5 Email Marketing Strategies to Drive Event Registration

As much as people try to make it seem so, email marketing is not dead. In fact, there’s never been a better time to employ email marketing strategies to your advantage. Today, email is everywhere and is ever-present in the lives of many. Its marketing use should never be taken for granted. Instead, cherish it as a golden opportunity to communicate. 

Email marketing is a window into a very targeted audience who have already expressed interest in your company or event. It has many diverse uses. One is to drive event registration. This is challenging at the best of times. Getting concrete commitments from members of your audience can be a make or break challenge.

Event registration requires effort and creativity. So here are 5 email marketing strategies that will help make your life a bit easier.

1. Segment for success

Your email address book is invaluable. It’s made up of people who have had past experience with your events and are already open to you. Segmentation is always powerful for email marketing. However, it is of particular use when you are asking for an event sign-up.

“You need to start with an analysis of your own event and decide to whom it will most appeal. Once you have figured that out, you can go about segmenting your email list to ensure that your high-value targets are the ones getting your registration emails,” explains Fred Allen, email marketer at Writinity and LastMinuteWriting.

You can segment by age, location, profession, and any other relevant data you may have stored in your email list.

2. Make it mobile friendly

A 2018 IBM marketing report said that as many as 60% of all emails are opened on mobile devices. This is startling. The upshot of this is that mobile is vital. An event registration email is going to take thought. All information must be placed correctly for the size of a mobile’s screen. Your emails must also hook the reader in. 

Sure, adapting your emails for reduced screen size is a lot of work. But, the boost you’ll get from mobile optimisations isn’t negligible. Make sure that you put the time in. 

3. Highlight the benefits

When an individual does something at a company’s request, it feels like a big effort. To get your email audience to register for your event, they really need to see the benefits of signing up. Make sure these benefits are at the forefront of your “case.” You have to establish clearly what an individual can gain by registering.

You have to put yourself in the mindset of your recipients. That is, you have to see what sort of rewards would move you to wanting to take part. You can take nothing for granted in these situations. Getting people to take action is always tricky. 

4. Focus on design

Emails can be incredibly boring. “Email design is an important task as you think about trying to hook event registrations. The difficulty is that you have to try and find a way to convey clear messages in the context of a visually appealing, attractive email”, suggests Francois Laurent, marketing writer at DraftBeyond and ResearchPapersUK. 

Clarity is really important. This isn’t an advertising email; this is an administrative email. Details of the event’s when, where, and why must take priority. Yet it still needs to be enticing. A well-designed email will achieve practical goals without sacrificing the visuals.

5. Keep the registration simple

The event registration itself will vary with the type of event. But in general, the simpler the better. You are now battling an audience with 8-second attention spans. This is shockingly low. If your registration is a long form, even the people who want to attend will be put off. 

A good strategy for email marketing is to use the medium of email itself. Make it so that all people have to do to register is reply to the email with a single “yes,” for example.

Failing that, you could break up the process. Make sure the email isn’t cluttered. You could embed a link to a sign-up form or a dedicated event page. You could send a second email after they’ve said they’re interested. Just make sure you keep things as simple as possible.

Time to get those registrations

When you look at email marketing, you may wonder if it’s the right route. Especially considering the modern age of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. But email isn’t going anywhere. For event registration, email is the perfect way to communicate with your audience.

So keep these email marketing strategies in mind. Design well, be clear, and people will sign up right away.

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Ashley Halsey is a professional business writer, working at Lucky Assignments and Gum Essays, writing on all sorts of topics relating to marketing strategy and technology for business. She spends most of her spare time travelling with her family and gathering information for her latest piece of writing.