How to Increase Event Profit
Whether you are selling tickets for your event or holding a free event, there are simple ways for you to boost the profit of your event. How profitable your event is will likely be determined by the number of tickets you are able to sell. The same can be true for free events. The more free tickets that are ‘bought,’ the more people at your event and opportunities to sell merchandise or food and drink.
Driving registrations to sell the maximum number of tickets is the first step to a profitable event. A great looking event site, painless registration forms, simple payment and good promotion are all things we’ve talked about before to increase ticket sales. Typically someone will sign up for your event, months, weeks or days before the actual event date, so the key to boosting your event profit is working out how to keep them engaged until the day of the event so that they actually attend!
Communicating who else is attending, is the number one piece of information that boosts attendance. If you’ll have special guests, speakers, music acts or demonstrations at your event, send your attendees the details. If there will be an opportunity to meet the any of the above, include this in your email too, or use this an opportunity to up-sell to a VIP ticket where they can meet the music band, for example.
Only 35% of RSVPs will attend a free ticketed event. Over 95% will show up to a paid ticketed event. Free events can often have a high no-show rate due to the fact that the attendee doesn’t ‘loose’ anything in not showing up to your event. Are there trade-offs you can make to charge for the ticket? For example, you charge £15 for your event but for each ticket sold the attendee receives a £15 voucher upon arrival at the event, which could be used on refreshments or merchandise.
Sending a reminder 1-2 days before the event will boost attendance by 8%. This is especially true for events that you started promoting and receiving registrants for months or weeks ago. For those whose mind it slipped, a simple event reminder email can boost your attendance, seeing more people at your event. This could mean more food sold, more drinks sold, more giveaway tickets sold or whatever you are selling at the event.
Don’t forget about the opportunity to pre-write and schedule emails to go out at the time of the event. With almost all your attendees likely to have their mobile with them, sending emails with exclusive discounts or offers can encourage additional spending at the event. If it suits your event type and audience, offer free wifi and tell guests on arrival that exclusive surprises will emailed during the course of the event.
And finally, don’t forget to say thank you! Emails sent within 24 hours of your event are likely to get 150% more clicks than a thank you email that is sent out later. Use this opportunity to promote your next event, if there is one or even better, have the event site already set up so you can start taking early registrations.
Roughly planning out your email communication using these stats and ideas will help increase your event attendance and add to your event bottom line. Choosing an event registration platform that captures your attendee information and enables you to create email templates for you to schedule and track your email correspondence will help you stay organised. Our platform lets our users do just this, and is designed for everyone, no matter what your experience level is or the kind of event you are creating. Create a free account and have a snoop around.
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