workshop or internet hosting a convention, occasions are a core a part of your outreach technique. However they solely succeed in case you get your target market by the door, making efficient occasion advertising—notably electronic mail—essential to your success.
Out of your occasion announcement to occasion day, your group can use this highly effective device to construct anticipation and safe the registrations you want for fulfillment. On this information, we’ll overview the right way to harness electronic mail advertising main as much as your occasion.
1. Plan a Strategic E-mail Schedule
You probably have already got a content material calendar figuring out whenever you’ll put up on social media and in any other case talk along with your viewers main as much as your occasion. Look nearer at your pre-event schedule and align it with the supporter journey at this stage—which includes deciding to attend your occasion.
It’s useful to map the supporter journey on a funnel. Fifty & Fifty’s information to digital advertising recommends utilizing this construction:
Consciousness is when the viewers member finds your group or, on this case, learns about your occasion. An electronic mail at this stage could be a “Save the Date” message a number of months out.
Consideration is when the viewers learns extra details about the occasion, which makes them take into consideration signing up. Emails on this stage would clarify interesting features of the occasion a number of months earlier than, similar to visitor audio system and leisure.
Conversion is when the viewers decides to join the occasion. Emails on this stage could be within the weeks earlier than the occasion, incentivizing attendees to register and highlighting why the trigger is so vital.
Every group’s funnel appears to be like completely different relying in your marketing campaign and viewers preferences, however typically, it’s best to ramp up your persuasion techniques in your electronic mail cadences based on this framework. Create your individual funnel by analyzing what methods have labored previously, separating them by funnel stage, and putting them on a timeline.
2. Write Irresistible Topic Traces
On common, your viewers solely reads your emails for 9 seconds—that means you don’t have a lot time to make a fantastic first impression earlier than readers lose curiosity. Perfecting your topic traces helps surmount that barrier and hold your viewers’s consideration. Excessive-quality topic traces for pre-event advertising emails are:
Customized. Latest research present personalised topic traces are greater than twice as more likely to be opened. Use your advertising platforms to routinely add the reader’s first identify to electronic mail templates and the topic line.
Motion-oriented. Use eye-catching headlines that encourage your viewers to take motion, whether or not signing up in your occasion or just studying about your final occasion’s influence.
Teaser-focused. Don’t give away all vital data in your topic line! Use teaser language, similar to “We’ve Bought Large Information About Our Occasion!” or “Simply Introduced: See the New Audio system for Our Occasion!” so readers click on by to the principle message.
Like your calls to motion, your topic traces needs to be as direct as attainable. Attempt to hold them beneath 40 characters so your viewers instantly understands what the e-mail is about.
3. Add Interactive Components
Merely together with blocks of textual content in your electronic mail isn’t sufficient to have interaction your viewers previous the nine-second mark. As an alternative, take your messages to the subsequent stage with interactive electronic mail parts that inform, entertain, and persuade your viewers to enroll. As an example, you would possibly embody parts similar to:
Embedded movies of final 12 months’s occasion
Clickable FAQ sections
Hyperlinks to your web site or donation web page
Actual-time countdown timers
Polls or surveys
Social media sharing buttons
Place to obtain your occasion app
Interactive parts ought to make your emails extra attention-grabbing and helpful in your viewers. That mentioned, don’t muddle your emails with pointless parts that would distract the reader out of your foremost worth proposition.
4. Prioritize Accessibility and Cellular Customers
As a digital marketer, your job is to make sure as many individuals can entry, interpret, and draw that means out of your emails as attainable. That’s why prioritizing accessibility for individuals of all skills is crucial. Listed here are some accessibility greatest practices to bear in mind in your pre-event emails:
Embrace alt textual content that explains the aim of significant pictures. You’ll be able to depart the alt textual content clean if it’s only a ornamental or inventory picture.
Guarantee colours distinction properly. Colours that mix collectively could make studying difficult for individuals with imaginative and prescient impairments. Use a shade distinction device to verify in case your strategy aligns with greatest practices.
Correctly dimension textual content so it’s simple for the viewers to learn. Additionally, use legible fonts, similar to Arial, Verdana, or Occasions New Roman.
Write simply comprehensible content material freed from jargon and sophisticated language. This helps audiences draw worth out of your emails no matter their present information of your occasion or group. Moreover, think about translating your emails when you have a multilingual help base.
This idea doesn’t finish with content material accessibility. Your emails must also be accessible on any system, together with cell telephones and tablets. Guarantee your pictures and content material routinely resize to suit the system’s display dimensions. Some electronic mail administration programs and occasion administration options assist you to preview what your electronic mail will appear like on telephones, tablets, and computer systems, so double-check that your content material is legible and make any mandatory changes earlier than sending your emails.
5. Check Your Emails
Some emails hit the mark greater than others. Your technique will develop over time, and finally, you’ll discover an strategy that greatest helps your pre-event advertising wants.
To get there, you’ll want to check completely different techniques to find out that are best. A/B testing empowers you to gauge what your viewers responds properly to so you’ll be able to all the time nail your emails. A/B testing works like this:
Draft two (or extra) emails utilizing completely different techniques within the topic line, physique, and calls to motion.
Ship the emails to completely different viewers members.
Observe related key efficiency indicators (KPIs), similar to open price and click-through price.
Examine the KPIs of various electronic mail campaigns to resolve which resonated extra along with your viewers.
If you wish to verify how efficient sure methods are for sure teams primarily based on their traits or motivations, section recipient teams strategically in step two. As an example, you would possibly check whether or not youthful audiences reply properly to emojis in your topic line.
As you craft your electronic mail technique, plan for the subsequent iteration of your occasion upfront. Maintain detailed information in your database so you’ll be able to construct upon this occasion’s success sooner or later.
