In working with
more than 1000 clients, we've seen some really great
ways to enhance event registration. And the best thing
is that with the advent of online registration systems,
much of these techniques can be automated and streamlined.
The result: a better experience for your registrants.
In addition, these online registration systems
eliminate many of the headaches you and your team face
on a day-to-day basis.
These 10 little success secrets will:
· Attract more registrants
· Make events more valuable
· Result in more satisfied attendees
· Make your life as a meeting planner easier
· Let s dive in and have fun exploring our
1. Take the time up-front
You might be surprised how simple changes in your registration
design can make everything much easier and more efficient
for you and for your attendees - which makes everybody
happy! Plus, preparation up-front will save you a lot
of time and hassle in the end. Online registration systems
are event registration tools to help you build your
event quickly. But, all too often, building the event
takes longer than anticipated because not enough time
was spent designing the registration process.
Give yourself a week or more to create a great design
for your online registration. That way you can percolate
some really good ideas, bounce them off of others, and
even get some assistance from your online registration
system s support team. Some support teams will help
you scope
everything out, brainstorm on ideas, and even help you
build your registration pages.
2. Maximize registration time
Give yourself plenty of time to register and round up
registrants. The more time you have to register people
before an event, the more registrants you ll have. We
see so many events where registration starts a couple
weeks before the event. By increasing the registration
period, people
perceive the event as being bigger, more important,
and have a sense that it s even more worthwhile for
them.
This also enables you to have tiered pricing, such as
early bird specials that motivate people to sign up
even earlier. Some online registration systems will
automatically turn different pricing tiers on and off
based on dates that you set.
3. Make Signing Up Easy
Give your prospective attendees as many opportunities
as possible to say yes to your event. How
many times have you come across an event you ve wanted
to attend only to have to sort through web pages
to try to find the small register here text
link hidden at the bottom of a page. This means lost
registrants and revenue. It also means more staff time
in directing people to where to go. Display the link
prominently on your home page, in the navigation bar,
certainly on every page that discusses the event, at
the bottom of emails (in the signature), and include
the URL on your printed materials.
4. Help them feel at home
With most online registration systems, your attendees
click from your site to your registration provider s
site. This has the potential to be confusing to your
attendees and may make them uncomfortable sharing their
contact and credit card information. You can avoid this
by changing the border, headings, and font colors on
the registration pages to match your site. Also, upload
your logo into the custom header and/or footer pages.
Now when people click to register, they feel all warm
and fuzzy about your brand and colors being right there
with them.
5. Welcome them in
A welcome message is such a nice touch that
tells people exactly what event they are registering
for and make them feel good. It s a wonderful opportunity
to remind your prospects of the value they ll get out
of attending your event. Be specific. Whether it s a
conference, incentive trip, training, or golf tournament,
we all need reassurance on why we are investing our
time and money. It is also a good place to explain a
little bit about the online registration process (especially
if there s a lot to decide on or fill out)
For example:
Welcome to the Conference on Happy Golden Retrievers.
We are so excited that you will be joining us in Lake
Tahoe this August
20th-23rd.
Among the 300 happy goldens, all the cool dog tricks
they ll do, and all the fun we ll have hanging out with
each other, it ought to be dog-gone-fun! In the next
four registration pages we will ask you some questions
about you and your dog, your preferences for meals,
your hotel preferences, and your preferred method of
payment.
Please feel free to call or email if you have any questions
or
problems along the way. We want to make sure you are
as happy as your golden.
6. Give access to detail
One reason people abandon their registration is because
they want to learn more before buying. Having links
from the registration pages to more detailed pages (either
on the registration form or to your website) is very
important. It enables the registrant to open secondary
windows, get more information, and then come back to
finish their registration. You may want to encourage
people to call you while they are registering, so they
can get answers right away and finish their registration
right then and there.
7. Ask Deeper Questions
Ask your registrants more questions than their contact
information, meal preferences, and credit card numbers.
Learn more about them; their expectations for the event,
their views and experience on topics related to the
event, and their demographic data. Your registrants
will feel the event will be more tailored to meet their
needs. You can actually use the information to make
the event more relevant.
Some example questions are:
What would you like to get out of this event?
How did you learn about the event?
Why did you decide to attend?
How many times have you been to this event?
Have you recommended it to others? Why?
What would you do to improve the event?
Which part(s) of the event are you most looking forward
to?
You could use this information to improve the event,
promote it, track marketing efforts, gather aggregate
data to share with all attendees, and pump up aspects
that people are really looking forward to. Some online
registration systems will enable you to add custom questions
like these to your registration pages. They may also
output the responses into a nice, neat format for you
as well.
8. Fulfill their desire to buy
Give your registrants the opportunity to buy more than
just an event registration. Your registrants are already
in the buying mood. They may be itching to get something
to help them before, during, or after your event. Do
you have books, t-shirts, tapes, white papers, or autographed
copies of books from the speakers at your event? Or
if you are a charity, this might be a great opportunity
to ask for a donation. With an online registration system,
you can offer your registrants additional value (with
very little additional effort) as they are going through
the registration process.
9. Thank your registrants
With online registration, the system automatically sends
out confirmation emails to the registrant. Use this
opportunity to help your registrant feel really good
about their decision to attend. Write a confirmation
email that sincerely thanks them, gets them even more
excited about their decision to attend, and gives them
a subtle reminder to tell their friends and colleagues.
You may even want to put a special offer in the confirmation
that would help their friends get a deal on your event.
10. Add value before the event
Most online registration systems have options for automated
reminder emails at time frames that you determine. Use
this capability to increase your attendance, develop
more rapport, and increase referrals.
The super charging trick is to give additional value
in these emails a tasting of a topic that will
be covered at the event, an article from one of the
speakers, an industry whitepaper, or hard-hitting controversial
questions facing the industry.
Maybe just before the golf tournament, it s a blurb
from Tiger Woods on how to putt. Give something that
would add value and color to your registrants
lives anything that would cause them to feel like
the event organizers have obviously done their homework
and, therefore, the event is going to be super valuable,
too.
Bonus Tips:
After reading these 10 tips, you may be asking,
Is there anything else I should know? We decided
to throw in a few bonus tips to help further enhance
the event and registration experience.
1. Recruit testers to break your registration
Fully test your registration pages before going live
with them. It is much easier to spend the time up front
than to have the hassles and embarrassment of a misaligned
registration form.
Sometime you can just be too close to it and need another
set of eyes to do an adequate job of testing. The more
testing you do, the smoother everything will go. Rehearse
the registration while it is still in testing mode with
several people in your organization. Ask the tech support
advisors of your online registration provider to test
it for you. Their expertise in event setup will ensure
you re getting the most out of the application.
2. Bring back the people who abandon
Some systems are able to automatically email people
who came to register and never finished. The email would
ask if they had any questions or problems. This gives
you an opportunity to be proactive in helping people
complete their registrations, thereby increasing your
registration numbers. On some systems, this may be a
report that you can run yourself and then email to manually.
3. Talk to attendees after the event
Post-event follow up is so often overlooked. You can
stand above the crowd by doing a post-event follow-up
email and/or survey. Thank your attendees, ask them
what they liked about the event, and what they thought
could be done better. Some online registration systems
can automate that process too. For example, set the
system to automatically send out personalized emails
with a survey link one week after the event is over.
ATTILA
SAFARI has 20 years of meeting and registration technology
experience and is the founder of RegOnline a worldwide
leader online registrations in asafari@regonline.com |
