Event attendance is at the core of any successful event. As an event organizer, you can also have different objectives for events like promoting the organization, boosting brand awareness, or generating income by simply selling tickets.
However, you cannot expect everything to become a success without participants. Therefore, encouraging people to join through registration is the best way to go.
In this article, we will discuss some effective strategies that can help attract more attendees to your next event and increase event registration rates.
Quick Reads
- Define Event Goals and Objectives
- Make Online Registration Available
- Build a Creative and Eye-Catching Event Page
- Invite Speakers to the Event
- Offer Early Bird Discounts and Coupons
- Run a Raffle or Online Giveaway
1. Define Event Goals to Increase Event Registrations
Setting event goals promotes effective planning, guides focus, and improves enthusiasm in the execution. It can also help navigate the event's direction smoothly.
The goal of an event can either be ROI, engagement, or networking. Free events have value, even if it's not directly from ticket sales.
For the audience to provide value to the organization, make sure that they subscribe to monthly newsletters and share events on social media. Meaning, use the opportunity as a way for engagement both inside and outside of the event.
Answer the following questions to have clear event goals:
- What is the event's value proposition?
- What's the target event registration number?
- Which interest groups will you target?
- What activities can help promote the organization?
3. Build a Creative and Eye-Catching Event Page
One of the most important tasks is sharing all the essential details to participants when launching an event. An event page registration website contains all the information the audience can access, like event description and agenda, start and end dates, time, speaker bio, and sponsor information.
It’s essential that you can update the event website quickly if you should perform some changes. Attendees should quickly access the new information that you wouldn’t have to worry about getting the specifics across.
Ensure that the event page has impactful introductions, high-quality photos, and other details to boost event registrations.
Set up a quick and easy online registration form for event attendees. It offers a seamless experience to participants, which you can link to the form on the event page.
You can opt to create a simple online registration form with the same look and feel like the event page for registrants to feel like they have never left the website.
Also, make it custom-tailored to collect all the required information in the database within minutes.
Add call-to-action buttons on the event landing page to guide users on what actions you want them to take and increase conversion.
Once done, offer multiple payment options like credit cards, PayPal, offline payments, among others, to support participants using various payment options and preferred currency.
Glue Up’s Event Management Software automates the registration process, accepts different payment methods, facilitates smooth check-ins, and print badges onsite directly from your phone to save time, increase show rates, and more in just a few clicks.
4. Invite Speakers to the Event
Inviting industry thought leaders could build trust and generate more event registrations. Reach out to them and request to mention the event on their social media and websites.
Since event speakers and websites and sponsors of an event are considered influencers, encourage them to promote the event during the sessions to attract more attendees.
Keynote speakers favor self-promotion. However, if you see that it’s not happening yet, a gentle reminder for cross-promotion can work.
Event planners can promote their virtual events by giving the information to keynote speakers needed for advertisement.
5. Offer Early Bird Discounts and Coupons
Offering early bird discounts is a great way to promote an event by rewarding the first few registrants. However, since they come with a deadline and a limited number of tickets, you limit the number of tickets to be given at a discounted price to be sold early.
Early bird discounts can help in data collection by providing details of early buyers plus site analytics when accessing the event website or interacting with your connected platforms.
They also help the community to remember the event and contact for registrations. In addition, you can run social media ads and send out emails to your contact list to announce the discount.
6. Run a Raffle or Online Giveaway
Competitions are a great way to get more people excited about the event. In addition, people often participate in raffle or online giveaway to win something without paying for their entries.
You can create a competition that can give free or discounted tickets once you’ve announced the event.
For example, participants that share the event on social media or tag friends in a post can get entries and can win some free tickets.
Give registrants the chance to win something in the event. It could be a VIP experience or several event tickets. Excite and entice event attendees in several ways, especially when registering fast during a specific date.
Boost the Numbers, Increase Event Attendance
To convince some prospects to attend an event, you need to understand their decision-making process before participating.
An easy online registration process, clear goals and objectives, and early-bird discounts are just some of the many factors you need to keep in mind when organizing an event to attract more event attendees.
Do you want to create a community where members can engage and interact with each other? Be sure to check out Glue Up’s Community Management Software where they can enter group discussions, share helpful insights, give valuable tips, and discuss issues.
