The success of your event marketing is usually measured by how many people register for an event. Even the best marketing campaigns can fail if people don’t take the critical step of going from your promotional material to your registration form.
Potential registrants are often left fumbling around looking for an online registration form that should be right at their fingertips. You are likely driving people to a registration form from a website, an email or printed material. Each of these marketing methods has some important considerations to keep in mind.
Linking From Your Website
Most commonly, you will direct registrants to the online registration form through links on your website. However, not all links are created equal and some do a better job of getting potential registrants to your online form.
- Put a link to your registration form near the top of the first page people see when they get to your website. Don’t leave potential registrants hunting around because they have to click through multiple pages before finding the link or because the link is hidden at the bottom of a page.
- Use an image such as a “Register Now†button with enough white space surrounding it so that it stands out. If you are linking from text rather than a button, use a different font colour and a larger font size.
- Use a call to action such as “Register Now†rather than “Click here to registerâ€.
- If appropriate, link to the registration form from more than one page on your website and as a bonus include hyperlinks to the form within any body text that refers to registration.
- Have your links open in a new window so that once registrants have submitted the registration form they can easily return to your website.
- Check all of your links to make sure that they work – mistakes do happen!
- Always include complete web addresses in your emails. If some of your recipients uses text only email, they will not be able to click a text or image link. If the complete address is provided, then anybody viewing email in plain text can quickly copy and paste the address into a browser.
- If you are attaching a promotional brochure to your email, it’s a good idea to still include the address to the registration form or to the event website within the body of your email. Registrants can then go straight to the registration form if desired. If your attachment is a pdf, make sure that all links are clickable.
- Send yourself a test email and check all of the links before sending your email blast.
Linking From Printed Material
- Part of your event marketing may include printed material such as posters and brochures. Keep addresses short so that they are easy to remember and to type into a browser.
- If you have a website dedicated to an event, consider directing people to that website rather than directly to the registration form. The address for the website will likely be shorter than the address to the form.
Linking From Email
If you are using email to promote your event, there are a few practices that will help increase traffic to the registration form.
Setting up effective links to your online registration form is simple and can have a true impact on your registration volume. Either express your requirements to your webmaster or contact ePly if you need help and we will be happy to show you how to create great links or offer you feedback on what you have set up.
Labels: ePly, event planning tips, Online event registration