Discover 8 effective event email strategies to boost attendance and engagement for your virtual events, from creating suspense and exclusivity to providing essential information and gathering feedback.
One way to boost your virtual event attendance and engagement is by using event emails to your advantage.
Planning and hosting a virtual event is one thing, however, have you considered how powerful event emails can be in helping to spread the word about your event?
There are several stages during your event planning where an event email can be your best friend by ensuring customers are engaged, informed and interested in attending.
To help you increase your event attendance and engagement, we have put together a list of our top 8 event email ideas that are sure to get results.
Whether you want to create suspense and mystery around your event or gain useful attendee feedback to help you improve, this post has got you covered.
So, let’s dive into why event emails are so important.
An event email is a great way to ensure your event attendees and prospective attendees know everything there is to know about the event you are hosting, that is more than just a general itinerary or bullet-pointed list.
Event emails can be used to your advantage as they can be sent out to thousands of people at once, scheduled at specific times to increase open rates, and be personalised to individual attendees.
If attendees don’t understand the value proposition of your event, you will lose their interest altogether and miss out on registration numbers and attendance rates.
That is where your event email campaign comes in, as event emails allow you to inform and sell your event to your target audience in multiple exciting ways.
This means that everyone who is attending, or interested in attending, has the information they need and feels valued as part of the event.
There are various event email ideas out there to boost your event attendance and engagement, so it is useful to know the different styles, so you can use the right one for your event.
Whether your goal is to gain more customer feedback by including a questionnaire in your event email, or you want to create a sense of urgency, there will be an event email that can help!
Event emails can also complement your company’s messaging and tone of voice to get your message across in the right way.
So, with that said, let’s get into our 8 event email examples…
Creating excitement around your event can be done by adding a little bit of mystery, which generates interest.
If you are launching a new event, using wording such as ‘Coming soon’ or ‘The wait is nearly over’, encourages potential clients and attendees to open the email and read on.
On the other hand, perhaps your company runs an annual event that needs a refresh to keep existing clients excited and get potential clients interested?
In this scenario, using wording such as ‘We’re back’ or ‘It’s the one you’ve been waiting for’ hints at a recurring event that clients do not want to miss.
In the email itself, it’s important to keep details vague and hint at certain speakers or vendors who might be involved. This will make your event instantly more exciting as attendees may know who you are hinting at, or the suspense itself may be enough to encourage them to sign-up!
This is also useful if your event is months away and you don’t have all of the details ready, as you don’t have to give specifics just yet.
An effective way to make your clients feel special is using the ‘exclusive invite’ event email, as this is a more personal way of grabbing your clients’ attention.
Using wording such as ‘Here is your exclusive invite to [event]’ or ‘You are invited to [event]’, sets the event up as an exclusive opportunity from the outset.
These event invites, paired with promotions or discount codes, help to encourage potential and existing clients to register to attend.
For example, offering an exclusive invite to your company’s event, with a reduced ticket price and a 20% discount code to use on your website, makes clients feel special.
Reduced ticket rates and discount codes aren’t the only way to encourage people to attend, other incentives can be used such as:
This event email not only works for those trusted clients who attend your events year on year but new clients will also be attracted to your event as you have gone that extra mile to make them feel exclusive.
Creating a sense of urgency is vital to gaining those last-minute attendees.
This can be done by using phrasing such as ‘Time is running out’ or ‘Last chance to register today’, encouraging those potential attendees who are sitting on the fence to sign-up and come along.
Alongside this, embedding a countdown timer is effective as it increases the sense of urgency, especially if the client is viewing your email a few days before the event.
Again, this email can be enhanced by including exclusive offers, such as reduced early bird ticket registration dates or saying ‘10% off your ticket if you register today’.
Everyone loves a discount, so this is effective in the lead-up to your event as people won’t want to feel as though they’ve missed out.
Within this countdown to the event email, it’s equally important to remember the purpose of your event.
Providing details of the event such as the location and available accommodation (if you are hosting a hybrid event that spans over a few days), itinerary with dates and times, video call links and sign-ins, and any other relevant information, is a way to draw attendees in.
This is where iVent’s 365 hub comes in as we offer one place to upload important event information such as times, resources, and locations, for attendees to access before your event takes place.
For this event email, it’s essential that you keep things light and conversational.
Unsurprisingly, when people are looking to register for events they want to know the necessary information, but there is a way to do this that is engaging and fun.
Dedicating one email to fun facts and frequently asked questions (FAQs) is a great way to showcase everything about your event, and leave no stone unturned when it comes providing essential information.
Rather than sending an event email with a question and answer format, it may be useful to provide a list of fun facts about your previous events, for example who attended, why it was successful, and a summary of the whole event from start to finish.
Then you can switch the attention to the upcoming event such as outlining the key speakers, attending vendors, offers, and incentives. However, remember to keep this short and snappy as you want your email to be engaging and to-the-point.
By using this event email, you’re giving attendees the information they need before they’ve even asked for it. Essentially, you’re staying one step ahead!
When it comes to your virtual event, attendees will always have new questions to ask.
Both potential and existing attendees need to feel like you are there to answer their questions so that they have all of the information they need.
As such, you should consider sending an email to let attendees know that you’re there and ready to answer questions. This is highly important as it keeps attendees informed and interested in your virtual event, as they can fire any questions/ concerns straight over to you.
If attendees are misinformed, this could result in people not turning up, dropping out at the last minute, or worse still, writing a bad review complaining that your company was unhelpful and hard to reach.
Let potential attendees know that you are ready to fill in any knowledge gaps and are always open to answering any questions by including enlarged social media buttons with links, and using wording such as ‘chat to us’ or ‘did we miss anything?’
Of course, you should be adding this type of content to all of your event emails, but a dedicated ‘Contact us’ email shows how much you care and encourages people to email you back.
Stories and statistics sell. So why not use this event email idea to sell your event to the best of your ability, by offering up the reasons why this event is not one to miss?
There are several ways to do this, for example, if you hold this type of event annually, why not include the highlights of last year’s event in this email, perhaps including who the main speaker was, or how many people attended the event compared to the year before.
This gives potential attendees clear examples of why your events are worth attending, how they improve year on year, and what they have got to look forward to.
Within this email, it is again essential to include snippets of important information such as the location or platform, and date and time of the event, so immediately people know whether it is possible for them to attend before reading on to find out what they can expect this time.
Equally, adding an incentive to this type of email works too, as placing a discount right in between the intended highlights of your event catches readers when they are most interested.
For example, you could do this by adding ‘20% off your ticket if you register today’ between teaser examples of what to expect at the next event.
This email can be used as a final boost in the weeks leading up to your event to get those clients who are unsure, to sign-up and attend.
Are you ready to get started?
While event emails are important leading up to your event, they are just as important after your event has taken place..
Sending out emails after your event helps to ensure that you aren’t just leaving attendees hanging, and shows your continued interest in them, and their custom.
Simply thanking attendees for coming along and letting them know that events wouldn’t be possible without them, shows that your company values each and every attendee. For example, use phrases such as:
‘Thank you for your continued support by coming along to [event name], thanks to you the event was a huge success. We can’t wait for the next one!’
This event email idea is also a great way to push the content you captured during the event. For example you could include video interviews, imagery or blog content, as this provides a visual round up of the event.
This also provides a recap of the event, and you can link off to your website where more content from the event can be provided, which helps to increase engagement even more. Ultimately attendees will appreciate the access to recorded content, and it gives them the option to share event imagery and video, which further promotes your virtual event.
Finally before signing off this email, hint to your next event and what can be expected, as this keeps attendees keen to find out more.
This is another important one for after the event, as feedback from attendees is essential to ensure re-attendance, and improvement of future events.
Providing attendees the opportunity to offer their feedback, allows you to be clear on the successes and drawbacks of your event strategy.
In this event email, it is a good idea to keep things simple and straightforward to avoid coming across pushy when asking for feedback.
Using phrases such as ‘Tell us your thoughts’ or ‘Fill out this quick survey below’, keeps things short and sweet, and is more encouraging for the reader.
At the end of the email, be sure to include a button with a link that takes the reader straight to the survey or poll you have created, so it is a quick and easy process.
The feedback you receive can be used when discussing the event’s successes or to promote your next virtual event. If you have positive testimonials or quotes from past attendees, include these in your email to help spread the word.
Seeking out and using attendee feedback shows you care not only about their event experience, but also shows that you are open to making changes moving forward.
From fun facts, to building suspense, there are so many exciting ways to improve your event emails, and increase event attendance and engagement.
We hope this list of 8 event email ideas has inspired you to update the ways you currently use email marketing to attract more clients.
Reaching out to attendees before, during, and after your event is so important if you are going to attract more people in the future.
That’s where event emails come in, as there is an option suitable for every stage of your event process, from getting people to sign-up, to providing them with post-event content to share with their network.
Event emails are an effective way to ensure that your attendees are attracted to the event emails you are sending their way, whether that be through design, tone of voice, or the content you include.
At iVent we specialise in executing virtual and hybrid events, and we have years of experience that we can use to help your event attendance and engagement increase, time and time again.
To find out more about what we do, get in touch!
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