Have you ever come across an event that you wanted to attend but registration wasn’t available yet? What did you do? Did you remember to go back in a few weeks to register or just forget about it?

If people are starting to think about registering for your event and you don’t have a way to capture that interest, you are losing potential registrants. Seizing every opportunity to make a sale is critical to a successful event, especially during a time when people are spending less.

Use A Save-The-Date Form

A Save-The-Date form is a simple form designed to collect contact information of people interested in attending your event before registration opens. Once you have the email address and/or phone number of people interested in attending, you can proactively follow up to encourage them to register.

A side benefit of the Save-The-Date form is the number of responses you get may help gauge the interest level for your event.

Over the last few weeks of 2008, while the ePly team was snowed in, we brainstormed what a really good Save-The-Date form should include:

1. Keep it simple and easy to complete.
2. Limit the fields to name, phone number and email address; ask for other details only if you really need them.
3. Make email address the only required field.
4. Give clear and easy-to-read instructions on how the save the date form works such as “Registration for the “event name” is not yet open. Please enter your name and email address below and we will contact you once registration opens”.
5. Have a privacy policy on the form so people feel safe providing their information.
6. Make the form branded to match your organization or the event, so people feel comfortable.
7. Put the name, phone number and email address of a contact person on the form. You probably won’t get many calls, but just knowing that there is someone to contact will help make your form seem more legitimate.

Here is a sample Save-The-Date-Form:
 

 

The next time people express interest in your event and you are still finalizing the details, make a Save-The-Date form a part of your event marketing plan and proactively follow up to secure those registrations.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments about this article.


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