Event registration for internal events

If you run internal company events, you'll probably be well versed in some of the unique challenges of event registration and comms that come with them.

A few questions that need answering

How do I send the invitations?
How do I make sure that it's only employees registering?
How do I make sure the registration site and emails are on brand?

Invitations
If the event platform that you're using to create the registration site has the option to send personalised email invitations, that's probably the easiest option. To throw in a curveball, what if the IT police don't want you using another external system to send emails from?

Need some options?
1. Send them out via the events platform if you're allowed;
2. Send them out via your email marketing platform;
3. Send them out via your local email client (Gmail, Outlook, etc) using a merge function.

We've already mentioned option 1 is the easiest, but it's all down to your friends in the IT team.

Options 1 and 2 present another issue, how do you get the personalised links from the event platform into the email marketing platform/local email client? Unless there's an option to bulk export the invitation links from the event platform, you're in for a long day (or days depending on how many employees there are) exporting the links one by one. Check with your provider to see if this is an option.

Employees only
How do you make sure the only people registering are employees? It’s difficult because there is nothing to stop an employee from sharing their unused invitation with someone from outside the business, but there are some things you can do.

1. Make registration accessible via a secure login for each invitee;
2. Mark the event as private which can only be accessed via a unique invitation link that expires once used;
3. Restrict the domain(s) used in the email field to company ones only;
4. Only allow email addresses that are in the database;
5. Make the first name and last name fields view only.

It’s worth noting that the above are only options if your event software has that functionality.

Keep it on-brand
“On-brand”, it’s a widely used term. What we mean is that it looks like all your other company marketing stuff. Website, social media, print, etc.

If that’s not important to you, there’s a number of platforms that you could use such as Eventbrite.

If it is important but you don’t have the time or budget (could be both) to engage with a web designer, make sure your current event platform has at least the following:

1. The option to use a custom domain/sub-domain (e.g. yourcoevents.com), for both the event registration site and the email comms.

2. The ability to add your logo, colours, fonts and footers as a minimum.

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Are you using a registration platform that has developed functionality specifically to cater to these types of events?

If the answer is yes, then it sounds like you're covered.

If the answer is no, we might be able to help and it’s a simple next step, send an email to hello@mitingu.com or fill out the enquiry form.

Event registration - Out-of-the-box or custom build?

A custom event registration site is built to your specifications including the design and functionality.

Depending on which event registration platform you are using, an out-of-the-box site is normally created from a template on your event registration software that can be customised to a greater or lesser extent. The minimum customisation could simply be adding a logo, while a more advanced customisation could include the logo, layout, fonts and colour scheme - nearly a custom site, but with the bonus that it utilises tied and tested functionality.

There are a few factors that come into play when you’re making that decision.

1. Time
2. Budget
3. Infrastructure & support
4. Frequency

1. Time

How long have you got?

Depending on the size of the event, the amount of content, and the required functionality, a custom event website is likely to take weeks to build. If it includes email communications (even if it's just an integration with a platform like Mailchimp), analytics and database management, it will add more time, complexity, and cost.

A simple out-of-the-box site could be built in under an hour! A more complex site that is heavy on content, with personalisation and filters should take no more than a couple of days. Most out-of-the-box solutions also have built-in email communications, analytics and delegate management functionality.

2. Budget

How much have you got?

When it comes to building a custom website with specific functionality, pretty much anything is possible. I'll qualify that by adding in that it depends how deep your pockets are. Custom sites can get expensive even if you have provided a clear brief and agreed on the scope of the build.

An out-of-the-box event site will almost always cost less than a custom site. There is normally an upfront outlay that includes customising and branding templates and then a usage cost (some charge per registration, some, like us, charge a monthly licence). You don't have to account for additional costs such as hosting and support because they are included with your event registration software (see item 3 below).

3. Infrastructure & Support

If you've commissioned a business to build a custom site, they may factor in hosting and support but it will be an additional cost and will need to fit with your requirements.

If they haven't, it will fall on you to source a secure hosting environment with adequate levels of support.

Event registration software comes with secure hosting and full support to make sure your site is always available. Regular security updates and testing are carried out to make sure your attendee data is secure.

4. Frequency

Is this event a one-off or part of a series? Do you run events all through the year?

Custom-built sites could get really expensive and time-consuming if you run lots of events throughout the year, even if you're using the same or a similar theme.

If you run your events through a dedicated events platform, you could have a choice of branded templates and set up a new event in minutes. Most have copy event functions too, making it possible to generate a new event at the click of a button.

In summary...

Custom sites - you could get exactly what you want, but it comes with a hefty price tag and a much longer timeline. It's super important to get your brief and requirements agreed upfront or it could get even more expensive.

Out of the box - you'll have to make some small compromises on the look and feel, but will benefit from a lower price tag and a much quicker time to get your event sites live. You won't have to worry about technical stuff like servers and support and can utilise a number of existing functions that have been tried and tested.

One last thing, how does an almost custom site sound but with all the benefits an out-of-the-box solution brings? That is something we can definitely help with!

Event pre-registration and how it could work for your events

Event pre-registration is the process prior to actual registration when people register their interest in attending an event rather than committing to attend it.

Why use event pre-registration?

• It gives event organisers the ability to get important information up front in terms of expected numbers and popular content.

• It gives attendees the opportunity to pre-register for an event without committing themselves.

Here are a couple of scenarios where event pre-registration could help event planners:

1. You're running a public-facing event that you expect to be oversubscribed

You could be running an event that you are pretty confident will be a sell-out. How do you know? It could be an event that you've run in the past and have first-hand knowledge of its popularity or you might have an "A-lister" headline speaker that consistently sells out venues globally.

How it could work:

i. You open up the site to take pre-registrations;
ii. Visitors go onto the site and register their interest to attend;

iii. You can see everyone that has pre-registered and select who will be sent an invitation to register and who won’t;
iv. The invitation email is sent to those who you want to invite and a decline email is sent to those that haven't made the list.

Using pre-registration for this type of event helps manage oversubscription upfront, rather than at the registration stage.

2. To determine if an event is worth running

You may be considering running an event, but you're not sure how popular it will be. Events are expensive in time and money to organise, so you'd like to get a good feel upfront of how feasible this event will be.

Running an event pre-registration page is a good way to accurately gauge interest, get valuable feedback and save yourself a bundle of time and money if uptake is low. The only outlay you have is to set up the pre-registration page and form.

How it could work:

1. Create an event pre-registration page and form;
2. Visitors go onto the site and register their interest;
3. You get an immediate and clear picture of the level of interest;
4. If it's good, an email goes out to all pre-registrations inviting them to register, along with opening the main event site up to the public;
5. If uptake is low, an email is sent out to all pre-registrations letting them know the event will not be happening yet.

The end result is you'll know if the event is a go or no-go. If you've asked for suggestions regarding popular content, you'll have that information upfront giving you the opportunity to tailor the event accordingly.

5 Tips For Failsafe Online Event Promotion

All live events begin with an online presence. The majority of companies – 89% by one estimate – utilize some form of online marketing. You also have plenty of approaches, from social media to email newsletters. Diversify your approach to broaden your outreach. Here are some best practices for organizing an event marketing campaign.

1. Don’t Neglect Keywords
Contrary to what many people are saying, SEO is not dead. All online promotional content should be optimized with two to three longtail keywords. The keywords should include an industry term followed by a geo-location. If you’re hosting a tech conference in London, for example, then the keywords would be “tech conference in London,” or “IT conference in London.” Use the Google Keyword Planner to discover lucrative keywords in your niche.

Include your keywords in all written content, including blog posts and in the description of video content. Adhere to the basic SEO rules. Include the keyword or a close variation of it in the title, in at least one H2 title, and enough times in the body of the text to achieve a 5% keyword density.

2. Show Off Your Social Proof
Never heard of social proof? This is online content from your followers that you share with other
customers. This can be a post that you retweet, a testimonial, or a customer’s Instagram pic from a previous event. Social proof shows that other customers and event goers are active brand advocates. Showing off social proof may motivate others to follow suit. Just as you expect followers to spread your content, the reverse is also true.

The easiest way to show social proof is by reposting other people’s post. You can also get more creative and include a video compilation or slideshow of the posts.

3. Use Retargeting Ads Often
Retargeting ads are way underutilized. If you’re unfamiliar, these are ads that are shown to followers that went through a portion of the sales funnel process but fell short of purchasing a ticket. These people expressed some level of initial interest and are more likely to convert if you reach out to them again.

Retargeting ads may be directed towards those who, for example, clicked on the RSVP page link in an email newsletter but did not secure a ticket. The message in the ads should also apply FOMO, or the fear of missing out principle. FOMO are messages that convey a sense of urgency. An example may be “Only 20 tickets left,” or “Ticket discount offer ends in 12 hours.”

4. Get Creative with Ticket Sales
Don’t just set a ticket price and sell them via event page with a purchase link. Look for creative ways to part with them. How else can you sell or give away tickets? Consider these methods:
• Early bird pricing
• Discount for bulk purchases
• Give them away to those who perform a favorable action, such as refering X number of buyers

• Discount pricing for loyalty and VIP members
• Give them away in a social media contest, either as the winning prize or to everyone who participates.

5. Use a Social Media Wall
Online promotion continues even once the event is in progress. Even though you’re no longer selling tickets at this point, you still want to spread social media mentions. This helps spread brand awareness and helps promote any products you may be pushing at the event.

To drive in-event social media discussion, incorporate a social media wall. This is a digital signage that shows social media posts from various networks as they’re posted in real time. Seeing live posts should prompt other attendees to join in and submit their own tweets or Instagram posts. Encourage all posters to include the event hashtag with every posting.

The Web provides so many angles for approaching your event promotion. Achieve optimum results by exploring multiple methods and tweaking your strategy to improve analytics.

Dan McCarthy is an Event Manager at Venueseeker, an event management company based in the UK. Dan has 6 years of event project management under his belt. He has worked on many successful events, and currently, he shares his knowledge by writing on the company blog. Follow him on Twitter @DanCarthy2.

Welcome to the new Mitingu

It’s been over eighteen months since we launched the Mitingu platform and we’re really enjoying the ride (albeit with a few bumps along the way)!

Photo: Priscilla Westra

Test and measure

It was always our intention to focus on the business events market and, on the whole, we’ve been pretty successful keeping to that. From the beginning we decided to offer two options to potential users:

1. Pay as you go - Sign up via the website and start creating events immediately

2. Private/white label - A customised version with no mention of Mitingu

Like any good business coach will tell you to do, we have tested and measured the success of each over the last eighteen months. What we have seen is over 80% of our business (and growing) is coming from our private/white label offering. With that in mind, from August 2016 we stopped offering the pay as you go service to new users (existing clients are not affected by this) and have decided to purely focus on what we now call Mitingu Enterprise.

Say hello to Mitingu Enterprise

We’ve been busy developing this behind the scenes and it’s ready for release! It’s still simple to use as we like to keep things that way, but has a few more bells and whistles to help make your events even better. We also realised when it comes to pricing, it has to be simple too, so we have three pricing options, all flexible and designed to accommodate specific needs.

Here’s a brief introduction to some of the features we’ve added so far:

1. Improved analytics, giving you a better oversight of your events

2. Event accommodation

• Manage capacity and allocation

• Help your attendees choose the right hotel by providing information as part of the registration process

3. See which breakout sessions and workshops are the most popular and manage allocation and capacity accordingly

4. Pre-registrations: Gauge interest and manage invitations for limited space events

5. Incomplete registrations: View and contact attendees with incomplete registrations to encourage them to complete their registration

6. Reduce form abandonment with intelligent single or multi-page registration forms and surveys

7. Enhanced tagging and filters, personalise and segment your communications

8. Multi-lingual event sites and communications

Events and attendees from all over the world? No problem, with Mitingu you can quickly and easily upload translations for one or as many languages as you need at the same time, This allows the delegate  to decide which language they would prefer to register and receive the subsequent event communications in.

At Mitingu, we are all about providing our clients with “their” event management platform. A place where they can create and manage great looking, branded and multi lingual event sites as well as  communications, whilst collecting information about their clients and prospects that they can use to improve event experience and build long lasting business relationships.

If you would like to take a look at the all new Mitingu then we’d love to show you. No commitment necessary, but good honest feedback essential! Get in touch with us here or email hello@mitingu.com and we’ll set something set up. Our standard demo takes no longer than 20 minutes unless you want it to.

Event communications...make them personal

It’s widely accepted that creating a personalised event experience that is relevant to the attendee helps build engagement and strengthens business relationships. However, despite these obvious benefits, there are still a large number of events that continue to use a generic, one size fits all approach.

We realise that a personalised experience covers many different aspects of the event and for that reason we are focusing on personalised communications.

At first glance, it might seem pretty obvious what we mean by personalised.

To us, personalised means a lot more than just using someone’s first name, company name or job title. They are important, but if a message is personalised and dynamic based on an individual attendee’s interests, preferences, choice of breakout session etc, it adds far more value and makes them feel special (Because everyone needs to be loved). 

Q: How do you achieve the personalisation?

A: By using a platform that is built to understand the need for usable and intelligent data. It should provide a simple admin and attendee pathway to capture and present the data in context and be relevant at every communication point. That is what Mitingu gives to both the event organiser and attendee.

Here’s a couple of examples of how adding a simple personalised element to an event reminder email can work.

Why it’s important to get it right

Before we continue, it’s important to emphasise that if you are planning to use personalised communications for your event, it’s important to get them right. Here’s an example that didn’t work well...

I recently registered to attend an event and it gave me two registration options:

1. Attend in person

2. Attend via a live web stream

I chose the second option. All good so far, but when I was taken to the "thank you for registering page", it gave me details on the event as if I was attending in person. The automated "thanks for registering email" also suggested that I was attending in person. I have to say I was questioning myself, so I double checked to make sure my registration was for the live web stream only, it was!

So, my first piece of engagement with that event wasn’t fantastic and you know what they say about making first impressions count!

Planning your communications

Depending on the size and nature of your event there are opportunities to engage with your attendees before, during and after. Planning and scheduling your event communications means that the whole process can be automated from the first touch point (perhaps a Save the date email), to the final post event message, or even ongoing marketing communications.

The beauty of planning and scheduling is that once it’s done then it will look after itself. The right messages will go to the right people at the right time.

Just some of the personalised messages you could send

Below are just some of the messages that you could include in your event communications strategy. They should all be personalised, using a combination of what you already know and the data collected during the journey to create relevant and engaging messages. Where applicable, you could also include attendee specific agendas, menus, accommodation details and more.

Before the event:

• Save the date
• Invitation
• Invitation reminder
• Booking confirmation
• Event updates and news
• Event reminders with attachments

During the event:

• News on the day
• Workshop/breakout session reminders
• Quick survey feedback requests
• Local places to eat and visit (if the event is across a number of days)

After the event:

• Event summary with presentation slides
• Event statistics
• Invitation to attend next event
• Ongoing marketing communications

Mitingu makes it easy for you to build and schedule all your personalised event communications from one platform. If you would like to see how then please contact us hello@mitingu.com and we'll happily schedule a demo to show you how they could work for your events.

Zero to hero #2

Last month we promised you a bare all monthly post about our journey as a start up and how we've targeted £20k a month by March 2016. I'll be honest, right now that seems a big number, but we've always aimed big.

October 2015 saw us invoice circa £1500 so you can see that we have some real hard work ahead of us! The good news is that we picked up a new white label account and had six new pay as you go accounts. I know Eventbrite won't be quaking in their boots just yet, but give us a chance!

As I previously mentioned, all three partners of Mitingu have day jobs to pay for everyday life and to invest in Mitingu so our talented development team are well looked after and get rewarded for their amazing work. That does present a bit of a challenge because it means the hours we put into our business comes after a full days graft at someone else's. The only thing I have to say about that is that it's a whole lot easier when you're as passionate about Mitingu as we are and have great belief in it as a product. Also having an understanding family and friends helps enormously. They put up with seeing less of us during this time, their support,  encouragement and faith in Mitingu is invaluable. 

 

What we tried last month and what the results were like

Networking

Last month, we went to our first ever networking event. I have to say that it was surprisingly good! We made some really useful contacts and it was an education listening to how different people adopt different angles on promoting their business. The upshot of it was that we are now talking to an event management agency who are interested in the white label platform for a number of their corporate clients. We'll definitely be doing that again! 

Emails

We haven't got out as many as we'd like. The results we get from emails are generally really good, so we know it's a channel that's worth pursuing. To make us stick to it I will set a minimum target of 100 (we prefer to research and target rather than buy lists) personalised emails sent out by the middle of December 2015.

We have a number of active prospects from previous email sends, so we know it is worth doing.

Face to face meetings

These are my personal favourite, but right now we are limited to early morning/evenings. The good news nowadays, with dynamic and flexible working becoming more and more accepted as business are seeing the benefits of allowing staff flexibility in structuring their working week, is that we are still managing to get out and meet people.

Face to face meetings give us the chance to properly engage and build rapport with prospective or existing clients. I've always enjoyed business development so that's probably why it's my favourite method of engaging with clients. It's always much easier to gauge the level of interest and when a decision will be made from meeting them in person.

Online demos

We've had some interest from the US and Canada this month, so the only tenable way of demoing Mitingu is via the web. It's a great way of showcasing our product, but does have limitations as it's a bit tricky sometimes to gauge interest if you're not sitting in the same room.

That said, we'll persevere with them as we have won business from online demos in the past and I'm sure if we fine tune our approach, we'll win lots more.

Social media and blog posts

We go for the quality and not quantity approach mainly as we've not had as much time as we'd like to devote to Twitter and LinkedIn in particular.  The posts and tweets we have put out there have been well received and it's definitely something we will continue as it obviously helps to get our name out there and shows we have real passion for the events industry, marketing and start ups.

The most important thing is for us to stay passionate, enthusiastic and together as a team. We meet and talk regularly which helps us stay connected and keep on track. We are ready to take Mitingu to the events industry and know that we can make a positive impact.

Our message to any other start ups or in fact anyone at all reading this is to keep the faith and never give up!

5 things to get right when choosing event registration software

Choosing the right event registration software can be a tough ask. There are so many providers that it's difficult to evaluate them all.

To back this up, here's an extract from an enquiry Mitingu had in a couple of days ago:

".....frankly I am overwhelmed by the number of companies  that are doing this or similar stuff."

There are some things which are a given for pretty much all of the platforms out there such as:

• take payments online;
• send out confirmation emails and tickets;
• editor to enter content about the event;
• registration form builder;
• registration widget or buttons to embed on external websites.

Taking that into account and to help you make the right decision, we've put some suggestions together that could help you arrive there.

 

1. Branding

If you've gone through the painstaking, but rewarding process of organising an event, including promotional material and event branding, then why wouldn't you want your registration site, emails and tickets to carry on that theme?. Choosing a platform that allows you to brand the event site and emails is definitely a good choice.

It's not just about branding the look and feel either. The domain name that your site sits on and the email from address are equally as important. Using your own domain name ties everything up neatly and keeps the event registration site and emails on brand.

 

2. Data

Collecting and storing the right data on your attendees lets you communicate your event messages in a targeted and relevant way. Having an intelligent registration form builder that gives you the ability to show or hide questions based on what you already know about an attendee (registration type, stored preferences or how they have answered a previous question) keeps it relevant to them and speeds up the registration process with shorter forms.

It also helps you build a profile of the attendee that can be used for future events or general marketing activities.

Storing the data securely is an essential for most organisations. Mitingu's data is securely hosted in the UK across multiple sites with ISO27001 certification and PCI/DSS compliance.

 

3. The right message to the right person

Email inboxes are pretty much maxed out nowadays, so it's important that your event messages arrive to the right person with the right message before, during and after the event.

It's easy to do that with segmentation. If someone has registered for your event, then they don't want to receive a reminder email asking them to register. In a similar way, someone who has registered and marked their dietary preferences as "vegetarian" doesn't want to receive a menu with lots of non-vegetarian (if that's a word!) choices.

So, choose a system that not only lets you send out emails based on where they are in the registration process (not registered, registered, declined, checked-in etc), but also lets you segment further based on their preferences. We all like a one to one conversation!

 

4. An intelligent check-in

Checking an attendee in doesn't just have to be about scanning or search and swiping them in. You've collected information about them on registration, so why not make the check-in process a more personalised experience?

Mitingu's check-in app called Greet Desk not only checks attendees in, but also gives the door staff on screen prompts relevant to the attendee. For example, Joe is a VIP and he arrives at the event, is scanned in and the member of staff checking him in gets an onscreen prompt to show him to the VIP reception area. It's simple, but a nice touch.

5. The highest level of support

Most event registration platforms are designed so it's quick and easy for an organiser to set up their registration page or site. Mitingu can certainly offer that as well as giving the organiser the ability to create a bespoke event site with multiple pages and custom branding.

A great support site with the ability to raise online tickets is a must. In addition to that, it's essential to be able to speak to someone or even jump on a screen share to get an answer to a question. We think great customer service not only gives you loyal customers, but great advocates who'll recommend your business when they can.

Our support team and I regularly look over clients' event sites and make recommendations where we think something could maybe look better, or be more effectively communicated. We only offer recommendations as we appreciate a lot of look and feel is subjective, but we've never had any complaints about going the extra mile.

If you think we've missed some important items then please add to them in the comments section below. We'll respond to every one of them and any feedback is good feedback.

Proud to be different

What makes mitingu different?

There is a huge selection of event registration systems out there so it’s a perfectly valid question. We’ve done our homework we know who the main players are and we know there are already excellent platforms out there, but we believe mitingu offers something different, something that helps event organisers get real value from attendee data, generate interest and ultimately, drive sales...

We’ve picked out the top four things that make us different…

1.      Happy customers – Great customer service, We live and breathe it. Our passion is to help our clients deliver great events and the registration and communications process is critical to that. We have a fully loaded support site, but we’ll go much further than that. We make it our business help wherever we can. 

”Greg is clearly a man passionate about the business he has created as well as the experience of customers who use his product. I organised an event using mitingu and received an unsolicited (but most welcome) email from Greg suggesting changes that would make the event registration on my website more user friendly. He even offered to talk me through how to make the changes. Now THAT is good customer service. Thanks Greg” HighStreetLawyer.com

2.    Data is gold - we recognise that collecting, storing and using data is key tool to driving more sales through personalised messages, business proposals etc. The more you know about someone, the more likely you are to hit one of their touch points, build a relationship and ultimately do business with them. Our intelligent forms display relevant questions to the attendee and hide others that are not, tag an attendee based on how they respond and use this information to tailor follow up communications before, during and after the event. Our CRM system securely stores all contact information, across all events.

”Simple and intelligent platform, the auto-tagging feature allows us to get the right information to specific attendees with great ease.” LUSH

3.      Connected to your brand - whilst we are obviously more than happy for you to display our logo and url on your event site, we appreciate that most businesses will want attendees to see their branding, not ours. This is why all our Pro and White Label accounts have this option as standard. Create event sites and emails with your design and branding and url, ensuing your attendees are connecting with your brand.

4.        Simplicity - there are lots of pieces of software out there that are crammed with features that most of us will never use. mitingu has some great features that enables event organisers create simple or comprehensive event sites. The key to it is making it as simple as possible to use. This is key for our business and constantly evolving, we work hard to ensure our site doesn’t get ‘too busy’ or complicated. Our User Experience (UX) is hugely important to us, We listen! Research and customer feedback helps us make our platform even better.

I could easily go on and on with other reasons, but we like action, so why don’t you put us to the test? Create a mitingu account and make your events fly, we’ll be with you all the way.