There are many important factors in putting on a successful meeting, conference or event including making sure you have a cost-effective program for accepting Visa and MasterCard.

Most merchants deal with their bank for the initial set-up but often end up switching providers as the industry is becoming increasingly competitive putting downward pressure on pricing.   But before switching providers it is important to make sure all of the costs associated with the new offer are understood so as to avoid cost ‘surprises’.

Part of the change that the industry has under gone in the last five to ten years is a move away from a single price driver – discount rate to a model that makes use of multiple price drivers.   The new model can make it difficult to really understand what is important when it comes to pricing.    Table 1.0 illustrates the differences between the old and new pricing models.

Table 1.0

Typically the new model is sold with a too-good-too-be-true discount rate while the merchant potentially ends up overpaying on the other fees.   Because of this it would not be unusual for a merchant to end up saving only a nominal amount of money despite paying a substantially lower discount rate with their new provider.    To effectively compare competing offers merchants need to focus on the monthly or yearly costs and not the individual pricing components of the offer.

Once a merchant has a real understanding to the costs involved with switching to a new credit card provider the next step is completing the necessary paperwork and signing the Agreement.    Prior to signing the new agreement a merchant would be wise to make sure there aren’t any ‘hidden’ fees in the agreement.   Some providers charge a fee to change a bank account or mailing address while others charge prohibitive cancelation fees.   If also entering into a lease agreement make sure the end of lease procedures (and costs) are understood.

It often makes a lot of sense for a merchant to change providers as the savings can be substantial but proper due diligence is required.   A confident sales rep will spend as much time as required to explain the how they have priced the account so don’t be afraid to ask questions.   And remember discount rate is now just a part of the costs associated with accepting credit cards.

At ePly we refer our clients needing to open new merchant accounts to:

Canadian merchant accounts – Caledon Card Services

US merchant accounts – eOnline Data

Be careful, however, with how you word the code field and any related text on the form as well as with the codes that you choose to use or you might end up with some frustrated registrants and extra work on your end.

Here is what we recommend:

The wording on the form

If you label your code field as a discount code or promo code you might have some registrants feeling left out and wondering why they aren’t getting a discount.  If you use a more generic label such as “code” or “registration code” that doesn’t as clearly imply a discounted rate, you may not get as much unwanted attention.

How many codes to use

If you can keep the number of codes to a minimum you will make your life as an event planner easier.  If you have just one code for speakers and one for sponsors, then you only have to send out two codes.  If you have a different code for each speaker and sponsor, then you will need to merge the appropriate code into an email and will need to be looking up individual codes when people lose them and call into you.

Either way you can monitor the use of the codes using the registration system, so keep it simple at your end.

Make codes easy to enter

As we discussed in our post called Keeping People Honest With Member Rates on Online Event Registration Forms, it’s unlikely that people are going to try to cheat by using a code that they aren’t entitled to because they expect that you are checking and will eventually have to attend the event and don’t want to get caught.  On the other hand, you want to make the codes unique enough that someone isn’t simply going to guess it.

In general, you should avoid the following when coming up with your codes:

• Spaces – people are unsure if they should enter the space or not
• Punctuation – it can be unclear as to whether quotes, periods or other punctuation are a part of the code you are providing or just a part of the sentence the code is included in
• Mixed cases – keeping your codes all upper or all lower case will make them easier to enter
• Avoid the number one (1) and zero (0) as in some fonts they can be confused with upper case (I) or lower case (l) and upper case (O)

Good code examples:

• speaker2233
• sponsor5594

 
What to do if you catch someone using a code when they aren’t supposed to:

If you do see someone misusing codes it’s likely an honest mistake, or at least approach it like it is.  A simple phone call to ask the registrant where they got the code from or a question such as, “I see you used a sponsor code, are you planning to become a sponsor?” should usually clear it up.

As long as you are doing your checking before the event it’s easy to charge a credit card for the difference or send another invoice and if the bill isn’t paid you don’ t have to let the registrant into the event.

The conversation usually starts out with our client thinking that they will need to integrate their membership database with the registration system or upload lists of members.  While this is all possible, we always start out by suggesting some easy to implement options before calling in the geeks.

Option #1 – Do nothing

Registering for an event is different than purchasing merchandise online.  With an event registration, you need to show up in person to get what you paid for.  This means that most people won’t try to cheat by paying the lower rate when they aren’t members because they know that the event planner could be monitoring the data and they could easily be caught.

We like this solution because there is nothing extra to set up and it doesn’t make registering any more complicated.  Lots of our clients use this option and we’ve never had any reports of people cheating.

Option #2 – Add some text

If you think that you might have a few opportunists in your group, add a bit of text to the form just to make it clear such as “If you choose the member rate, but are not a member in good standing, you will be required to pay the difference before entering the event”.

This option is still easy to set up and doesn’t require the registrant to do any extra work.

Option #3 – Add a field on the form to collect a member number

If you have less faith that your registrants are going to do the right thing, you can add a field that requires people selecting the member rate to enter their member number.   The field can be set up to accept any number or you can add a high level validation to check that the number entered matches a specified format.  For example, if your member numbers are all six digits long and start with a two, the system won’t accept the registration if the number entered doesn’t match those criteria.

This is a little more work to set up, but still on the easy side.  However, this option will require that your members know their member number, so there could be some potential for frustration or a delay in registering if they don’t know their number or have to go hunting for it.  It could also generate some calls or emails to you from people needing to be reminded of their number.

Option #4 – Call in the geeks

If you are really concerned or have some other reason for needing to fully verify members, it can be possible to do some integration work, but it will cost you some programming time and you may need to have someone technical on your end too.

With this option, when you factor in the cost of the programming and time to get set up, compare that to the potential lost revenue if the odd person does cheat and pays a lower rate.  You’ll probably find that the numbers favour the honour system.

Remember, you are always able to run a report of everyone paying the member rate and do a bit of manual checking against your member list.  It’s not the most technologically advanced option, but it works and just costs a bit of time.

Adding this field will please your event attendees who prefer to go by something other than their official given name and will mean that all of the Roberts, Williams, Benjamins, Christophers, Barbaras, Elizabeths, Victorias and others won’t be constantly telling the new people they meet to call them something else.

Warning

Before you go ahead and add this field, consider how you plan to format your badges.  Some careful thought now will help to prevent some time consuming editing when it comes time to lay out and merge the data to the badges.

If you just add a field to your registration form called “Name for Badge” you will be able to collect some data, but here’s what can happen:

1. Some people will enter a first name only and others will enter a first and last name. 

   Either way you will have the data, but you probably want to make all of the badges consistent so you will have to edit all of the “name for badge” data before producing the badges.

2. You won’t be able to automatically sort your name badges by last name.

   If your event is small, maybe this isn’t a concern, but if you have a hundred or more badges, you will need them in alphabetical order by last name to be efficient.  If the first and last name are combined in the same field and you do an alphabetical sort it’s going to sort on first name.

3. You will be limited by layout and formatting options.

   Often you will see first names in a larger font than last names and first and last names on different lines.  You may also decide that you only want a first name on a badge.  If you collect first and last name in the same field you’ll be in for some manual work separating the names or need to learn a few Excel tricks to parse out the data automatically.

To make generating name badges easier, here’s what we recommend:

1. Add one field to your registration form called “First Name for Name Badge”.
    
1. This wording makes it clear that you are only after a first name.
    
2. The majority of the time a name badge name is just a variation of a first name so it’s not necessary to ask for a “Last Name for Name Badge”.
    
2. Set up the online registration form to automatically take the data from the regular  first name field and copy it to the first name for name badge field.
    
1. This makes it easy for people who don’t have a variation of their first name for a badge as they won’t have to do anything.
    
2. For people who do have an alternate first name, they will simply edit the name that shows up in the field.

If your online registration system can’t automatically copy the registrant’s first name into the first name for badge field, you should make the first name for badge field mandatory.  If you don’t, some people may leave the field blank which will mean that you have to manually edit the blank fields to contain a name before you start your merge to create the badges.

Using these recommendations will give you the flexibility to format and sort your name badges to accommodate last minute requests from your client, boss or committee without spending hours manually editing data.

If you have other tips for keeping name badges easy, please let us know.

The questions touch on registration software, security, credit card processing and best practices.  After the quiz you’ll see your score and get an explanation for each question.
 

Take the Online Registration Quiz Now

Contact us or leave a comment to let us know how you did.

This can lead to the inevitable rush order and the potential for missed opportunities when it comes to getting the most out of conference supplies.

Name Badges help delegates be more visible and to network with the right people, so here are our top tips on how to get people talking and to help create a unique experience where name badges are kept as a memento instead of being thrown away right after the event.

Get creative with your name badge inserts

Everyone loves to see their name in lights, so why not spend a few extra cents to make your conference ID stand out? High quality professional print name badge inserts may not be within your marketing budget, but a colourful or unusual name badge can be a talking point.

If you want to get really creative and involve your audience you could ask delegates in advance to send you some fun details about themselves.  A picture of a pet, a favourite quote or one question they would like to be asked. Providing a talking point can take the hard work out of introductions and start things off with a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

Remind delegates in the opening speech to check other name badges for hidden details, and you could create a talking point and buzz well before and long after the conference.

Use no twist badges & lanyards

There is nothing worse than forgetting the name of the person you have just met – especially at a Conference! If networking is a key part of the agenda, good quality lanyards and badge holders with inserts that are printed clearly with the name in large print are essential for at-a-glance name recall.

Badges can also turn around the wrong way as people move, so delegate names are not always facing forwards. Investing in good quality ‘no twist’ lanyards will help to keep your identification facing out so people can see it.

Supersize / Go large

Traditional conference badge holders are roughly the size of two credit cards laid next to each other by the long side. They hold the usual credentials with just enough room for a logo, but more often than not you have to be standing in front of the person wearing the name badge in order to see the details.

If you want to pack a little more punch to your credentials, larger badge holders are twice the size of a normal convention badge holder, and horizontal or vertical, there is more room to slot in extra paperwork. They are also made with thicker vinyl so are less likely to twist.

If you have a little extra budget, you can invest in premium neck wallets with zippers and as many extra pockets as you wish. Not only are they stylish and comfortable, extra pockets make sure that event visitors have enough room to carry all the promotional items they may pick up. They are also very useful outside of the event so often get used at home and at work, so if your logo is on it, you get extra visibility.

Lanyards are fashionable and functional!

Lanyards are fashionable and functional, so to encourage delegates to continue to wear your brand long after the event, create lanyards with a fashionable or funky design.

The easiest way to get full colour lanyards is to ask for photo-print or dye sublimation processing. This process enables you to print entire pictures of anything you like on to both sides of your lanyard and really can help you stand out from the crowd.

Clever use of attachments can also make sure your lanyards are used over and over again. Bulldog clips are easier to attach but are seldom used after an event as they are specific to the badge holder. Swivel hooks however can be used to attach keys and many other items, so if you can get through the additional work required to clip them on to the name badge holders, you may see your brand on the high street creating a fashion statement long after the event.

Use quality products

Event organizers spend a lot of time and money creating a great conference at a great venue, with the best speakers, but often try to cut corners at the end. Economy products or lanyards that twist, make people sweat, or break can often end up being the talking point you don’t want.

Remember that happy or unhappy, delegates talk, so make sure your event is remembered for all the right reasons.

Consider purchasing your printed lanyards, neck wallets and conference ID supplies form www.mybadges.ca.

Email and social media are great tools for promoting events, but if your event isn’t selling out it might be time to try something a little more old fashioned.

You might not want to hear it, but making sales calls can be a great way to sell out your event.  This is especially true if your event is happening soon and your numbers are down, as you can get almost instant results.

For a lot of people it’s been a long time since they made a sales call and some have never made one.  Before you start making excuses for not picking up the phone like “I hate cold calling”, “phone sales doesn’t work anymore” or “it’s not a part of my job” read on to see how easy it can be.

Here’s how to make a sales call to sell your event.

First, start with the easy calls.  If you’ve put on the event in the past, dig out the old attendee lists and start at the top.  Look at the name and then check your online registration system to see if that person has already registered.  If they aren’t registered, pick up the phone and dial away.

If you’re nervous, don’t think of it as a sales call, think of it as just following up with past attendees to make sure they are aware of the new event.  Remember, many people may be intending to register, but just keep putting it off, so your call may be helping them to get something off of their to do list.

Sample Script

Here’s a sample script that you can use to get started.  Never read from a script and be sure to adjust it to fit your style and relationship with the people you are calling.

Hello, _________, I’m _________ and am calling on behalf of _____________.

I noticed that you attended the (name of past event), but you aren’t currently registered for (name of the new event).

I’m calling to see if I can help you get registered.

Just wait to see how they respond and take it from there.  Here are a few likely situations:

If they say – “Sure, I’ve been meaning to sign up” – perfect that’s what you want to hear.  At this point it would be easy to tell them to go to the online form and register themselves, but I would recommend that you pull up the online form on your computer and register the person by asking for their details while you have them.

If they say – “I’m not sure if I can make it”

Say – “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, what part of the event can’t you make?” – once you know when the conflict is, maybe suggest registering for one day, just the gala or other part of the event if that’s an option.

If they can’t make it at all, it doesn’t hurt to ask if there is someone else at their company that would want to attend or if they can suggest anyone else you should call.  You have nothing to lose by asking and you may be surprised at how helpful people are.

If they say – “the price is too high, it’s not in the budget” or give another price related objection.

Say – “lots of people are excited about the event because it includes… (list the education, the networking, the food, etc. to show the value they are getting for the price).  The point here isn’t to go on and on, but make sure it is clear what the price includes.

If it is truly a budget issue try suggesting that they just attend a part of the event at a lower cost.  While you have them on the phone also ask how much they think would be a fair price.  This will give you valuable feedback for future events.

If they say – “I’m not interested in the event”

Say – “oh, what part aren’t you interested in?”  Try to get them talking a little more as “not interested” could be an easy excuse covering up the real objection.

Once you have the details of the objection you can respond appropriately; maybe they just didn’t think they were interested because they didn’t have all of the details.

If there really is no interest, try asking what they would be interested in attending to help you plan future events.

Other tips when calling

1. Speak slowly and clearly, especially at the beginning.
2. A good time to practice some calling is the day before a price change, this way you are really being helpful by calling to remind people the price goes up tomorrow.
3. Avoid asking “how are you” at the start of the call, especially if you don’t know them.  People are busy, just get right into why you are calling.
4. Just give your first name, people won’t remember your last name.
5. Keep a few notes about who you’ve called, when you’ve left voice mail etc. so that you aren’t calling the same person too many times.  If you have more than one person making calls, divide up the list or have some other way to not duplicate calls.
6. Keep track of the wording that works and modify your script.  You’ll be able to use it for other events or share it with your team.
7. If you are leaving voice mail, give your phone number twice as it gives people a chance to write it down.
8. Close your email and remove other distractions so that you can focus on getting though a series of calls.  Once you are warmed up you’ll want to keep going.

If you would like us to review your script or need some help coming up with some ideas, please let us know and we’d be happy to help.

This tip is about the critical step of linking your event website, email marketing or other promotional material to your online registration form.  Done right, this link will actually increase the number of registrations you get.  If you don’t give careful attention to this step, you could be missing out on registrations and end up missing out on revenue.

There are two main components to setting up an effective link from your event website/marketing to your registration form.

Critical component #1 – Make your register button very visible

You would be surprised at how often we check on one of our client’s websites and have to hunt around to find the link to the online registration form.

Often the link is buried in a menu system or at the bottom of several paragraphs of text that people may never even read.

Here are our suggestions:

1. Come up with an eye catching image that really stands out.  This image needs to clearly stand out against your background colours and immediately catch the user’s attention.

   If you or someone on your team doesn’t know how to create an image of your own using a graphics editing program you might want to hire a graphics designer or check with your webmaster.  If you are in need of ideas for you button, do a search in Google images on the term “register now button” and you will find hundreds of examples.

2. Make your image actually look like a button.  It will help drive people to click it.

3. Add your button at the top and the bottom of your web pages.  Some people may land on your website and be ready to register right away, so make it easy for them by having a button at the top.  Others may skim though the text and scroll to the bottom of your page, so you need a button there too.

Critical component #2 – Use a Call to action

The second critical component is a call to action.  If you look closely at any good marketing piece, you will find a call to action such as “call now”, “request more information” or “get your free quote”.  You need to tell people what to do with a simple statement.

The most basic call to action to register for an event is “Register Now”.  This text should be incorporated into the graphic image that you create.

To take your call to action to the next level, work in some supporting text that creates a sense of urgency to help to drive even more registrations.  For example, giving a deadline to register, stating the end of early bird pricing or that the event is nearly sold out will help people take immediate action.

Some examples are:

-          Register now – early bird price ends today

-          Register now – this event is nearly sold out

Bonus Tip #1 – Add in text links.

Be sure to add text links where appropriate in the text on your event website.  For example, if you have the text “online registration will close June 1” on your website, make sure that the words “online registration” link to your registration form.

Bonus Tip #2 – Test all of your links

If you have a broken link on your website, you are losing registrations.  Most potential registrants won’t take the time to troubleshoot a broken link or contact you to let you know there is a problem; they just leave your site.  It only takes a few minutes, so be sure to test all of the links on your website.

1. Make your online event registration form match the look and feel of your website. A consistent look helps registrants feel comfortable with the process and looks professional.

   If registrants land on a page that looks nothing like the site they came from, they might feel like they are in the wrong place and hesitate to complete the form. Plus, it’s not very professional and doesn’t support your brand.




2. Make the form look clean and easy to use to draw people in. Align fields perfectly, use consistent spacing, add white space and limit the use of different font sizes and styles.

   In interior design, many small details add up to make a room feel inviting. The same goes for your form; there are a lot of small details: layout, spacing, fonts, images, colours, etc. Just keep spacing and alignments and font size and styles consistent and you will have a good start.




3. Have a clearly visible and friendly cancellation and refund policy. If you don’t want to offer refunds, at least allow people to transfer their registration to someone else.

   If you’re asking people to pre-register for your event but state “No Refunds” it will deter some people from registering until the last minute, and if you don’t get them signing up now you may not get them at all if something better comes up. At a minimum, allow people to transfer their registration to someone else. It doesn’t cost you anything, it helps your registrant and you still get someone at the event.




4. List a name and phone number of a real person registrants can contact if they have questions. Most people won’t call, but like to know the option is there.

   Sure, all of the info is on your website and the whole idea of online registration is that you don’t have to talk to anyone. But if a potential registrant is uneasy about using online registration, or if they do have a question that isn’t answered on your site, being able to pick up the phone for a 2 minute conversation will probably secure another registration for you. Plus, being accessible to your customers is just good business.




5. Keep text short. If you feel the need to provide a lot of instructions, your form is probably too complicated.

   At best, people might skim through your text. By the time people hit your form they are ready to sign up so don’t make them read too much and make it easy for them to give you their money.




6. Prevent people from making errors by using the right field types for the questions and by adding logic. This will make the form easy to use and done right you won’t need to provide instructions.

   Most people will start entering data as soon as they load your form. If they get stuck, they might read the instructions if they don’t just leave. While it may seem like some field types (text box, radio button, check box, drop down list, etc.) can be used interchangeably, each type has a specific purpose. Using the right one for the question will make your form easier to use and give you better reporting.

   If you are using a professional registration system, it will have the capability to set up logic (certain fields can be enabled or disabled based on other selections) and validations (forcing people to answer a question or enter data in a specific format) too. Using these tools will guide your registrants through the process and give you properly completed registrations.




7. Host the form on a secure server. Savvy users know what to look for and won’t proceed if it doesn’t look safe.

   Even if you know your event will sell out, you need to use a secure server; it’s good business. While we are talking about security, never email a credit card number or save one in an online database. Plus, your system needs to be PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant if you are accepting credit cards online. If you haven’t heard of PCI before and are using software that you, your webmaster or someone at your company developed then it’s probably not compliant. The credit card companies are revoking merchant accounts and issuing fines if proper security practices aren’t followed.




8. Have a privacy policy clearly visible. There are people that won’t register if they don’t see this.

   People want to know what happens with their data, where it’s stored and how it will be used. It’s easy to state this on your form and it removes one more bit of potential friction that could block a sale.




9. Anticipate questions people may have when registering and make the answers easily available. Don’t give people a reason to not register.

   We aren’t suggesting that you add a lot of text to your form, but make sure the basics are covered plus anything specific relating to your event. Time, date, location, price, who to call with questions, cancellation policy, how to make changes, when the early bird rate ends, what’s included, etc. You might want to create a FAQ page on your website for other details like what to wear, where to park, etc. and maybe even put this in your confirmation email too.




10. Offer payment options appropriate for your registrants. i.e. don’t make paying by credit card the only option if you are targeting students who may not have credit cards.

    If people can’t pay, they won’t register. If you are expecting international delegates from Universities you may need to accept wire payments or if your registration fee is high or you are dealing with larger corporations, giving a PO option might be needed. Know your registrants and accommodate their needs.




11. Don’t offer too many registration options. If people have to spend time thinking about what to select they may decide to come back later…or never.

    This is basic sales. Think about buying shoes; if the sales person is good, they will be narrowing down the options so that you just have a few pairs to decide between. These sales people know that if customers have to choose between all of their shoes most people won’t be able to make a decision and will not make a purchase.

    The same rule applies to online forms, so make it easy for people to decide. You may want to make it even easier for people to decide on the option that you want them to pick, such as the full conference option rather than just a single day. To do this, bold the preferred option, price it so that it’s clearly a better deal, etc.




12. Only ask for individual ticket holder names when you really need them. Asking for the name of each ticket holder complicates the purchase as most of the time people don’t know the names and if they do, they often change before the event anyways.

    See the post about this – Should you ask for ticket holder names on your online forms.




13. Only ask for details that you really need. Potential event registrants may abandon the form if you are asking for personal information they don’t want to give out.

    It’s easy to ask for lots of information with an online form, but don’t get carried away, especially with personal questions like birth date, passport info, race, etc. unless you really do need to have that information. Also, consider not asking for a fax number since you probably won’t be faxing anything. Every field that you remove makes the form easier to complete and increases the chances of making a sale.




14. Make the form do the price calculation based on the selections people make. It’s easier for the registrant and you can trust the math.

    If your online form still makes the registrant enter prices and add up a total, you better call an online registration company today because the money you are losing in arithmetic errors will cover the cost of a good system. Plus, a system that doesn’t automate the math just doesn’t give a professional first impression of your event.




15. Don’t require people to create an account before they can register. Why would someone want to sign up with an online registration provider and give their information to another company just so they can register for your event?

    There are still online registration systems that require people to open an account before they can register for an event. This is a major road block and if you are on a system that requires this you should stop using it as it’s costing you registrations. If you really want people to open an account, give them the option after you have their registration.




16. Don’t force people to login to a system before they can register. They probably won’t remember their password.

    This is like someone coming up to your checkout in a brick and mortar store, ready to make a purchase, and telling them they need a password before you can take their money. You just wouldn’t do it face to face, so why do people do it online? Unless you are selling out every event or have a super good reason to require people to login to an account, you are frustrating registrants and missing out on registrations.




17. No ads and no Flash – the goal of the form is to get people to click the “register” button at the bottom of the form and you don’t want to distract them in any way. Plus, ads on forms are tacky.

    The purpose of your registration form is to make a sale. Anything that could distract a registrant from completing the form should be removed, especially an ad for another product or service.




18. Test your form in different browsers, especially if you have people using outdated browsers. What looks good or works in one may not in another.

    In all web development, including online forms, you must consider browser issues. Most issues are fairly minor such as alignment or spacing differences between browsers, but in some cases your form may not work at all. If someone can’t actually submit a registration you not only look bad, but you lose the registration and most people won’t take the time to tell you there is a problem.




19. Add social media options to your form to encourage people to promote the event to their networks.

    While we don’t suggest social media as your only event marketing option, it can certainly be a good and low cost way to get the word out about your event.




20. Keep links that lead people away from your form to a minimum. Once you get someone to your form, keep them focused on registering.

    If you do feel that you need to add a link to your form, be sure that you set it to open a new window or tab when it’s clicked. That way, people can easily get back to the registration form with no risk of losing any data that they may have entered.




21. Don’t use shopping cart software for event registrations. It makes the process confusing, doesn’t look professional and will cost you registrations.

    An online shopping cart is a similar concept, but different enough that it will cause confusion and cost you time trying to manage the data and manipulate it to get it to sort of work. It doesn’t really make sense to add your conference registration to a cart and check out, plus you don’t need shipping information, etc.




22. Avoid frustration points such as forcing phone number formatting and using captchas.

    If you try to force people to enter a phone number in a specific format they may get frustrated since there are so many different ways to enter a phone number. There are country codes, extensions, different separators between numbers, etc. It can be very frustrating if a form won’t accept your number.
    We also suggest avoiding CAPTCHAs; these are the boxes that force you to enter the distorted text that appears in a box. We haven’t seen a need for these and some people can have problems with them.




23. Before going live, try to break the form by entering bad data or by selecting conflicting items. If there is a way to break it, registrants will find it and you will lose that registration.

    When we build a form for a client we follow a detailed testing procedure and test out all combinations. This takes time to do properly and you need to be paying attention, not just clicking around. This is an important step and if the form isn’t perfect you are likely to lose registrations.




24. Get the least computer savvy person you know, or at least someone who hasn’t seen the form before, to try to register while you watch. You might be surprised by what stops or confuses them.

    If you built the form and have spent hours looking at it and thinking about it, it will be hard for you to spot potentially confusing spots. Someone new to it will see it through a registrant’s eyes and by watching them you will see where they get stuck and be able to fix it before you launch registration.




25. Ask your online registration provider to review your form and offer suggestions. They should do this for free and if they are good, they will have a few suggestions for you – unless you did a really, really good job setting it up.

    At ePly we will review your form for you and offer suggestions and point out any issues that we see. Remember, small changes can have a big impact on your registration count.

Here are the issues:

1. I encountered a confusing error message – I started to fill out the form and then got this message – “Currently there are no registration items available for this Registration Type. In order to register, there must be at least one registration item available.”  I’m a member so there was really only one option to select and it didn’t say anything about the event being sold out.  I wasn’t really sure what to do.  At this point, many people would just forget about registering.

   
   

2. I decided to go back to the email to start over and when I clicked the link in the invitation again, I landed on a page that had a message saying registration is closed.  This was frustrating because it was before the RSVP deadline stated in my invitation.

   
   

3. The closed page was also confusing because there was a closed message, but there were still fields showing and a “Next” button so it looked like I could register.  See image below.

   
   

4. I thought I would call someone to see what was happening, but I couldn’t find a phone number on the form, in the invitation or on the organization’s website.  I eventually saw a message that said to contact the event planner with questions, but all that you could do was fill out a form to send an email.

Most events struggle to sell out, so make sure that your registration process isn’t frustrating people and preventing them from giving you their money!  Even if you have powerful registration software, you still need to use it in the right way.

We are just about to release a list of 25 Online Registration Tips That Sell Out Events, so check back soon.

Here is an image of the form; also we all make mistakes, but don’t forget to proof read your text!

Owning an online registration company has some advantages.  One is that I get to work from home on Vancouver Island most of the time and catch the ferry over to the office in North Vancouver when required.

When I saw the email for the MPI AGM come in, I noticed that it started earlier than most meetings and was ending by 7.  This worked out perfect for me as I could catch the first ferry to Vancouver in the morning and then catch the last ferry home.  It would be a long day, but that’s the nature of commuting from the Island.

The AGM went as expected, although if you were expecting long, drawn out proceedings, you would have been disappointed.   Ryan met all of the official requirements of an AGM, but managed to do it in record time.

Next up was the speaker for the event, Rob Gialloreto – President and CEO of Tourism Victoria. Rob caught everyone’s attention with an interesting glimpse into his past using a series of photos.  If you missed it, he briefly showed an image related to a point in his past such as an activity that he participates in or his family, as he mentioned it in the talk.  I’ve seen a few speakers use this style of opening and it is an entertaining and memorable way to get started.

Overall, it sounds like fairly good news for our industry, although growth will be slow and we still need to be changing and working hard to secure business.  The point that really stuck with me from the presentation was the slide about the need to be creative.  This started me thinking about how increased creativity in my company can win more clients.  A few ideas have come to mind and I will be exploring them more in the near future.

There was more time for networking after the event and an opportunity to speak with board members about their specific roles.

I left the event on time and even had time to grab a coffee to help keep me awake for the ferry ride home.  I made it to the ferry by 8:45, just in time to buy my ticket for the 9PM ferry home, only to be informed that the last sailing during the week to Nanaimo is now  7PM!

Somehow I missed that update from BC ferries, so it cost me a night in the Horseshoe Bay motel, which I found out is the only accommodation in all of West Vancouver aside from a few bed and breakfasts.

Of course, it would be nice to know exactly who’s coming, but adding extra fields will have an impact on the number of tickets you sell.

If your goal is to sell as many tickets as possible and you want people to buy multiple tickets at a time or even full tables, we recommend that you do not ask for ticket holder names.  

 Reasons to not ask for ticket holder names:

1. It adds friction to the sale.  It really doesn’t take that much extra time to enter a few names, but it could be just enough extra work for someone to put off completing the purchase until later, and maybe never come back.
    
2. It doesn’t encourage large orders.   Seeing blank name fields doesn’t look right, so people may cut back their purchase to just the names that they know at the time.
    
3. Even if people do enter names for each ticket holder, there is still a good chance that the ticket may change hands.  A wrong name is worse than no name at all.
    
4. It adds confusion.  Of course, the names section  can be designed and formatted nicely, but if people are not very internet savvy it’s just another obstacle that can cause people to abandon the purchase.
    
5. The form is easier to build and test, the reports are simple and overall it’s less work for you.

Example Ticket Sales Form - ticket quantity only

 
Example Ticket Sales Form – fields to collect ticket holder details

When you really must collect names, use these suggestions:

1. Don’t force people to enter names – show the name fields, but have some clear text stating that the field can be left blank.
    
2. Keep it simple and don’t ask for more information than you really need – If you won’t ever email or phone ticket holders, don’t ask for these details.
    
3. Make it easy for people to add the names later – some people just won’t bother to update the names, but have the option for people to login to update names on their own and provide a phone number so that you can do it for them.

Do you have other best practices or experiences related to collecting ticket holder names that you would like to mention?  If so, please comment.

Having an early bird price is a great way to get people to take action before the final registration deadline. We always see a spike in registrations on the last day before a price increase and on the day before registration closes.

We were recently helping Devon Knight, of Devon Knight Events in Vancouver, set up a registration form for a conference and she asked us to set up Super Early Bird pricing. This meant that the form would have Super Early, Early and Regular pricing.

This seemed like a good idea to get more people to commit even earlier, but her idea got even better when I saw how she was setting this up.

My initial thought was that she was planning to reduce the price of the Super Early rate to be below the Early rate and take a hit on revenue. Not bad, but who can afford to drop their price?

It turns out that Devon’s plan was to take the current Early Bird rate and rename it Super Early and then come up with the new Early rate somewhere in between the Super Early and Regular.

Here is an example of how this could work:

Scenario 1 – Early and Regular Rates Only

 
Scenario 2 – Super Early, Early and Regular Rates

 
Results

$7,500 in additional revenue based on our assumptions and people committing earlier without reducing your price.

Adding a Super Early bird rate to your online registration software should only take a few minutes and it will help to get more people registering early and generate more event revenue without any cost to you.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.

We are excited to announce a new release of the ePly online event registration system. The next time you login to the ePly system you will see a brand new interface offering improved usability and several new features.See a list of all of the changes.   The most noticeable changes are to the look and fee and the layout of the menus. Instead of all available menus being listed on the left, only the main menu categories are listed on the left, combined with tabbed sub-menus in the main area.

Here are a few of the primary differences:

1. On the event list page, when you click an event name you will go into the setup area for the event. To view a registration form, you can now click the Preview icon, (2nd icon from the right side).
2. When you click into a main menu item on the left such as “Event Setup” the sub-menus will appear as horizontal tabs.
3. The old ‘Fields’ section of Setup has been replaced by listing all of the ‘Sections’ of your form on the left under Event Setup. Clicking each Section name, gives you access to the fields within that section.
4. There is a help tab in the upper right that will give you details on using some of the more involved features, articles on best practices, troubleshooting tips, etc.

Menu layout changes:

1. EVENT INFO, EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS, FORM LINKS, OPTIONS, and FORM STATUS are now listed under: EVENT SETUP/ GENERAL SETTINGS
2. All of the form options related to form formatting and color that were previously under OPTIONS, are now on the LOOK AND FEEL page.
3. LIMITS and FORM LOGINS have moved to the ADVANCED OPTIONS page.

The following new features are now available:

1. One-click access to all of your forms – Simply click the large blue bar showing the event name (next to ‘Event Name’) to switch to another form.
2. Ability to save your form design as a ‘Theme’ – On the EVENT SETUP menu, click ‘LOOK AND FEEL’ and click ‘Save Theme’ to name your theme. It can then be used to set the same theme on any of your forms.
3. Drag-n-drop functionality- Easily move a complete section of your form by simply clicking on the section name and dragging it into a different position.

If you prefer to use the old interface, just follow the link on the login page. We will keep the old interface available for a few months.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, need help or would like a personal tour of the new interface.

Housekeeping has never been easier with this simple way to rearrange your toolbar buttons or menus.

If you don’t like where things are positioned or are in a new program or on a new computer and want things in their familiar positions, you’ll be happy to find out how easy it is to do some rearranging.

Hold down the Alt key and using the mouse, click and drag the menu button or name to its new location. A vertical bar shows you exactly where the item will be positioned and when it is just right, release the mouse button.
 

Alt + 131 â
Alt + 132 ä
Alt + 133 à
Alt + 135 ç
Alt + 130 é
Alt + 138 è
Alt + 136 ê
Alt + 137 ë
Alt + 139 ï
Alt + 140 î
 

Google offers a free service where they will send you an email when they index a webpage containing a key phrase that you specify.

For example, I have an alert set up for the phrase “online event registration”. When that phrase is added to a webpage, blog or other resource Google indexes I receive an email.

It just takes a few seconds to set up and you can control how often you receive the alerts.

Try setting up an alert using your name, company name, the names of your competitors, your products and services etc.

Here is the link to get set up – http://www.google.com/alerts.

If you are like me and end up with several MS Word or Excel documents open at the same time, you can easily save them all or closed them all at the same time.

To do this, just hold down the shift key and click “file”. You will see new menu items called “Close All” and “Save All”.

Have you ever sent an email and then gasped when you thought that it sent to the wrong person or that there were mistakes in the email?

With most email programs there’s simply no way to recall that email. However, there’s a good chance that you’ll never utter that gasp again if you address your emails last.

Because your email won’t send without an address in the To: line, if you click send a little too soon, your email won’t go anywhere and you’ll have a second chance to catch any mistakes.

Many people now use Firefox as their internet browser. If you are one of them, here is a list of keyboard shortcuts to try. A few of them work in Internet Explorer too.

1. Back = Alt + left arrow
2. Forward = Alt + right arrow
3. Close Window = Alt + F4
4. Add a Bookmark = Ctrl + D
5. Complete .com Address = Ctrl + Enter
6. Complete .net Address = Shift + Enter
7. Complete .org Address = Ctrl + Shift + Enter
8. Decrease Text Size = Ctrl + minus sign
9. Increase Text Size = Ctrl + plus sign
10. Restore Text Size = Ctrl + 0
11. Full Screen = F11
12. Help = F1
13. History = Ctrl + H
14. Homepage = Alt + Home key
15. New Window = Ctrl + N

Choosing good passwords can be difficult, so here are some quick tips for creating passwords that are secure yet easy to remember.

Don’t Use:

• Dictionary words including foreign languages.
• Any names.
• Your login name in any form.
• Any easily obtained information about you (driver’s license number, phone number, make of your car, name of your street, etc.)
• A password of all digits or of the same letter.
• A password shorter than 6 characters.

Do Use:

• A mixture of upper and lower case letters and numbers and punctuation.
• Pronounceable nonsense words (easier to remember than random characters)
• A different password for protecting your most sensitive material.
• A standard core with a suffix and prefix specific to the material being protected.
• The first letter of each word in a favorite song, poem or phrase.
• A password that is easy for you to remember so you don’t have to write it down.
• Two shorts words joined together with punctuation.
  

Have you ever wanted to create secure MS Word files? If so, it requires only a few simple steps.

1. Select File from the top menu bar and click “Save” or “Save As”.
2. Click on the “Tools” drop down in the dialogue box that appears and select “Security Options”.
3. You can now create a “Password to Open” and a “Password to Modify”.
4. Confirm your passwords as prompted and now each time the document is opened a dialogue box will request the password.
5. Be sure to remember your passwords as they cannot be recovered.

Everyone has had a windows program lock up on them and if you are using Windows XP you have likely seen a message asking if you would like to send information about the problem to Microsoft.

This can get annoying, so follow the procedure below to stop being asked about this.

1. Open your control panel.
2. If you use category view click “Performance and Maintenance” then click “System”. If you are in classic view, double click the “System” icon.
3. Click the “Advanced” tab.
4. Click the error reporting button at the bottom of the window and select “Disable error reporting”.

If you use Outlook as your email application and like to add senders to your blocked senders list or don’t use the blocked senders list because it is too much trouble to add addresses, here is a short cut to make the process easy.

1. Right click your toolbar and select customize.
2. Choose the “Commands” tab.
3. From the left pane select “Actions”
4. Then from the right pane left click and drag “Add sender to blocked senders list” to any spot on an existing tool bar.

Now when you want to block a sender just have the email selected and then click the new button.

If you accidentally block someone, you can unblock them by going to “Actions” then “Junk Email” and then select “Junk Email Options”. From here you will see your blocked senders list and be able to edit it.

If you are working on a long document in MS Word and you are on page ten and then have to make a change on page two, it can be time consuming to have to scroll to page two and then scroll back to page ten and find the spot where you let off.

To save time, after you make a change on a different page, press SHIFT + F5 and you will automatically be taken back to where you left off. If you press SHIFT + F5 again, you will be taken back to the previous change location.

This shortcut also works when you are re-opening a saved document to continue your work. The cursor will always appear at the top of the document when you first open it, but to quickly get back to where you left off, just press the SHIFT + F5 key combination.

If your mouse has a scroll wheel, there are a couple of features you may not know about when using the wheel in conjunction with the shift or control keys in your browser.

Scroll + Shift

Holding down the shift key and rotating the wheel on your mouse will move you forwards and backwards through the web pages you have visited in a similar way to clicking the forward and back buttons in your browser.

Scroll + CTRL

Holding down the control key and rotating the wheel on your mouse will change the size of the text on the webpage. This will also work in Outlook.

If you have tried dragging data between worksheets in Excel, you have probably noticed that as you get close to the tab of the worksheet you are dragging to, the current worksheet starts scrolling.

To prevent the scrolling, hold down the ALT key and you will be able to select the tab of any worksheet in the list.

If you are looking for a new way to make text stand out in MS Word there are a couple of ways you can do it.

First you can use an alternate underline style. To find these, click the “Format” menu and choose “Font”. From here you can select from several different styles in the “underline style” drop down box.

While you are on this page, you can also select shadow, outline, subscript, etc. by using the check boxes in the effects area.

If you want to get really fancy, choose the text effect tabs at the top of the window and you can make text flash, blink and sparkle. Although probably not something you would use in day to day communication, the situation may arise.

There are many benefits to online registration, but all are lost if your event participants do not use your online form.

To help you get the most out of your investment, we have come up with several tips on how to get your event participants to register online.

Educate your event participants:

Your event participants may be used to faxing and phoning-in registrations, or they may think it’s too complicated, or just wary of providing information over the internet. Whichever it is, you should let them know why you are using online registration. Outline the benefits for them and for you. At a minimum they need to know that your online payment option is secure, that the form is easy to use and will make the process of registration easier and more efficient for all involved, and lastly, that you have a solid privacy policy about the use of information you collect on your registrants.

Make online registration the preferred or only option:

If you can get away with it, having online registration as the only option would be ideal because it saves you from having to do any manual data entry. If that’s too great a leap, you should still make it clear in all your promotional materials and on your event website, that online registration is the preferred method as it will make things much easier for both you and your event participants.

Simplify the online form:

Make sure your online form is clear, concise and easy for everyone to use no matter what their computer skills level. Keep text and graphics to a minimum and use colours and fonts that are easy to read.

Make it obvious:

Make the link to the online registration form prominent in all your promotional materials and on your event website. If you send an invitation or print an ad, make sure your event participants’ eyes are drawn to information telling them where to register online. On your event website, give large, prominent, obvious clues e.g. “Click here to register online” in big letters or have a big “Register” button. If you must provide phone and fax registration numbers, make them less prominent.

Provide incentives:

Bribery is a great way to get people to do something. We all have a price. Offer incentives to event participants who use your online registration system. Offer discounts or random draw prizes, for example, available exclusively to online registrants.

For more ideas and advice about getting people to use online registration, please feel free to contact us.

There may be a time when you need to capture exactly what is being displayed on your screen such as when your computer is giving you errors and the tech support people don’t believe that it is happening or you don’t want to try to explain what you are seeing.

If you simply press the “Print Screen” key you will save an image of your screen to your clipboard. Then, if you open a new word processing or graphics document and select “Paste”, you will see an image of your screen appear. From here you can save the file and then send it off in an email. If you only need to capture the active window, hold down the “Alt” key while pressing “Print Screen”.

Other times you might want to use this technique is when you are sitting in on a webinar or other online presentation. Do screen captures rather than frantically writing notes.

If you have ever found yourself struggling to read small text on your screen, here is a tip to easily adjust the size of the text on your screen.

If you hold down the Control key while you move the wheel on your mouse you should see the size of the text change. In Internet Explorer, it will change the text size setting that is found under the “view” menu and in other Microsoft programs it will control the zoom feature. Since you are only changing the size that the text appears on your screen and not the font size, you don’t have to worry about altering your formatting with this function.

Multiple Selections

When you need to select multiple files, folders or email messages from a list or window but not others, hold down the control key while you left click the icons to select them. If you continue holding the control key down, you will be able to select any of the other icons without the others becoming unselected. Clicking a selected icon a second time will unselect it.

Microsoft Excel is a very powerful program that you can use to work with your registration data. You can easily sort your data on any of the fields (last name, date, etc.) with a few simple clicks, but you can mix up your data just as easily.

Before you attempt any sorting, you must select all of the data on the sheet. You can do this by holding down the “Ctrl” key and pressing the “a” key, or by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the pointer over the data.

If you miss this step and proceed to sort, only the column that you select will be sorted while the rest of the data stays in its original position.

To sort once the data is selected, go to “data” and select “sort”. In the window that opens you will be able to set the sort options.

If you accidentally sort without selecting all of the data and realize it right away, you can undo it by with a “Ctrl + z” or by selecting “undo” from the edit menu. If you don’t realize it right away, you may still have a chance to recover by repeating the undo command several times to get back to the pre-sorted state. If this doesn’t work you will have to revert back to the original file and start over.

With carpal tunnel syndrome being a serious issue these days, keyboard shortcuts can really cut down on mouse work. Here are two simple keyboard shortcuts that you can use countless times each day if you spend most of it in front of a computer.

ALT + TAB

Many people have several programs open at the same time and are always switching between them. A really quick way to do this is to hold down the “ALT” key while pressing the “TAB” key. Each time you press “TAB” you will select the next program or window you have open. The sequence starts at the most recently used window, so if you are going back and forth between two windows you don’t have to scroll through all the open ones to get where you want to go.

CTRL + ENTER

When you want to access a website ending in .com, you can save typing the “www.” and the “.com” in the address bar of your browser by holding down the CTRL and pressing ENTER (in Internet Explorer only). For example, if you wanted to get to “www.eply.com”, just type “eply” in the address bar and then press CTRL + ENTER to fill in the rest.

Most people have a signature set up in their email software to include their name, phone number, title, etc. so they don’t have to key this information into every email they send.

Most email software will allow you to set up more than one signature, so you can use the extra ones to insert any frequently used text with just a few clicks or key strokes. For example, if you often find yourself entering your mailing address or descriptions of your products or services, set this text up as a second or third signature and never have to enter it into an email again.

Shortcuts are usually set up as convenient ways to launch programs or access websites, but they can also be used to start an automatically addressed email.

Here is what you need to do if you are using windows XP (the procedure is very similar in other versions of windows).

1. Right click on your desktop and select “new” and then click “shortcut”.
2. In the window that appears type “mailto:” and then an email address you frequently send messages to. An example is “mailto:info@eply.com”.
3. Click “next” to name your short cut and then click “OK” to finish.

Now when you double click the shortcut, a new email message will be opened with the email address automatically entered.

To make activating this or any other shortcut even easier, you can set up a shortcut key.

For example, if you set “CTRL + ATL + A” as your short cut key, pressing this key combination will open the new email message.

To set this up, right click the shortcut you created and select “Properties”.

Click in the “Shortcut Key” field and press the key combination you want to use and then click “OK”.

Using a combination of the CTRL and ALT keys will help to make sure your shortcut keys don’t conflict with other functions since most people rarely use these key combinations.

You may find it annoying always having to click “yes” to the “are you sure you want to delete this item” dialog box when sending something to the recycle bin in windows.

Here is how you can disable this feature:

1. Right-click the Recycle Bin.
2. Click Properties.
3. From the Global tab uncheck the Display delete confirmation dialog box.
4. Click OK.

Remember, if you accidentally delete something you can easily recover it from the recycle bin if it hasn’t been emptied.

How to bypass the recycle bin when deleting.

In some cases you may want to bypass the recycle bin and permanently delete a file. To do this select the item you want to delete by clicking it with the left mouse button. Then hold down the “shift” key and press “delete”.

You may have never used the Windows key (normally located between the CTRL and ALT keys) but there are several time saving short cuts available.

Win key + M will Minimize all windows.
Win key + Shift + M will reverse Minimize all windows.
Win key + D will switch between minimizing all open programs and showing them all.
Win key + R will open the Run Program box.
Win key + F will open the Start menu’s Find window.
Win key + E will quickly launch Explorer.
Win key + Pause/Break will open the System Properties window.
Win key + Tab will cycle through items on the taskbar.

For people who like to use arrow keys to move around in word processing documents, here is a tip that will speed things up.

If you hold down the “CTRL” key while using the left and right arrow keys to move your cursor, it will move one word at a time instead of one space at a time. “CTRL” and the up and down keys will move it between paragraph breaks.

If you hold down the shift key at the same time it will also select the text as you go.

If you work with long documents in Microsoft Word, you know that it can be easy to lose your place when editing the document.

If this happens, hold down the shift key and press F5 to get the cursor to jump back to the last place you made a change.  If you press this combination again, you will be taken back to the next previous change.

Adding special characters such as symbols for cents, registered, copyright and degrees is easier than you might think.

Each of these characters has a key sequence associated with it such as the ones below (hold down the Alt key while entering the digits).

Alt + 0162 = ¢
Alt + 0174 = ®
Alt + 0169 = ©
Alt + 0176 = °

If you use certain symbols frequently it is handy to remember the key sequence.  For the whole range of symbols find the character map in Windows by clicking “start”, “all programs”, “accessories” and then select “character map”.  If the character map isn’t installed on your computer, just search the internet for “character map” and you will find several online versions.

Most people know about cutting and pasting in Windows, but if you are an MS Office user there is an even more powerful feature that you can use.

The MS Office clipboard allows you to copy and store up to twenty-four different items at the same time.  When you are ready to paste an item, you can click it from a list or paste all of the items at once.

To start the clipboard, open an office program and go to the “edit” menu and select “office clipboard” or hold down the CTRL key and quickly press “C” twice.

Once the clipboard window opens, try copying something and you will see it appear on the clipboard.  To paste it back just click the item on the clipboard.

If you find yourself repeating steps in Excel that require several clicks or keystrokes such as formatting cells or inserting rows, here is a tip that can save you some time.

To repeat the last action you did, press the key combination of “ctrl” + “y”.  For example, if you just inserted a row and want to insert another one, position the cursor where you want the row added and press “ctrl” + “y”.

Here are several keyboard short cuts you can use to increase productivity in Excel.

Simply select the cells you want to format and then press the given key combination.

Ctrl + Shift + ~ will apply the General Number format.
Ctrl + Shift + $ will apply the Currency format.
Ctrl + Shift + % will apply the Percentage format.
Ctrl + Shift + ! will apply the Number format, with 2 decimal places.
Ctrl + Shift + & will apply the Outline Border.
Ctrl + Shift + _ will remove the Outline Border.
Ctrl + B will apply or remove Bold.
Ctrl + I will apply or remove Italic.
Ctrl + U will apply or remove Underline.

Here are several keyboard short cuts for MS Outlook.

Ctrl + Shift + I – go to the Inbox
Ctrl + Shift + O – go to the Outbox
Enter – open the selected message
Ctrl + N – start a new email message
Ctrl + R – reply to the current message
Ctrl + F – forward the current message
Ctrl + Enter – send the current message

If you are ever working on an Excel spreadsheet and you want to hide the data when someone comes into your office or if you have several spreadsheets open at the same time and want to clean up the clutter there is an easy way to do this that doesn’t involve opening and closing the files.

Simply go to the Window menu and click “hide” to remove the spreadsheet from view. When you want to see it again, go back to the Window menu and click “unhide” and then select the file you want to restore.

If you close Excel before unhiding your files, you will be asked if you want to save the hidden files before closing. If you choose to save a file while it is hidden the next time you open the file you will have to unhide it before you can see the data.

Tips for what to include on your confirmation emails

Confirmation emails are sent to your event registrants after they have completed registration.

Consider including the following information in your confirmation email:

• Name of the event, time, date and location.
• Name, phone number and email address of a contact person the participant can call if they have questions.
• Link to an online map, hotel websites or restaurants listings.
• Suggested areas to park and costs, and any transit routes to the event (an online map would be useful here too).
• Itinerary of the event.
• What to bring.
• What not to bring.
• Links to sponsors websites.
• Mention of the speakers or other specific details.
• Mention age restrictions if necessary.
• Other important details such as “Wear comfortable shoes as we will be walking between areas” or “Bring a coat as the reception is outside”.
• Encourage people to mention the event to other people.

• Use a good subject line that will get noticed and not trigger SPAM filters (see below).
• Use lots of whitespace so that the email is easy to read.
• Separate out the key information so it’s easy to find.

Dear [First Name],Thank you for registering for the [event name here].

Date:
Location:
Website link [map, hotel info, etc]:

The event starts at 8:30 and we will load the bus in front of the [meeting location].

There will be some walking involved, so please ensure that you have the appropriate type of footwear. Also please refrain from using flash photography from inside the bus, as it can be distracting for some of our clients.

If you have any questions, please contact [event contact person] via phone [phone number] or email [email address].

Thank you and see you at the event.

[Event Contact Person]

When drafting a confirmation email, you will want to pay attention to the subject line.

• Avoid words such as “free”, “please read”, or “special promotion” to avoid triggering a registrants’ SPAM filter.
   
• Refer to the event name in the subject line, i.e.; “ABC AGM 2008 Registration Confirmation.”

If you do not want to use your own name, you can always use the name of the event:

• A sender name like “ABC AGM” is much more effective than an actual email address.
   
• By using a recognizable sender name, your registrants can immediately see who the email is from.

How to Use Limits

Part of the reason our clients love online registration is the ability to automate much of the process, so they can focus on planning their events.

Limits are just that, an automated tool that sets limits to ensure a session, a dinner or maybe an off-site event does not go over capacity. As you can imagine, automating this will take a load off of your plate.

We also find limits useful for increasing the ‘buzz’ factor for your event. If you have people trying to register for a session and it’s full, they may be more inclined to register earlier the next time you have an event.

For now, you will need ePly to do the initial set-up your limits for you (soon available as a self-serve feature). This can be done on the question or response level. As well, the sold-out message can be customized. For example, if the limit is on a Gala Dinner, the sold out message may read “Sorry, the Gala Dinner is now full“.

In addition to customized messages, you may also display the number of spots still remaining for that event. This is a great way to fill a popular event.

What if the capacity changes, and you need to adjust these limits once they are set? Easy! Login to your account and click the link in the menu titled ‘Limits’. All of the set limits will display themselves in a table. To adjust a limit, click ‘edit’ next to the desired limit:

…then adjust the amount and click update. The registration form will immediately reflect the limit change.

Working With Custom Reports – Column Options

When you are creating and/or working with a custom report, there are two column options that you may have wondered about, visible and downloadable.

The visible check box determines if the column shows up on the screen when viewing a report and the downloadable check box determines if the column is included in a download.

Although these are self-explanatory and seem simple, they are also powerful options. Here are a couple of ways that you can use them:

Sorting

Suppose that you want a list of registrants sorted by their registered date, but you didn’t want the date field to display on the report. To do this, simply add the registration date field to the report (this is required so the function has something to sort) and then uncheck the visible box.

Now the data will be sorted by registration date, even though you don’t see the date column in the report.

Filters

Normally, if you needed to create a report that displayed members who have registered for your event, you would first create the report, then add a filter to show only members and probably name it something like ‘Member List’.

Since it’s clear what the report includes, there is no need to have the member column showing in the report as the data will be the same for each person and this would only add clutter to the report.

Un-checking the visible box for the member column will still allow the filter, but not show the data on the screen.

The downloadable option works in a similar way to the visible option, except in this case it determines if the data will show up in the spreadsheet when you download it.

In some cases you may not need to see the data on the screen, but need it in a download so you can see how a report has been sorted or filtered. In other cases you may not need to see it in either place, but now you have an option!

How to Hyperlink a Report Column

Last month we showed you how you can format your columns in your custom reports, in order for your data to appear in your report exactly as you need it displayed.

This month we will give you some quick steps on making specific items in a report hyperlink to more detailed information.

In this example we will use a very simple report that will contain First Name, Last Name and Email Address.  Although this report may fit our needs for a specific application, we may need to hyperlink to more detailed data, and here’s how it’s done:

1. Let’s take an existing report and click ‘edit report’ then ‘add new column’

2. Give your column a caption name. In this instance we will use First Name, and match up first name with the primary field:

3. In the column options we then want to make sure we choose ‘registration details’ in the Hyperlink Type.  This will ensure the first name of our registrant links to their full registration details (we also have the ability to link to the payment details):

4. Once complete, here’s how the report should appear:

Other options:

• Registration Details – creates a link to the Main Registration page or the registrant
• Payment Details – creates a link to the Payment Summary page for the registrant
• Email – creates a hyperlink that will open up your default mail program, populating the email address with the hyperlinked field

How To Format A Column With Pricing

Below we gave you the steps to creating your own custom reports in the ePly system, but it doesn’t stop there! There are many features to customize reports such as filtering, sorting, and formatting your columns. For this tip we’ll begin showing you how you can format your columns in your custom reports in order for your data to appear in your report exactly as you need it displayed.

Here is a common formatting feature for columns with pricing: 

You want to make this column
…look like this:

Here’s how to format it:

1. Click on the name of the custom report you want to format.
2. When viewing the report, click Edit this Report.
3. Select the column that includes pricing that you want to format.
4. In the Column Options menu on the right, next to Column Format, change the selection from ‘Text’ to ‘Currency’ in the drop down menu.

How To Create Custom Reports

Creating your own custom reports in the ePly system is easier than you might think. The benefit is that instead of downloading the entire database into excel and sorting through information you don’t need, custom reports pull exactly the information you need. Custom reports are updated automatically each time someone registers, or when registrant data is edited.

You always have the option of calling ePly to set up the reports you need, but if you want to try it on your own here are the steps to get you started:

1. Log into the ePly system.
2. Click on “Reports” next to your event name.
3. Click on “Report Manager”.
4. Click “Create a New Report”.
5. Give your report a name and description (i.e.: What does this report show?)
6. Click “Create”. You will see the name of the report you created appear in the report list at the top of your screen.
7. Click “Add New Column”.
   1. Type the name you want to call the first column in “Column Caption” (this will appear that the top of the column in the report).
   2. Under “Primary Fields”, select which data from your database that you want pulled into this column. For instance, if your column caption is Last Name, choose “Last Name” from the primary fields drop down list.
   3. When you want to create a second column, click “Save & New”. View the report as you create it by clicking on the report name at the top of your screen to make sure it’s looking right.
   4. On the right side of the screen when you are adding columns you will see some advanced options. We will cover these items in future tips, but feel free to experiment with the options now, you can’t break anything here.
8. When you’re done adding columns, click “Back to Report Details”.
9. Use the “Report Sort By” function to sort your data by any of the columns you’ve created. For instance, if you want to sort your report alphabetically by last name, choose “Last Name” from the drop down list, click “Ascending” (to sort from A-Z), and then click “Add Sort By”.

How To Edit Your Confirmation Emails

Editing your confirmation email is easier than you might think. You can always call us to make changes, but if you want to try it yourself, here are the steps:

1. Log into the ePly system.
2. From the event list, click “Setup” across from the event containing the email you want to edit.
3. Click on “Notifications”.
4. In the list at the top, click on the email you want to change.
5. Make changes to the text.
6. Click “Update Email” at the bottom of screen.

Merge Fields

If you see an item in square brackets [ ], this is called a merge field. To use the merge fields, scroll to the bottom on the page for a list of fields that you can use. Simply copy and paste the field name including the [ ] and insert it into the body of the email where you need the text to appear.

Test Confirmation Emails

It’s always a good idea to send yourself a test email just to make sure everything is perfect. At the bottom of the page, enter your email address into the “Send Test Email To:” box, and click the button to send it to yourself.

If you are using merge fields in your email or want to see how the Registrant’s detailed selections look in the email, you will need to do the test in a different way. For events that aren’t already live you can simply submit a demo registration.

If your event is live, you can test the merge fields by following these steps:

1. From the “Registrations” screen, click on any registrant’s name. Scroll to the bottom of the page. 
2. Choose the email you want to test. 
3. Enter your email address into the “Enter the email address to send to:” box. 
4. Click “Re-send email” to send yourself a test using the information for the registration you clicked into. If you enter your email address here, then an email will not be sent to the registrant.

URL: This stands for Uniform Resource Locator aka the address of a webpage. You will see this in the address bar at the top of your browser.

Browser: The software used to brows the internet. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or Opera.

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. This is a type of encryption commonly used to securely send credit card information and other sensitive data to a web server. When SSL is being used, you will see the page URL start with https:// rather than http://. Some browsers may also show a lock or a key icon to indicate a secure form.

Registration Form Set Up Terms

Header: The very top of the form, where the graphic or logo displays, and where the event details are listed.

Footer: Any text below the ‘Submit Registration’ button which normally includes instructions to ‘Click ‘Submit Registration’ to complete your registration.’ and the ePly logo.

Validation: A validation is a note that appears (usually in red) above a field that is mandatory when a registrant has forgotten to provide that information and tried to submit their registration. A validation is also be used to make sure registrants provide a valid email address, postal code, or registration code.

Dependency: A dependency is when a certain item on a form is either enabled, disabled, changes price, or is automatically filled with information based on another item on the form.

Limit: A number applied to an item on a form which refers to the maximum number of people that can register for that particular option. Limits can also be shared between two items.

Registration Group: Refers to the part in the form that allows a registrant to add an additional delegate or guest.

Policy Notes: Refers to any text at the very bottom of the form, such as the Cancellation or Refund Policy.

Contact Person: The person whose name appears at the bottom of the form, and in the confirmation email as the contact person for the event.

Thank You Page: The page that appears once you click “Submit Registration”. Text appears that thanks the person for registering, and lets them know they will receive a confirmation email, receipt or invoice. It also can contain links which guides the registrant back to the organization’s page, or to submit another registration.

Notifications: Refers to emails sent to registrants after they have successfully completed their registration, such as a confirmation email, credit card receipt or invoice.

Close Date: The date and time at which a registration form will automatically close and the Closed Page will appear in its place.

Closed Page: Appears once the form has passed the close date and time. Text appears that announces that online registration is closed and who to contact with questions.

Payment Collection Terms

Merchant Account: Accounts you need to process credit card transactions. If you are processing transactions online you will need to hold an online merchant account. Online merchant accounts can be opened through your bank or though providers such as Caledon Card Services or FirstData.

Email Receipt: An email that is sent once a delegate has submitted their registration and their credit card is approved.

Invoice: An email sent once a delegate has submitted their registration that outlines their balance owing and how they can submit payment (i.e.: by cheque or other method).

Gateway: A payment gateway is a separate service and acts as an intermediary between the an online registration system such as ePly and all the financial networks involved with the transaction, including the customers’ credit card issuer and your merchant account. It checks for validity, encrypts transaction details, ensures they are sent to the correct destination and then decrypts the responses which are sent back to the registration system.

Chargeback: A chargeback is a reversal of a payment card transaction initiated by the consumer who holds the card or the bank that issued the card used in the purchase. This differs from a refund or “credit,” which is agreed to and initiated by the merchant at the point-of-sale. A chargeback usually occurs when a consumer files a dispute with their bank or credit/debit card provider. This can happen when a consumer discovers fraudulent or improper transactions on their card statement or online account view.

ePly System Terms

Back End: Another term for the ePly system, or where the administrator will log in to obtain registration reports, and manage payments.

Event List: The list of your event registration forms done by ePly that appear on the first page once you’ve logged into the ePly system.

Form Status: Refers to whether the form is in test, open or closed mode.

Dashboard: The first page you see once you click on “reports” in your event list.

Registration Details: All of the collected information for a registrant that is displayed in their individual ‘main details’ report. This report can be viewed by clicking on any registrants first or last name in any report.

Value: The individual answer that a registrant gives to each question on the registration form.

Payment Summary: The details of an individual registrant’s payment history, including their charges, balance owing, and received payments, as well as refunds and declines.

Reports: ePly has standard reports which are already set up for your form, and include reports such as Registrations, Payments, Guest List, Deleted Guests, Summary, Taxes and Notes. ePly can also produce custom reports to display specific information for specific registrants in any order.

Host Name: The main registrant, or the person who fills out the form on behalf of other guests.

Filter: A term used when creating reports that forces the report to only display certain information for certain registrants. For instance, a filter can make sure a report lists only people who selected their Province as “B.C.”, or only people who selected “Yes” to attending a banquet

From talking with these event planners, meeting managers and admin assistants, we often hear that they have to sell the idea of online registration to their clients, boards and bosses.

To help you sell online registration to your clients, boards and bosses, we have outlined seven helpful ideas for you to consider.

1. Compare Costs

Comparing all of the costs associated with different registration methods will be a big help when working with people focused on the bottom line. To do this you will have to make some assumptions and estimates, but you should be able to come up with a reasonably accurate list of costs.

One of the biggest costs is labour. Start by brainstorming a list of all of the tasks involving labour, then estimate how much time is spent on each task.

Next, consider how much your labour costs are per hour. This is a little more difficult as the real labour rate is always much higher than what an employee takes home. For some costs to consider, see the list below.

Real cost of labour
Labour	Related to having an employee
- Wages – Holiday pay – Insurance – Benefits – Pension – Sick pay	- Interviewing, hiring, training – Supervision/Management – Office Space – Equipment and software licenses

Now, with some multiplication you should have a reasonable estimate of your labour costs.

Next, consider material costs. Here is a partial list to get you started.

Material costs

- Long distance charges for phone and fax – Postage – Stationary – Printing promotional material – Paper for fax, printer and copier – Toner for fax, printer and copier

At the very least, the price comparison sheet you generate will help you realize that many of the costs associated with event registration are often just absorbed by an organization.

Also, don’t forget to factor in intangible costs such as errors in registration. These can be very difficult to estimate, but are very real costs to business. Here are some intangible costs and benefits to consider.

2. Do a pro/con comparison

Brainstorming the pros and cons of anything can be a useful decision making tool.

We have started a sample pro/con chart below to get you started. The pros and cons will be different for every event and organization, so adapt what we have started to your situation. Try to include examples from past events as well as anticipated pros and cons of continuing with manual registration.

3. Show examples of online forms.

Showing an example of an online form similar to the one your event requires can be all that it takes to convince someone that online registration is a good thing to do. Many people may not be able to visualize how it will look and work so an image really is worth a thousand words.

The ePly website has several examples of different online forms for different events on our sample forms page.

Besides visual examples, examples of how other organizations have successfully used online registration will help support your case. See our testimonial letters page or contact us for a list of clients you can speak with.

4. Get a formal proposal

Having something in writing detailing exactly what we will do, what you have to do and how much it will cost will help. With a good proposal, you will be able to confidently give prices and details and answer questions.  See our request a quote page to see how to request one.

5 Make online registration a part of a larger online strategy

Many organizations spend a lot of money developing a website. Even more is spent trying to get people to visit. Online registration is a perfect way to get people familiar with your site. While they are there to register, you will have the opportunity to show them what other information is available.

Another strategy is to use online registration to build a database of email addresses. This list can be used for future marketing efforts or other online initiatives.

6. Look at your competition

If someone isn’t convinced that online registration is the way to go, look at what competing organizations are doing. You are certain to find people using online registration in nearly all industries and this may be enough to convince skeptics to try it for their next event rather than be out done by a competitor.

7. Have us talk to the decision maker.

If you know that the people you are working with are going to have a lot of questions about online registration, it might be best that you involve someone from ePly. We know all of the intricacies of our system and will be able to offer extra advice and ideas.

Manual registration means that people are faxing, mailing or phoning in their registration. From this we can assume a fairly definite set of costs that will be incurred in setting up and running a manual registration system:

Printing and mailing costs
Most events that handle registration manually have detailed information packages and registration forms that need to be professionally printed and then mailed to potential registrants. A large event can mean incurring significant printing costs, especially for high quality packages. Postage costs for mailing these packages can easily exceed the printing costs when you consider weight and size alone. Factor in additional mailing costs if your customer base is international and the tab keeps climbing.

Communications costs
Manual registration usually means lots of faxing and phoning: faxing registration forms, receiving registration forms, phoning people to verify information, taking calls for credit card numbers or phone registration or just to answer questions. Again, the phone and fax charges are considerably more for an international customer base. Don’t underestimate the costs for toner and fax paper either.

Labour costs
Associated with all of the above costs are labour costs. Somebody has to send the faxes and make and receive calls over the phone and mail out the packages. Somebody else has to do all the data entry, manage the information and send out confirmations. If these people are your own employees, then in addition to their salary, you are also paying to manage them, for their office space and for their payroll deductions.

Online Registration:

Online registration is often done through an external company that specializes in online registration services. It is a more automated process with a different set of costs to consider. Bear in mind that with the majority of events it is unlikely that registration can be handled entirely through online registration as some people may not have access to a computer or they may just prefer to use more traditional methods. But if you do it right this can easily be minimized.

With online registration your cost is just the cost of using the service provided by the online registration vendor. Generally, there are two ways a vendor will charge for their services:

Setup and Administration fee
Here the vendor charges based upon the complexity of the service you need. So, for example, you pay more depending on the number of replies; whether or not there is an online payment option and how it works; security features that allow people to log-in and register and then change their information at a later date if necessary; the level of customization and branding involved; the size of your event and, consequently, the amount of data to be managed in the database, etc.

Percentage-based fee
If an online registration vendor uses this method to charge for services it means, in most cases, that they will take a percentage of the registration fee for each participant registered in your event. For example, if you have 500 people at your event and each one pays $100 to attend the event, the online registration vendor would take a percentage of the $100 for each of the 500 participants.

Check with your vendor to see which method they use and how they determine their fees. Once you have established a relationship with your vendor then a lot of the hard work is done. The vendor sets up the system for you and manages the data and there is generally very little required from you in terms of administration and time.

From talking with these event planners, meeting managers and admin assistants we often hear that they have to sell the idea of online registration to their clients, boards and bosses and all too often they hear things like it’s not in the budget, it worked fine last year or we aren’t ready for it.

These types of reactions are usually the result of a lack of understanding about how online registration works and its many benefits.

To help you sell online registration to your clients, boards and bosses, we have outlined seven helpful ideas for you to consider.

1. Compare costs.

Comparing all of the costs associated with different registration methods will be a big help when working with people focused on the bottom line. To do this you will have to make some assumptions and estimates, but you should be able to come up with a reasonably accurate list of costs.

One of the biggest costs is labour. Start by brainstorming a list of all of the tasks involving labour, then estimate how much time is spent on each task. Here is a sample list of tasks.

Next, consider how much your labour costs are per hour. This is a little more difficult as the real labour rate is always much higher than what an employee takes home. For some costs to consider, see our list. Now, with some multiplication you should have a reasonable estimate of your labour costs.

Next, consider material costs. Here is a partial list to get you started.

At the very least, the price comparison sheet you generate will help you realize that many of the costs associated with event registration are often just absorbed by an organization.

Also, don’t forget to factor in intangible costs such as errors in registration. These can be very difficult to estimate, but are very real cost to business. Here are some intangible costs and benefits to consider.

2. Do a pro/con comparison.

Brainstorming the pros and cons of anything can be a useful decision making tool.

We have started a sample pro/con chart on our website to get you started. The pros and cons will be different for every event and organization, so adapt what we have started to your situation. Try to include examples from past events as well as anticipated pros and cons of continuing with manual registration.

3. Show examples of online forms.

Showing an example of an online form similar to the one your event requires can be all that it takes to convince someone that online registration is a good thing to do. Many people may not be able to visualize how it will look and work so an image really is worth a thousand words.

The ePly website has several examples of different online forms for different events. You can find on the portfolio page.

Besides visual examples, examples of how other organizations have successfully used online registration will help support your case. Ask your potential online registration supplier for testimonial letters or for past clients that you can speak with.

4. Get a formal proposal from an online registration supplier.

Having something in writing detailing exactly what an online registration supplier will do, what you have to do and how much it will cost will help. With a good proposal, you will be able to confidently give prices and details and confidently answer questions.

5. Make online registration a part of a larger online strategy.

Many organizations spend a lot of money developing a website. Even more is spent trying to get people to visit. Online registration is a perfect way to get people familiar with your site. While they are there to register, you will have the opportunity to show them what other information is available.

Another strategy is to use online registration to build a database of email addresses. This list can be used for future marketing efforts or other online initiatives.

6. Look at the competition.

If someone isn’t convinced that online registration is the way to go, look at what competing organizations are doing. You are certain to find people using online registration in nearly all industries and this may be enough to convince skeptics to try it for their next event rather than be out done by a competitor.

7. Have someone from the online registration company talk to the decision maker.

If you know that the people you are working with are going to have a lot of questions about online registration, it might be best that you involve a sales person from the online registration company you want to use. They will know the intricacies of their system and will be able to offer extra advice and ideas.