How to Use Your Website to Promote Higher Education Events

Event Management

August 16, 2022

Higher education events bring your university together to engage students, faculty, alumni, and community members in enriching, fun experiences. To generate excitement and interest, you’ll need to create a dedicated strategy for promoting your events.

The first marketing resource you should consider in this process is your university’s event portal/ website. As your online information hub, this platform is one of your most valuable digital assets for publicizing your events and boosting registrations.

In this guide, we’ll explore these five tips for using your website to spread the word about your event and grow engagement:

Review other top college websites for inspiration.
Optimize your event landing pages.
Offer an accessible registration process.
Livestream your event.
Emphasize fundraising opportunities.

When you optimize your higher education website for promoting events, you offer attendees an easy way to learn more about your engagement opportunities and register. This helps grow event satisfaction, providing your university community with valuable experiences that improve their overall relationship with your college.

1. Review other top college websites for inspiration.

You don’t have to overhaul your entire website just to boost the visibility of your events. However, it’s still important to approach the event portal strategically to ensure your events are well-represented.

That means it’s important to consider your audience and, specifically, the segment of your audience that’s most likely to attend events. When you design your event portal with a particular audience in mind, you can create an event registration process and online event experience catered to their preferences.

It’s worthwhile to look at a few examples set by other top college websites to help think of engaging ways to promote your events to your audience. Review these standout examples:

Cornell’s robust events page spotlights plenty of virtual opportunities. Keeping your university’s virtual opportunities front and center helps appeal to those who feel more comfortable attending online events and those who might live farther away from your campus, such as alumni.
The Rhode Island School of Design’s alumni events page allows users to apply multiple filter types, letting you search for events by class year, major, event location, and more. This allows any visitor to specify their search to their exact event preferences, finding opportunities that appeal to their interests.
Stanford’s events page highlights all types of events, including those that are free and open to the public. Spotlighting events that are open to all helps your university foster stronger connections with the surrounding community.

As you browse through these examples, look at how each website structures, its event calendar, event listings, and registration forms. Consider the format and flow you think will work best for your higher education website and unique audience. For example, what types of search filters will you include? What information will you ask for on your registration page?

Answering these questions allows you to create an event calendar that stands the test of time and best serves your audience.

2. Optimize your event landing pages.

Event landing pages and calendar entries are the web pages that most visitors click through to view event details, including what your event will entail and how to get involved. Your event landing pages should clearly lay out your event’s basic information so it’s easy for audience members to sign up.

Ensure your event landing pages or calendar entries includes:

The event’s logistics. Ensure your landing pages include essential information such as the event’s purpose, date, time, location, and other must-know information. If you’re hosting a virtual event, clearly explain how attendees can access the event’s livestream.
Professional photos and videos of past events. Including images with your event entries helps draw attention to your events. Plus, if you use a photo from a similar past event, you can let attendees know what to expect from your upcoming opportunity.
Social media sharing buttons. Including social media sharing buttons on your event entries allows attendees to promote the events among their friends and family members, growing awareness of the opportunities.
A registration link. Include each event’s registration link in a clear location on your event pages. This might be a link to an embedded form on your website or another website if you’re spotlighting a different organization’s event.

Prospective attendees don’t need you to drone on about the history of each event and why they should consider attending. Stick to the basic details and keep your event entries as simple as possible, so audience members can quickly assess whether they want to attend.

3. Offer an accessible registration process.

According to Kanopi’s guide to higher education web design, it’s essential that higher ed websites are accessible and inclusive for all audience members. Accessibility isn’t just a nice-to-have feature for higher ed websites—it’s a requirement. Universities that receive federal financial support are required by law to provide reasonable accommodations that make their web content accessible.

Accessibility should also extend to your online event pages to ensure your event information is available to everyone. Plan to design your event registration process with accessibility guidelines in mind. Your main resource in this process will be the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a universally agreed-upon standard for web content accessibility.

Here are a few WCAG components that directly apply to your website’s event content:

Ensure your event registration forms can be filled out using assistive technology. This might include a screen magnifier, screen reader, or a head pointer.
Simplify your navigation and form fields. Consider using a breadcrumb navigation component that shows visitors the chronological order of internal website links that led them to the current page. Also, keep form fields as simple as possible by only asking for necessary information, such as attendees’ names and contact information.
Use descriptive alternative text for images. Alternative text is a written description of an image that users with visual impairments can use to understand what the image portrays. Alt text can also come in handy when a web page fails to fully load images for any reason. The images you use in your event web pages should include descriptive alternative text that fully conveys the purpose of each image.
Ensure sufficient color contrast. Color contrast is the difference in luminance or brightness between foreground text and background colors. If your web pages have low color contrast, potential event attendees may struggle to read the text, possibly leading to a lower event registration rate. The WCAG recommend using text with a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 or 3:1 for large text.

Your website should be a reliable, accessible resource for all of your university’s audience members. Incorporating these accessibility best practices into your event page design helps widen the audience for your events and create a better event experience right from the start.

4. Livestream your event.

Even if most events you’re hosting are in person, consider adding a livestream component. This can help you expand your event audience to include individuals who may not live within driving distance or those who prefer remote event participation.

For example, let’s say one of your university’s professors is hosting a free in-person seminar on native plant identification. You can host a simultaneous webinar livestream on your university’s website or social media pages to allow for virtual audience participation. The lecturer can field questions from both audiences to engage with each group equally.

If you decide to livestream some of your events, consider hiring a professional videographer. These individuals can ensure that your event’s in-person components, such as the lighting and sound, are optimized to create a clear, professional-looking livestream.

Also, include a link to access your event’s livestream on your website landing page. Allow attendees to note during the registration process whether they’ll be participating online or in-person so you can track engagement levels for each format.

5. Emphasize fundraising opportunities.

Fundraising helps your university grow and allows you to offer new opportunities to students and other community members. If your event has a fundraising component, you’ll want to keep your donation opportunities front and center.

Use your event landing page to highlight multiple donation types, including:

Alumni giving opportunities. According to AlumniFinder, alumni giving helps fund scholarships, operational costs, research projects, and other necessary expenses that your university incurs. If your event is designed for engaging alumni, emphasize how donating can allow alumni to leave a powerful legacy and positively impact your university for years to come.
Matching gifts. Matching gift programs are a corporate philanthropy initiative where businesses match donations their employees make to nonprofits or schools. You can embed a matching gift database into your online donation page to allow visitors to research their eligibility. Then, donors can quickly access all the information and forms they need to complete to apply for a match.
Volunteer grants. If you’re hosting a university-sponsored volunteering event, make sure volunteers are aware of corporate volunteer grant opportunities. Volunteer grants are another form of corporate giving where businesses make a donation after their employees volunteer with a charitable organization for a specified amount of time.

It can be helpful to review top nonprofit websites to understand how these websites centralize their donation processes. They use features such as large call-to-action buttons, pop-up messages, and clear language to direct attention to their fundraising opportunities. These same elements will come in handy when increasing engagement with your fundraising event and online giving opportunities.

As a higher education institution, your university has a reputation to uphold. Disorganized or underdeveloped event landing pages can make your university appear unprofessional and lead to lower event engagement.

Therefore, optimizing your event registration processes starts with streamlining your website’s landing pages and registration processes. These tips can help turn your university’s website into a more valuable resource for your students, faculty, alumni, and community.

Author: Allison Manley, Director of Marketing & Communications

Allison is a recovering (and award-winning) designer who applies her creative and organizational skills to marketing strategy for Kanopi. Her diverse, multi-disciplinary background — which in addition to design includes glassblowing, publishing, podcasting, and figure skating — contributes to strong relationships to which she offers a broad perspective.

Her job is to tell the story of Kanopi by sharing information, writing, working with staff and partners, and keeping the brand cohesive across all channels. And since she maintains this site and wrote this, she can say she considers it a privilege to be able to work every day with fun, smart people who make her job easier; her colleagues keep clients so happy with solid work and processes that the clients, in turn, are obliging in helping Allison with case studies and positive feedback.

When not keeping the Kanopi brand on point, Allison is working on double jumps on an ice rink, chasing small children, or organizing something somewhere.

6 Features to Look For in Event Registration Software

Event Management

July 28, 2022

Robust event registration software is an indispensable tool when planning and managing a large portfolio of meetings and events. It acts as a home base to focus your efforts—regardless of whether your events are virtual, in-person, or hybrid. The right software, therefore, should drive productivity, cut costs, and inject consistency into your event management workflow.

Throughout busy event seasons, you need to be reassured that your event registration software can support your events’ requirements, from large to small, public to private, free to paid, and beyond. A solid foundational tool helps you build exceptional events at scale from the ground up and deliver a consistent attendee experience throughout.

But finding the right foundational tool can be challenging. To help, we’ve put together a list of 6 must-have features to look for in event registration software.

1. Easy-to-use Event Websites and Landing Pages

Putting your brand at the forefront of attendees’ minds is crucial for a successful event. To encourage brand visibility through every step of your attendees’ journey, you need event registration software that allows you to develop and publish fully white-labeled event websites.

A white-labeled service gives you complete control over the look and feel of your event website rather than having a vendor’s logo plastered everywhere. You can integrate your brand’s fonts and colors throughout so that your attendees receive a seamless branded experience. If you are responsible for multiple events, event registration software that allows you to clone your landing pages is key for an efficient, repeatable workflow.

Easy-to-use event website builders also let you build, manage, and update the website workflow yourself, avoiding reliance on external agencies, developers, and designers. When every minute counts, avoiding tedious back-and-forth interactions with third parties saves a ton of time and increases the efficiency of your team.

2. Automated Event Email Marketing & Communications

Just like you, your attendees have busy lives and sometimes need a reminder (or two) that your event is on the horizon. Your event registration software should help you promote your event through email marketing and be able to create fully branded emails to make your communications cohesive. As with websites, having your brand front and center in your email communications helps build trust and brand awareness.

Another must-have feature is email marketing automation. Fully branded templates help you to streamline your marketing campaigns. Whether you need to send confirmation emails, important news, or a post-event recap, being able to select a template to build upon quickly saves precious time and reduces pressure on you and your team.

The best event registration software goes a step further still, allowing you to segment your automation so your emails go only to those to whom the information is relevant. If your event is multiple days or sessions, this helps eliminate the potential for confusion amongst your attendees.

3. Flexible Event Registration Forms

Great event registration software will contain a flexible online registration form built into the platform. Since forms are a key pillar in registering and managing attendees, this only makes sense!

If you typically plan many events over the course of a season, look for the support of global fields. With global fields, an attendee can register for all your events without having to fill in their information repeatedly. Event registration software that supports this feature helps reduce friction and is a detail that will be much appreciated by your attendees!

Conditional logic is another detail your attendees will appreciate in online forms. It’s a feature of smart forms where the form reacts to if-then conditions. Using conditional logic, your attendees will only have to answer questions relevant to answers they’ve already given. While this feature is invisible by design, your attendees will see and appreciate that your forms are always concise and easy to use.

End-to-end integration is one of the main benefits of using event registration software for your forms. Look for solutions that can integrate with your existing CRM so that you can seamlessly flow attendee data from your registration solution right into your CRM of choice.

4. Advanced Ticketing and Pass Management

One of the most important pieces to any event is the ticket itself. Because without a ticket, your attendees wouldn’t be attendees at all!

Modern events offer a variety of ticketing options to entice potential attendees. These can include presales, promo codes, group passes, and a variety of pricing categories to cater to different attendee needs and budgets. The event registration software you choose should be flexible enough to manage these scenarios and more. This flexibility should extend to your registration forms, too—if each event or session has unique ticket and pass options, your registration forms should not be one-size-fits-all.

Finally, while no one ever wants to undersell any event, the opposite is just as much of an issue for promoters and event planners. Be sure to look for event registration software that can manage event and session capacities with ease. Waitlists can help give everyone the opportunity to register for their favorite session in case of a sell-out scenario.

5. Scalable Event Registration

When you have to shift from planning intimate webinars or training sessions to massive recruiting events or conferences at a moment’s notice, flexible event registration will help make your role easier. The best event registration software doesn’t just aid the attendee journey—it helps make your journey in event management seamless, too!

If you’re planning corporate or training events, the option to send private invitations, be it to a specific group of people or a department within an organization, is a terrific option to have in addition to public sales. If business partnerships are a priority, the ability to facilitate group registrations is a must-have feature in your event registration software. The important thing is to take the time to understand the requirements for your events so that you can make a decision that works for you.

Finally, if you’re migrating from another platform, search for software that enables you to import attendee information to your event, saving you from rebuilding your database from scratch.

6. Security & Compliance

In today’s digital world, data privacy is an increasing concern for event attendees. From GDPR compliance to data encryption, two-factor authentication (2FA), and more, the event registration software you choose should be able to meet and exceed key security requirements.

Secure payments—including contactless providers like Stripe, Microsoft, Apple, and Google Pay—allow your attendees to pay for your event directly without concern. If attendees can no longer attend your event, the ability to manage refunds securely and efficiently helps build loyalty for future events.

Accessibility requirements are another important consideration. International standards for web content accessibility (including WCAG 2.1) ensure that digital content can be accessed by people with disabilities.

Attendease takes security seriously, and it is an integral part of what we do. Our software complies with the latest in security and compliance requirements to serve the enterprise market.

Start Building Outstanding Attendee Experiences

Still on the hunt for the best event registration software for your organization? With an easy-to-use website builder, robust email marketing, flexible event registration, easy-to-use secure payment gateways, and more, Attendease is the perfect foundational event software for building outstanding attendee experiences. Book a demo today!

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Presenting at Webinars: What Speakers Should Know

Event Management

July 5, 2022

Being asked to present at a webinar can be an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Whether it’s your first time presenting to an audience, or you’re a seasoned in-person speaker, presenting virtually can introduce challenges. However, with the right support system and knowledge, your presentation can go off without a hitch!

There are many different types of skills required for effective public speaking. While most of these translate over to virtual presentations, you still need to take the time to fine-tune your presentation and prepare yourself to address an audience in an online format. To help you excel during your presentation, we’ve compiled three must-knows for all virtual webinar speakers:

You Need an Engaging Presentation
Different Skills Are Needed for Virtual Presentations
Support Can Improve Your Presentation

Giving your audience an excellent event experience will make you a memorable presenter while growing your speaking confidence and skills. Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a first-timer, this guide will help you make the most of your webinar speaking experience.

1. You Need an Engaging Presentation

Creating an effective presentation doesn’t start when you open up PowerPoint. It begins with the initial planning and storyboarding stages that ensure your final product reflects your purpose and engages your audience. Be Brilliant Presentation Group recommends creating your presentation in four big stages to ensure a high-quality final product:

Plan your presentation. During this stage, you want to identify your presenting strengths and weaknesses, determine the best organizational structure for your presentation, and outline the opening, middle, and ending sections of your presentation.
Storyboard your presentation. Before you open your laptop, you should “storyboard” your presentation by sketching out each of your slides on paper. The purpose of this is not to design your entire slideshow, but to lay out the main points of each slide and your key visuals.
Design your actual presentation. Now it’s time to start creating your final product. If you’ve planned and storyboarded effectively, this step will be all about filling in the details and fine-tuning the visual and design elements
Practice, practice, practice. Lastly, to ensure that your presentation keeps your audience’s attention, you need to practice effectively. Even with the best slide deck, your delivery will be the final key to wowing your audience.

When planned with care and attention to the details that are important for virtual presentations, speakers of any level can create a presentation that will make any virtual event more engaging.

2. Different Skills Are Needed for Virtual Presentations

While many of the same presentation skills will apply, even seasoned public speakers will have to make adjustments to how they present to accommodate a virtual audience.

It can often be much more difficult to maintain the attention of a virtual audience, making it even more crucial that your presentation is extremely well organized and that your delivery is well-practiced. The way you structure your virtual presentation will also largely depend on whether it’s a live or asynchronous presentation. Even if your audience is live during the time of your presentation, if the webinar will be recorded and distributed afterward, you’ll have to consider how you can make your speech more evergreen.

Just like with an in-person presentation, you want to have expertly-designed slides that feature interesting visuals. However, it’s even more important that your visuals are engaging and even interactive when presenting virtually. Consider using video and animated graphics or other visuals to keep your audience members’ eyes glued to the screen.

Additionally, you want to ensure that your delivery is well-timed to keep your audience engaged. With the ability to speed up videos online, most audience members won’t have the patience for a very slow-paced presentation. But, of course, you also don’t want to speed through your talking points. Practicing with a coach beforehand can help you perfect your delivery speed, expressions, and gestures so that your audience never feels the urge to check their email or texts during your presentation.

3. Support Can Improve Your Presentation

Sometimes, deferring to a speaker training expert is the most effective way to prepare for a speaking engagement. Depending on your experience level and the type of presentation you’re giving, you may want a lot of support or just a little expert feedback.

Some of the benefits of getting support are that you can:

Plan more efficiently. While anyone can benefit from strategic organization and planning, if you’re new to public speaking or virtual presentations, support during the planning process can help you quickly grow your skills and understanding of public speaking principles.
Get an outside perspective. A friend may be able to weigh in on some aspects of your presentation, but an expert support specialist will provide you with more focus and useful feedback to help you excel.
Hand off your presentation design. Sometimes, all you need is someone to lighten your load by managing the design aspects of your presentation in PowerPoint. Whether this is all you need or something you want alongside additional support, you can definitely find a presentation expert who can help with this.
Practice in the most effective way for your strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a unique presenting style and personal strengths and weaknesses. The way you practice should reflect this. However, you likely don’t know how to practice according to your strengths and weaknesses. Working with an expert can ensure that you are prepared to wow your audience.

Overall, whether you need extensive support or help polishing your delivery, getting support before your presentation will help you better prepare for your virtual speaking event. Extra preparation will only help, not hurt!

Presenting at an online event like a webinar can be a new experience, even for many experienced speakers, and it presents unique challenges. To make your presentation as memorable as possible, take the time to customize your preparation and final presentation for a virtual audience to ensure a successful webinar.

About the Author:
Patti Schutte is the CEO, Founder, and Principal Coach of Be Brilliant Presentation Group. Be Brilliant Presentation Group’s coaching system results in speakers moving from fear and avoidance to confidence and purpose.

Her diverse presentation experiences include classroom and corporate training, growing and motivating an independent sales force, developing a team of national presenters, speaking at conferences, and transforming the presentation skill of professionals. She believes everyone deserves the advantage of brilliant presentation and speaking skills.

Meet a simplified solution to manage multiple events

Product News

June 16, 2022

After listening to dozens of organizations seeking the perfect event technology solution to manage their portfolio of events, we found out one thing: there is a gap in the market and no one is addressing this one simple concept. Here comes the game-changing solution with Justreg event registration.

There is surely no lack of event management software in the market, but most of them are very complex and expensive for the needs of many event managers. Not everyone is looking for all the bells and whistles, and it makes no sense to pay for features you are never going to use.

On the other hand, there are barebone solutions that are simpler and budget-friendly, however, they are also rigid and don’t allow for much customization. So planners see themselves in this limbo, where solutions are either too robust or too simple.

Introducing JustReg: Attendease’s Simplified Event Management Solution

The nature of the Attendease platform follows under the first category: Attendease offers a robust solution for planners looking to manage a variety of event types and formats throughout the year, with the ability to manage complex event agendas (think SXSW), brand control, and automation capabilities to save time and money. But not every planner needs the level of complexity that Attendease can handle. Hence, our newest product launch: JustReg.

Putting it simply, JustReg is a simplified version of the Attendease platform that offers the foundational tools that every event needs: segmented and automated event communication, branded landing page experiences, and simple yet robust registration journeys. This will allow for a time-saving, cost-effective solution for event planners, while hitting registration goals.

Daniel Mitchell, VP Sales & Marketing at Attendease, shared that “planners should not be forced to compromise on their registration needs – a versatile registration experience that is simple to use and does not break the bank is possible”. JustReg empowers event planners to deliver fully-branded and consistent experiences to their attendees, while simplifying event data management and event reporting.

You can find more about JustReg here, including pricing and features. If you’d like to learn more, contact our team!

A Guide to Creating Inclusive & Accessible Events (Checklist)

Event Trends
Product News

June 8, 2022

Event experiences should be for all: from the event website and landing page to the registration process, all the way to the event itself, and post-event communication and surveys. But the reality is that most events and meetings are not, unfortunately, delivering an accessible event experience at all touchpoints for their attendees.

Here are some considerations you should be providing to create accessible event experiences for your audience.

Understanding Assistive Technology for Event Accessibility

People with disabilities access and navigate the Web differently, depending on their individual needs and preferences. Many times, assistive technology is used to ensure users can access, understand, and navigate websites.

In a broad sense, assistive technology (AT) is any device, piece of equipment, or system that helps a person with a disability increase, maintain, or improve their functional capabilities.

Examples of assistive technology include:

Alternative Keyboard
Alternative Mouse
Head Wand
Mouth Stick
Refreshable Braille Display
Screen Magnifier
Screen Reader
Voice Recognition software

With that in mind, it’s important to consider that your event website and registration journey is accessible to these tools so that users with minor or major impairments can still navigate and understand your website and, ultimately, register and attend your event.

Event Website Accessibility Features to Consider

Simplified Navigation & Content Structure

A clear and straightforward layout for easy navigation and exploration of the entire event website can make for a truly accessible event experience for your attendees.

Simplified summaries for passages of text can also make it easier to understand the content of your website. The document outline feature can provide a representation of the content that only shows the headings and relevant structures (such as headings, nesting, and hierarchy) to help provide orientation and an overview of the contents. This can also help to avoid overloading the user with information.

Reduced Interface

Provide an option that only shows the most relevant information or more frequently used functions; for example, by hiding other parts of the content that can distract users or make it harder to navigate the website.

Color Contrast

Make sure you use strong color contrast between text and images of your digital assets so that attendees with visual impairments or cognitive disabilities can read the text and navigate through the online event with utmost ease.

Text Size Adjustment

Ensure that you use font types, sizes, colors, and spacing ideal to make text easier to read. Provide guests with the option to change the size of the font to zoom in and out to support their vision and read through the event without any difficulty.

Page Narration / Text-to-speech

Speech output can automatically convert text into a synthesized voice reading the text aloud. By providing on-screen text narration, guests with visual impairments can access all the content on your event website.

Accessibility Features for Video and Virtual Events

Audio Descriptions

Also referred to as “video descriptions” and “described video,” these narrations describe important visual details in a video.

Captions

Text with a verbatim recording of any speech and with descriptions of relevant auditory information that appears simultaneously with the audio (including audio that accompanies video in multimedia). For real-time captioning, typically, professional CART writers are necessary.

Transcripts

Text manuscripts containing the correct sequence of verbatim recordings of any speech and descriptions of important auditory or visual information.

Accessibility Compliance for Event Website Content

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 is a set of recommendations by the W3 working group that follows best practices for ADA (American Disability Act) website accessibility compliance.

The WCAG 2.1 AA covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including accommodations for blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these, and some accommodations for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations; but will not address every user need for people with these disabilities.

These guidelines address the accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also make Web content more usable to users in general.

Event Management Software with Accessibility Compliance

We are pleased to announce that, in an effort to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs (DEI), the Attendease platform, as of May 27, 2022, is compliant with W3 WCAG 2.1 AA.

The Attendease platform allows customers to use the features and functionality to manage and execute their portfolio of events and attendee-facing websites. While the Attendease dashboard is NOT accessible compliant, the W3 WCAG 2.1 AA is true for the attendee-facing event websites using Attendease’s pre-built website templates. This means event planners can use our event platform and pre-built templates to deliver accessible event experiences to users.

Event Accessibility Checklist

Here’s a checklist to help you ensure accessibility and inclusion for all event attendees.

Venue Accessibility:

Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Are there ramps and elevators available?
Are there accessible parking spaces?
Are there clear signage and pathways for people with visual impairments?

Communication:

Is event information available in multiple formats (text, audio, video)?
Are announcements made audibly and visibly?
Is there a designated area for sign language interpreters?

Registration & Check-In:

Is online registration accessible to people with disabilities?
Are there alternative registration methods for those who cannot use the online system?
Is the check-in process easy for everyone, including those with mobility challenges?

Seating Arrangements:

Are there designated spaces for wheelchair users?
Is there flexibility in seating arrangements to accommodate different needs?
Are there quiet areas for attendees who may need a break?

Audio & Visuals:

Are there subtitles or sign language interpreters for presentations?
Is the sound system clear and adjustable?
Are visuals in high contrast for those with visual impairments?

Restrooms:

Are there accessible restrooms with proper signage?
Are changing facilities available for those with different abilities?

Networking & Social Spaces:

Are social spaces accessible to everyone?
Is there seating available for those who need it?
Are networking activities inclusive and accessible?

Event Materials:

Are event materials available in accessible formats?
Is there a way for attendees to request materials in advance?
Are presentation slides provided in advance for those who use screen readers?

Food & Beverages:

Are dietary restrictions considered in menu planning?
Is information about ingredients and allergens provided?
Are there alternatives for those with specific dietary needs?

Emergency Planning:

Is the emergency evacuation plan accessible to everyone?
Are staff trained to assist attendees with disabilities during emergencies?
Are there designated meeting points for people with mobility challenges?

Deliver Inclusive & Accessible Events with Attendease

Contact us to learn how Attendease can help you start, improve, and perfect your journey to deliver an accessible event experience for all of your attendees.

Let’s Talk

How to optimize your event registration process

Event Management News

May 17, 2022

While you’ve likely heard the cliché “there is strength in numbers” many times before, there is no more succinct way to describe an event’s success. Events are always a great opportunity for people to learn and network. Simply put, the more people attend, the more successful your event will be! Therefore, it’s crucial to design your event onboarding process to be as easy and smooth as possible. To encourage a large turnout, here are a few pointers on how to boost your event registration.

Encourage attendees to register together in groups. It makes sense to offer streamlined registration for groups and corporations, but your event management platform must be flexible enough to handle such group categorizations. An optimized event registration process for groups should match the ease and simplicity of an individual’s registration process. If you think an extra incentive will encourage group registration further, offer discounts in the form of promo codes or coupons.
Don’t ask for superfluous information on the registration form. The more pages someone has to fill out in a web form, the likelier they are to abandon it. If they abandon your form once, 67% of people will never return (according to The Manifest) thus abandoning the idea of attending your event altogether! Therefore, limit your form to essentials, and only ask for information that’s pertinent to the event registration.
Don’t make frequent flyers have to fill out the same forms again. It’s worth repeating: no one likes filling out lengthy registration forms! So, if an individual has already attended one of your previous events, why should they have to fill out the same form again? Once a repeat user logs in, your event registration platform should be smart enough to pre-populate personal information from its database to help reduce the frustration inherent in filling out multiple forms.

Looking for flexible event registration software? Attendease offers a seamless attendee experience and a strong foundation for your meetings and events. With full-featured registration forms and the ability to create flexible registration for all scenarios, Attendease allows you to:

Manage pricing categories, promo codes, and group passes
Save registration forms to use again in future meetings and events
Manage secure payments with Stripe, Microsoft, Apple and/or Google Pay

If you’re interested in learning how to optimize your event registration process with Attendease, book a demo today!

Guide: How to Design the Perfect Event Registration Landing Page

Event Management News

April 28, 2022

Building an engaging, high-converting event registration landing page is about more than just adding an image and writing a few snappy paragraphs. Like every good marketing plan, event marketing things take strategy and intent. A great event website should be an on-brand, captivating, one-stop shop. It’s a central hub that answers all your visitors’ questions in one fell swoop, all while building hype and getting them excited to attend your event.

Landing pages are unique pages outside your main website that often appear in response to a marketing email, online advertisement, or targeted search engine result. A landing page is a follow-up to a promise made in content elsewhere—the place intended for visitors to “land” after being introduced to you on social media, in print, or anywhere else you’ve targeted your marketing efforts. Because of that, landing pages make a terrific ground zero for your event, as they are often the very first step your visitors truly take towards being an attendee! The goal of a great event registration landing page is to have users complete an action, such as filling in a form or purchasing a ticket.

In this article, we will focus on specifically curated landing pages, but many of the strategies here can be interpreted and applied to the homepage of your website, too!

Are you ready to create a high-converting event website? Here are six proven techniques that will help you do just that.

Event Information + Hero Image

Let’s start with the essentials: your event information. Ensure that you clearly communicate the name of the event, the date/time, and the location—don’t make visitors search for it! It’s often best to include this information as close to the top of the page as possible, either as a part of a prominent, full-width banner at the top of the page or shortly thereafter.

Speaking of these full-width banners—or “hero images” as they’re often called—consider including a photo that captures the event’s spirit, such as a shot of the crowd from your last event or even a beautiful photo of the city in which your event is being held. A visual representation of your event helps make a great first impression and build hype for your event, ensuring that people keep scrolling.

Unique Value Proposition

Your unique value proposition (UVP) clarifies your brand and event into one clear, concise message that states what you do and why someone should want to be a part of it. In some cases, this could be as simple as taking an existing tagline from your branding, combining it with copy describing the experience, and simplifying it until you could clearly answer the question, “What do you do, and what’s in it for me?”

Remember, this is not a tagline. It does not have to be snappy. Clarity is key, and shorter is generally better. Brainstorm a few ideas with your team and select the best one to display on your website. Be sure to use your newly brainstormed UVP on your advertisements and email marketing pieces.

Benefits of Attending the Event

Once you’ve synthesized your event in a single statement via your UVP, it’s important to state some key benefits of attending your event in a little bit more detail. Whether it is the variety of sessions to choose from, world-class speakers, networking opportunities, or all the above, your prospects should be able to quickly and clearly learn exactly why they will want to attend. And if you have data to back it up, even better!

Event Speakers & Sessions

If you only have a few speakers or sessions, feature them on your landing page with some details (brief biography, achievements, etc.) to describe what to expect from each speaker or session.

If you have many speakers and sessions, you may decide to feature only the most popular ones—those that people are most likely to recognize or that are most likely to drive conversions—on your landing page and instead have a link to a page with more details about all speakers and sessions for those to wish to dig deeper.

Social Proof and Testimonials

Do you read Google or Yelp Reviews of restaurants before committing to a dinner out? Have you asked your network for recommendations of a great mechanic? Does the phrase “award-winning” push you towards purchasing a product? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you have been influenced by social proof and testimonials. If you can be influenced by social proof, so can your attendees!

You can generate excitement and trust by sharing prior attendee impressions of your event. Reviews and quotes are an incredibly powerful tool for inducing a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) and can take your audience from “might go” to “can’t miss”! If your event has drawn high-profile attendees in the past, adding these people’s company information and position alongside a photo can also be a smart move so prospects in similar positions or industries may find the event even more relevant to them.

Call to Action (CTA) Button

After reading all your amazing content, what do you want users to do? A “Register Now” button will lead users from your landing page to the event registration page so they can complete the action you want. Have a clear call to action and ensure it stands out from the rest of the page, either with a larger font, a different color, or a pill button.

Implement These Six Techniques to Improve Event Conversion Rate

Your event landing page is your opportunity to tell the story of your event: the what, when, where, why, who, and how. Follow these six techniques to improve your conversion rate and pair them with authentic imagery and videos to create a page that will make visitors want to transport themselves to your event immediately.

What platform to use to build your event website? Try EventUp Planner’s website builder! EventUp Planner (formerly Attendease) offers an easy-to-use dashboard so you can quickly design your website without needing an army of designers and developers. Choose from one of the free templates available, or create your own. Because EventUp Planner is a complete event registration platform, you can have your entire registration process— calendar sessions, email communication, attendee surveys, and more—connected to your website. And if you manage multiple events, fear not: you can easily clone a past event to create a new one with the click of a button. Talk to our team to learn more!

Let’s Talk!

How Event Registration Tool Can Help You Avoid Pitfalls That May Ruin the Attendee Experience

Event Management News

April 14, 2022

We all recognize the importance of first impressions. Event registration is usually the first touchpoint for attendees, so it’s important to create a positive experience from the start. Offering a seamless experience with the right event registration tool will help ensure that registrants are focused on the excitement of the event, not the friction of poor registration processes.

However, creating a stress-free, optimized registration process isn’t as simple as throwing up a generic registration form on your website. As an event planner, it’s important to pay attention to your attendees’—and your own—pain points to help optimize the experience. Addressing these challenges head-on with a high-performance and user-friendly event registration tool will ensure you put your best foot forward.

When seeking an event registration tool, look for these four things to help you overcome common registration pitfalls.

Flexibility

Flexible online registration is key to a positive registration experience. This can be a challenge to achieve because one size does not fit all. For example, registering for a webinar or an in-house educational seminar differs greatly from the registration process for a multi-day conference. Accordingly, event registration tools must have the flexibility to accommodate various requirements—whether attendees are requesting a special meal, registering multiple attendees at once, or indicating accommodation preferences. Furthermore, the ability to tie registration to different tracks is pivotal so that you can easily identify regular attendees, VIPs, or speakers, and tailor their experiences accordingly.

Automated Data Collection and Integration

The registration process can yield valuable attendee data, but tracking, storing, analyzing, and effectively utilizing the volume of data for all your events is no small feat. Thankfully, sophisticated event registration tools like Attendease provide event reporting capabilities that can simplify the task.

In addition to providing one source of truth for your event data, Attendease also offers integration with other software, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, among others.

You can also garner value from post-registration survey data, and export reports that track performance through the entire event lifecycle—from registration through post-event follow-up.

User-friendly Registration Process

Long gone are the days of waiting in line for tickets! In today’s increasingly ecommerce-driven world, attendees expect to be able to pay for tickets online and without hassle. If your event registration software supports customizable forms, use them to make the online payment process as simple and as flexible as possible for attendees. Providing a variety of ticketing options (ie. a single-day ticket vs. a weekend pass), accommodating discounts and refunds, and offering promotional codes are great opportunities to help make the payment process more flexible. These options can also help make your event more accessible, or more exclusive, depending on the context. For event managers, there’s plenty of reasons to seek user-friendliness too! For example, an integrated payment solutions not only begin to create a positive attendee experience, but they also save you time and administrative headaches!

Optimized Registration Forms

Creating mobile-friendly registration forms that provide attendees with all the information, choices, and flexibility they require can be a challenge. In order to tackle this, it is important that your event registration software is sufficiently adaptable. It should be flexible enough to create forms that work in each of the major browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) both on mobile and off. Every browser is unique, and what looks good or works in one browser may sometimes not work in another. If registrants can’t complete their enrolment, it reflects poorly on the event and increases the likelihood of losing the registration. Customizable forms for different event groups, custom ‘help’ text, and conditional fields for more sophisticated registration scenarios help streamline the attendee registration experience, too. Lastly, from an event management perspective, event planners should seek out event registration software that supports last-minute changes and the ability to edit forms on-the-fly.

Attendease is a powerful event registration platform whose features provide the foundation for all your meetings and events. With Attendease, you can provide a seamless experience by allowing attendees to register for the event without ever leaving your event website!

Here are some more great features:

Manage pricing categories, promo codes, and group passes
Use advanced form features, including global fields, conditional logic, custom fields
Manage secure payments with Stripe, Microsoft, Apple and/or Google Pay
Measure real-time registration, sales, and refunds

Want to learn more? Request a demo of Attendease today!

Key Pillars to Boost Your Event Registration Strategies

Event Management News

March 10, 2022

When organizing an event, prioritizing a frictionless, successful registration experience will have a positive ripple effect that can be felt through the entire event and beyond. Registering for an event is often the first touchpoint for attendees, and having flexible online registration is paramount to a positive registration experience. However, when it comes to event registration, one size does not fit all. For example, registering for a webinar or an in-house educational seminar differs greatly from the registration process for a multi-day user conference.

Accordingly, your event registration software needs to have the flexibility to accommodate various requirements, whether attendees are requesting a special meal, registering multiple people at once, or indicating accommodation preferences. Your event registration platform of choice may also need to provide the flexibility to create separate, optional add-on sessions such as gala dinners or pre-conference education sessions. Finally, the ability to tie registration to different tracks may be pivotal, so you can easily identify regular attendees, VIPs, or speakers and tailor their experiences accordingly.

Communicating Your Event Registration

The first step in any registration campaign is deciding how you’re going to announce—and then communicate—your upcoming event registration with your audience. It’s important to keep the tone and positioning consistent with other brand communications, so the process often begins by examining the same marketing channels that are already familiar to your audience.

Track Your Marketing Efforts

Take advantage of trackable URLs—also known as UTM parameters—or promo codes to define the success of each of your marketing campaigns. Both trackable URLs and promo codes can be shared with industry influencers, speakers, sponsors, and other collaborators, and will make it easier for you to define the success of your marketing efforts and measure ROI.

Consider The Entire Experience

Poor registration experience is a major contributor to registration drop-offs: when visitors who started the registration process don’t complete it. Consider technical aspects that are more “behind the scenes” but help reduce friction.

For instance, if your audience primarily interacts with your brand on mobile devices rather than on desktop browsers, make sure your registration software allows for mobile-friendly registrations.

Make sure you only ask what is absolutely necessary for your registration process, and use functionalities like conditioning fields and global fields to make it easier for your attendees to complete their registration. Conditional fields will help to ask questions that are only relevant to a certain group of people, and global fields will allow you to pre-fill data about the attendee that you may already have in your event platform, saving your attendee time and making it easier for them to complete the registration.

Make Your Event Website Stand Out

Event websites continue to be an extremely powerful marketing tool for promoting your upcoming events. They provide potential attendees with detailed information about the event while educating them on why they must not miss it.

Ensure that your event registration platform allows you to utilize your branding and messaging so you can keep your brand consistent across all platforms. It’s entirely possible that your potential attendees are visiting your website after they’ve seen the event advertised elsewhere, simply because they want to know more about your event, or because they need one final push before committing to the registration.

Want another great website tip? Don’t forget to complete the look and feel of your website by using professional images from past events. Great photos help to induce FOMO; if you effectively showcase a can’t-miss event, your audience will respond to the additional social proof with increased registrations.

How to Optimize Your Event Registration Strategies and Process

Regardless of its format and content, there’s no event without your attendees! It’s, therefore, crucial to design your event’s onboarding process to be as easy and smooth as possible to encourage registrations. Below are a few pointers on how to optimize your event registration process to encourage a large turnout and make your event as successful as possible.

Encourage Group Registration

For many events, it makes sense to offer streamlined registration for groups, such as companies and organizations. In order for this to work, your event registration app must be flexible enough to handle group categorizations, and an optimized event registration process for groups should match the ease and simplicity of the standard individual registration process. As an extra incentive, it’s a great idea to provide discounts in the form of coupons to encourage group registrations.

Keep Event Registration Forms Concise

Whittle your form down to its essentials and only ask for information that’s pertinent to the event registration. Research has consistently shown that the more pages someone must fill out in a form, the likelier they are to abandon it.

Avoid Repetitive Event Registration Forms

If a common event registration pain point is having to fill out lengthy forms, it’s best practice to avoid making return attendees fill out the same forms more than once. Because if an individual has already attended a previous event from the organizer, why should they have to fill out the same lengthy form again? Your event registration system should be intelligent enough to pre-populate personal information from its database to reduce the frustration that comes with filling out forms.

Place Registration Forms On The Event Website

Many registration platforms take the user from the event website to a third party registration site, which disrupts the user experience and, many times, doesn’t carry the branding forward from the website to the registration. To provide a better user experience and keep control of your brand, consider event registration platforms that can provide a seamless registration experience to your attendees, which can also increase trust.

Ensure Brand Consistency Across Registration Forms and Website

A professional, consistent look between your conference’s website and the online registration form helps potential attendees feel comfortable. 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 feel hesitant to complete the form. Keeping a consistent representation of your brand gives your registrant confidence in your organization and your event.

Ensure Registration Forms Work Across Browsers

Whether you are developing your own registration form, using a plug-in, or using online event registration software, you will want to test your form in each of the major browsers. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are a great start. Every browser is unique, and what looks good or works in one browser may sometimes not work in another. Although most issues are minor, such as alignment or spacing inconsistencies, in some cases your form may not work at all. If registrants can’t complete their enrollment, it reflects poorly on the event and increases the likelihood of losing the registration.

Design a Mobile-Friendly Event Registration Process

With mobile devices taking a 55% market share over desktop devices between January 2021 and January 2022 according to Statcounter, it is more important than ever to ensure that the online registration process is mobile-friendly. This means that your conference’s registration should be accessible not only from a desktop computer, but also from any tablet or phone. By taking this step, you offer your registrants the convenience of registering immediately from wherever they happen to be.

Prioritize User-Friendly Payments

With e-commerce becoming increasingly common, attendees expect to be able to pay for tickets digitally without hassle. If your event management software supports customizable registration forms, you can make the online payment process as simple as possible for attendees. Plus, integrated payment solutions not only begin to create a positive attendee experience, but they also save you time and administrative headaches.

Offer a choice of secure payment processing methods and the ability to choose different event pass types at various price points, i.e. single-day tickets versus 3-day passes. Providing a variety of ticketing options, accommodating discounts and refunds, and offering promotional codes take the guesswork out of the process for attendees and can also allow more people to attend your event.

If you host international events, consider a platform that can accept payments in multiple currencies.

4 Easy Tips to Drive Your Registration Further

1. Remarketing Can Boost Registration By 20%

Incomplete registrants—the people who have stalled midway through your event registration process—are an often-overlooked source of additional event attendees. A study conducted by the Baymard Institute found that e-commerce transaction abandonment rates averaged almost 70%, with some studies reporting rates up to 84%. That’s a lot of lost registrations!

Event registration case studies (including this one by the RFID Journal) have shown that, with a solid remarketing campaign, you can gain back 20% or more of your event registrations that have stalled somewhere along the way. That’s 6% of your overall registration total. With some thoughtful target marketing and a series of strategic email campaigns, you can boost attendance to your event and increase your revenues significantly.

Using the registration module of your event technology platform, you should be able to compile a comprehensive report that will identify all of the partially completed or incomplete registration forms. Then, set up a series of automated yet personalized emails to go out to these people who have abandoned their registration process, regardless of where in the funnel they dropped out.

If you think it might apply, you can also include some reassuring language to your event’s legal policy or terms and conditions. The tone should be friendly and lighthearted. Here are some great examples of effective emails to inspire you.

Registration abandonment emails typically have much higher click-to-open and open rates than usual. This is because the prospective attendees are already familiar with the event and just need a little reminder or encouragement to complete their registration form. By creating an email campaign filled with engaging event content, keynote speaker highlights, or even a discount for prospective attendees, you can increase your event registration revenues considerably.

2. Be Proactive and Catch Problems Early

Sometimes people drop out of the registration process due to design flaws in your event registration forms. Most people will not take the time to tell you that they experienced a problem, so be proactive: take the time to double-check and test all scenarios before launching your forms to the public.

3. Schedule and Send Event Registration Reminders

If your event invitation contains an early bird discount, you can use the upcoming deadline as a reason to send another email reminder to your incomplete or abandoned registrants. Make sure you send it at least a few days, if not a week, before the deadline to give them adequate time to take advantage of the opportunity. Sending another one the day before the deadline is not taboo either. Remember, these are people who have already shown interest in your event. They just need a little nudge!

4. Utilize Valuable Post-Event Data

The registration process can yield some valuable attendee data. But tracking, storing, analyzing, and effectively utilizing the volume of event data for all your events is no small feat. Thankfully, sophisticated event planning software like EventUp Planner can simplify the task by integrating with marketing automation tools (HubSpot), marketing analytics software (Marketo), CRM solutions (Salesforce), and email marketing tools (MailChimp, Infusionsoft). By integrating your event registration software with your marketing tech stack, you can send automated follow-up emails after registration to ensure attendees are consistently engaged, garner value from post-registration survey data, and export reports that track performance through the entire event lifecycle, from registration through post-event follow-up.

Technology to Support Your Event Registration Strategies

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing how flexible event registration software needs to be to accomplish a successful event in today’s market, and just how many pain points there can be if you haven’t yet discovered a solution.

EventUp Planner is a powerful event registration platform that simplifies the management of the meetings and events that your organization relies on. From digital marketing and registration to speakers, attendees, rooms and sponsors, EventUp Planner simplifies the complexity of event registration.

Our built-in templates and drag-and-drop interface enable your teams to quickly build and launch event websites, registration, and communication flows that are on-brand and look amazing.

Here are a few features of EventUp Planner (formerly Attendease) that will support you with your event registration strategies:

Design white-labeled, fully branded event websites
Create branded email templates for every event
Design a custom event app
Easily handle different registration types and waitlists
Manage pricing categories, promo codes, and group passes
Manage secure payments with Stripe, Microsoft, Apple and/or Google Pay
Create unique registration forms for specific pass types
Save registration forms to use again in future meetings and events
Keep attendees up-to-date through our mobile event app
Track and measure your event performance

Want to learn more about EventUp Planner and how it can help you streamline your event registration strategies? Book a demo today!

5 Things to Consider When Planning Your Next Product Launch Event

Event Management News

February 28, 2022

The importance of a great product launch event cannot be overstated. Momentum is everything! Curating a fantastic first impression to both your customers and the market-at-large can have a drastic, long-lasting impact on your product’s success.

On the other hand, an underwhelming launch can have negative effects, increasing the likelihood that your product fizzles out and fades away faster than you can say “Microsoft Zune” or “Google Glass”.

Consider these five tips when preparing for your next release and ensure you launch your new product with a bang, not a whisper.

1. Create Hype for Your Launch Event

The hype machine is, in fact, real. A truly great launch will have people everywhere wondering what all the fuss is about. Once they’ve discovered your product for themselves, they’ll be sure to leave their own enthusiastic reviews, increasing momentum even further.

In today’s e-commerce driven environment, reviews are valuable social currency. According to Bazaarvoice, just 50 reviews have the potential to increase sales by 30%!

With social platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok being viewed as conversion drivers and trend spotters, generating online awareness has never been more important. In addition, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly accelerated the adoption of e-commerce to the masses: According to McKinsey & Company, 10 years’ development happened in Q1 2020 alone. A strong online presence should no longer be seen as optional in your product launch, but rather a requisite piece of its success.

2. Anticipate Uncertainty

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us all anything, it is to continue to expect the unexpected.

Manufacturing and supply chain delays remain a challenge for many industries, including automotive, fashion, and electronics. Throughout 2021, shipping container prices increased tenfold, the pandemic adversely affected manufacturers in developing countries, and consumer spending increased significantly in North America, further exacerbating existing issues.

Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation 5 video game console, which was released in November 2020, was met with immediate supply challenges, citing a worldwide semiconductor shortage. Coupled with the increased desire for video game consoles during the pandemic, Sony nonetheless still managed to break its previous generation’s launch records despite the shortage.

This would appear to be a success at first glance. However, with unauthorized resellers driving up resale prices of the new console and online communities forming around predicting product “drops” at retailers, the hype had become so large that Sony still had room to grow their sales significantly. So, they pivoted to extend the life cycle of the previous PlayStation 4 console past its original expected discontinuation in 2021 to try and meet consumer demands, and continued to produce both PS4 and PS5 in tandem into 2022.

The challenges that COVID-19 brought will affect both product availability and consumer trust well into the future. Your product launch needs to be robust enough to forecast how to overcome these challenges and more.

3. Plan Early

How do you create hype and anticipate the unexpected? The best way to do so is to start planning early. Here are our recommendations for elements to consider:

Begin brainstorming your launch 6-12 months in advance. This often involves communicating with retail partners, event planning, and scheduling product availability dates long before the launch.
Ensure your creative team readies a concept 5-6 months prior to launch. This way, you can align everyone executing your marketing in correctly promoting the product’s branding, unique selling propositions, and key features.
Distribute the product to brand ambassadors at least 90 days before launch and begin to give product samples to consumers to start generating ratings, reviews, and images. This early feedback is pivotal and allows you to course-correct or adjust materials if needed prior to the official launch.
In the weeks prior to your product launch, run countdown campaigns across your brand’s social media channels. This can include CTAs for consumers to sign up for email alerts, teaser videos, and social media-specific presales. Don’t forget product-specific or event hashtags to help you go viral!

4. Curate an Exclusive Launch Event

Ideally, you should build your product launch event around two groups of people:

Your existing customer base and social media followers; and

Those that can help grow your following to help your product reach new heights. Examples of this would be influencers, media, and industry experts.

Your existing customers already know and love your brand, so be sure to find ways to give them an experience that is both on-brand yet unlike anything they’ve experienced from you prior. Encourage exclusivity throughout. This can be as simple as a product-related goody bag or discount code, or as elaborate as a one-on-one VIP session at your event. These experiences are proven to improve sales: 91% of consumers “have more positive feelings about brands after attending events and experiences” and 85% are “likely to purchase after participating in events and experiences,” according to EventTrack.

For influencers, sample campaigns and other branded goodies are a great way to get buy-in prior to the event alongside an invite to the event itself. It’s a small price to pay to gain access to a loyal following that may not otherwise have exposure to your products.

Attendease, the leading event registration platform, can help you organize and leverage your product launch audience. Our built-in templates and easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface enable your teams to quickly build and launch event websites, registration, and communication flows that are on brand and look amazing. The Attendease platform provides the foundation that ensures all event details are addressed, changes are simple, and repetitive tasks are automated—allowing planners to focus on amazing event design.

If you’re still not sure where to begin, we recommend reading our guide on How to Plan a Successful Product Launch Event.

5. Have a Follow-Up Plan

The hours, days, and weeks after your launch event present an opportunity to squeeze every last drop of hype out of your release, so don’t miss out!

This is a crucial time to capitalize from customers new and old who could not make your event but wanted to, or those who have heard the hype but were hesitant to commit at first. Use the same strategies you employed pre-event (i.e. exclusive hashtags, email campaigns, and social media activity) and combine them with newfound footage generated by attendees over the course of your launch for added social capital.

Conclusion

A successful launch is not a flash in the pan, but rather a well-thought-out process that helps build momentum and drive your product forward before, during, and after the launch. The stronger the launch, the bigger the hype…The bigger the hype, the stronger the reviews…And the stronger the reviews, the more success your product will have.

Book a free consultation to learn how Attendease can help you configure your event registration process and provide a smooth registration and post-event experience to your attendees.