We all love a good party – and in our sphere of marketing, we love events! They’re just big parties with top-notch swag, engaging speakers and tons of networking opportunities. When we’re planning an event (or thinking of creative ways to promote an event), our enthusiasm should be contagious. Our excitement should create more than a desire in potential attendees, but rather spur a burning need to be there, for fear of missing out. But how can we drive registrations and boost attendance to our next corporate party, reception or conference? Open your eyes, and your emails.
Email is a powerhouse in 1:1 connections. It’s one of the only marketing channels you can truly personalize for a specific audience, making it the perfect tool to build momentum around an event. Employee email helps you to convey your brand’s message and voice across a large audience, and it’s surprisingly easy to use the channel for your next event invite.
Engaging Your Audience
Recently, our friends at Litmus published a creative guide on How to Use Email Marketing to Support Your Next Event, which outlined some creative ways to promote an event. While the obvious ones (who, what & where) can be easy to put down on paper, it can sometimes take a little extra umph to engage your audience to the point of registering (or RSVPing) for your event. Here are a few highlights on what they said:
Get straight to the point
Yes, the 5 W’s are easy to articulate on paper, but this is one place you don’t want to ramble on. Answer those questions quickly and efficiently, ideally in less than a paragraph. What type of event is this? Who are the guest speakers? Where is it? The more information your audience has right out of the gate, the faster they can make their decision on whether or not to attend.
Create clear CTAs that jump off the page
Setting your call-to-action apart from other content on the page helps draw the eye away from the “noise” and towards the “main event.” This makes it explicitly clear to readers what action they should take, without any questions around how to get there. Making it easy for people to RSVP for your event means more conversions and, ultimately, more attendees.
Highlight video recaps or blog posts on past events
Offering readers a glimpse at secondary content, like a video, blog post or infographic, can help build excitement and suspense for your upcoming event. Showing individuals what they missed last year (or reminding them what they saw) reinforces the value of your event and reminds viewers why they wanted to attend in the first place.
Spell out what attendees can expect to learn or who they can expect to see
Building urgency around your event helps drive registration and attendance. Marketing emails can reveal the agenda and keynote speakers or featured guests to drum up excitement surrounding an event. Associating your organization with big names in your specific industry can also help strengthen credibility and build brand strength.
Promote Your Next Event in Employee Email Signatures
When thinking about creative ways to promote an event, consider the email signature and why it’s the ideal place to take all of the above tips into account for effective event marketing. You can highlight the key details (date, time, location, etc.), drive RSVPs or registrations with an easy-to-locate CTA, and build urgency with a photo of past events or by promoting a featured speaker. Here are a few awesome examples of great event invitations we love to give you a little Sigspiration (get it?):
Sigstr’s email signatures are specifically designed to relay quick, exciting messages with clear CTAs. And just think: the average person sends 41 emails per day at work, making the email signature one of the most-viewed marketing channels in the book. With that kind of promotion power already working for you, Sigstr transforms these emails into highly effective marketing opportunities, driving registrations, RSVPs and brand awareness.
Request a demo today to see how Sigstr works and why it should be on your list of creative ways to promote an event. Or, learn more by checking out our latest resource below:
