Email Marketing for Conferences & Events: 6 Things You Need to Know

According to Bizzabo’s Event Marketing 2018: Benchmarks and Trends report, email marketing is believed to be the most effective marketing channel for promoting conferences and events.

And according to Event Manager Blog’s latest event management software guide, email marketing tools are the second most popular event tech tool used by event professionals in 2018.

What does this mean? Well, it’s clear technology and tools that help streamline marketing strategies are becoming an increasingly important part of event planning.

Email marketing, specifically, can be an extremely effective and cost-efficient way to communicate and engage with potential event-goers.

If you’re not sure where to start, here are some email marketing for conferences tips + tricks.

1. Be intentional in your initial announcement:

You know what they say – you only get one chance to make a first impression, so you better make it be a good one. Your event is important and conveying that to potential attendees is key to increasing registrations and boosting event attendance.

Your announcement should be crafted in a way that creates interest and excitement simultaneously. Keep it concise, highlight key takeaways, and talk about the success of last year’s event.

2. A picture is worth a thousand words:

The results are in! Including photos greatly increases the chances your email will get the attention—and engagement—it deserves. Most readers decide in just a few seconds whether or not your email is worth reading and a big deciding factor for that is the associated image.

If you have a high-quality image from last year’s event, absolutely use it. If you don’t, you can search on sites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Flickr Creative Commons for free, stock-quality images.

3. Brevity is beautiful:

We know, we know. Your event is going to be awesome and you want to tell your audience all about it. But that’s what your landing page is for. Your emails should be concise and give them just enough information to grab their attention and make them want to learn more.

Focus on the highlights and the need-to-know information rather than trying to share every little detail. Showcase speakers, feature information about top sessions and share testimonials from last year’s event.

Break up long paragraphs and make it easy-to-read. Overly complicated and wordy sentences don’t do anyone any good. Your voice is unique and readers gravitate towards authentic language. If you wouldn’t say it, you shouldn’t write it.

4. Subject lines can make it or break it:

We can’t emphasize enough how important subject lines are. In fact, according to Convince & Convert, 35% of people decide whether or not to open an email based on the subject line alone, so say it with style!

Here are some other surprising email opening statistics.

5. Give ‘em an extra push:

Early bird discounts are a great way to secure early registrations. It doesn’t have to be anything major, but a little incentive can go a long way. The sooner people start registering for your event, the sooner they start talking about it.

And in today’s digital world, we’re constantly bombarded with ads. Not only are word of mouth referrals a free way to increase awareness about your conference or event, but they’re also one of the most credible ways to market your event. People trust people, not necessarily ads.

6. Quality *and* quantity matter:

While the quality of your emails obviously matters, so does the quantity. You want to be communicating with potential event attendees enough to stay at the forefront of their minds but you also want to make sure you aren’t overdoing it. Sending too many emails increases unsubscribe rates and can make you seem a little desperate. Find that happy medium and craft your messaging accordingly.

We hope these tips + tricks have helped you learn more about email marketing for conferences and events. If you have any other ideas, feel free to share them! Or, let us know what has worked for you and what hasn’t.

And while you’re here, we want to tell you a little bit about what we do.

In addition to sharing event industry insights, tips, and trends, we also pride ourselves on our one-of-a-kind event technology.

Want to learn more? Here’s the short version: We are an event technology company that takes the traditional value of face-to-face networking and combines it with our advanced matching software to create highly targeted networking sessions at conferences and annual events. We work with corporations, associations, and colleges and universities.

Want the long version? Request a demo here!