4 Easy Ways to Boost Event Registration by 20%

You’ve spent countless hours and resources planning an amazing event. But what happens if no one shows up? 

Event registration can make or break the success of your event. A seamless event registration process leads to more attendees and higher revenues. A leaky process, on the other hand, leads to missed opportunities and diminishing ROI. 

Let’s examine an often overlooked but important source of attendees for your event: incomplete registrants AKA the people who stalled midway through your event registration process.

The Baymard Institute found that abandoned cart rates averaged almost 70%, sometimes going as high as 84%. Event planners, that’s a lot of lost registrants for your event!

Fortunately, with thoughtful retargeting and a series of strategic emails, you can boost attendance to your event—gaining back as many as 20% or more of your event registrations that stalled along the way! Event registration platforms can help you get there. Keep reading to learn how. 

Let’s say your event ticket is $100. If 400 people begin the registration process, but only 70% of them follow through, that leaves 30% incomplete—which translates to $12,000 in missed revenue. Yikes!

If you successfully revived even 20% of those prospective event attendees (24 people), that would be $2,400 with a little effort on your part. You just have to know what you’re looking for. 

If you don’t believe this could have a massive impact on your event strategy, plug in the numbers from your own registration statistics, and see what that missing revenue would be—you might be surprised!

You’ll likely find that the potential revenue is well worth the minimal time and effort it takes to set up a retargeting campaign. Event registration software can streamline the process. 

Ready to increase your event registration numbers with minimal time and effort? Explore the following 4 strategies: 

When it comes to event registration, event analytics are your friend. 

First, navigate to the registration module of your event management software. Once there, you should be able to compile a comprehensive report that will identify all of the partially completed or incomplete registration forms. 

Next, you can 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. 

Did you know that registration abandonment emails typically have much higher open and click-to-open rates than other marketing emails? That’s because 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 your prospective attendees (more on this below), you can increase your event registration revenues considerably.

Sometimes people drop out of the registration process due to design flaws in your event registration forms. Other times prospective attendees may have questions about some of the required information, or concerns about data security. Or they may have simply become distracted before they were able to complete your form.

You can set up an automated email to go out to these potential registrants as early as the same day as a registration form is abandoned. The email should be a gentle reminder that they have not completed the registration process, along with an invitation to contact you for technical assistance if necessary. 

If you think it might apply, you can also include some reassuring language that directs prospective attendees 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.

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, in order 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.

You’ve already sent out as many as two emails, and no response yet. 

We don’t recommend sending more than three well spaced follow-ups in total, as too many may be considered aggressive. On your last attempt, make it count—your incomplete or abandoned registrants might need a small incentive in order to convert.

After your traditional milestone deadlines have passed, try offering a special discount or incentive, either at or just under the early bird rate. Clearly communicate that this offer is for those prospective attendees who have initiated the registration process earlier on. 

Sometimes price is the main barrier for prospective attendees not having completed their online registration the first time around. Offering a slight savings may be just the motivation to help them make up their minds and commit, once and for all.

Event registration can make or break your next event. Fortunately, you don’t have to master this process alone.

EventUp Planner by Tripleseat provides powerful event registration and ticketing software that makes it easy to customize a seamless experience for your attendees. 

It’s never been easier to: 

For more information on how we can help you boost your event registration, get in touch with us to book a demo.

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