When it comes to events, many email communications are all about the sell, sell, sell.

And of course, ticket sales are an essential element to any event being successful. But it’s not the only element that needs to be considered. As well as selling tickets, marketers need to also consider brand awareness, ensuring their audience attend the event, and keeping them engaged long term.

To offer some inspiration to event marketers, here are 5 ways to use email marketing to supercharge your event engagement.

Pre-launch countdown

Selling tickets is important, but emails that increase brand awareness around your event aren’t just about ticket sales. They are also about establishing long term relationships with relevant audiences.

So, make a splash in the countdown to the event, without necessarily pushing the hard sell.

Countdown timers

Instead of sending out static countdown emails, incorporate a dynamic countdown timer into your email for some extra pizazz.

Countdown timers look great, are immediately eye-catching and engaging compared to static images, and due to their dynamic nature, will update in real-time whenever the email is opened.

This tactic works excellently for building excitement around the event, but also a sense of urgency for those who are engaged but haven’t yet purchased.

Social proof

Consumers have grown used to brands talking about how great their products, services, and events are. So, sometimes extra reassurance and proof is needed to convince them.

Social proof is the ideal way to reassure potential attendees that your event is the real deal. That they should purchase if they haven’t already, should absolutely attend if they’re unsure, or should shout about it to their own networks.

Social proof can come in many forms. Marketers can incorporate quotes, testimonials, photos, and videos from attendees of previous events. Or they can tap into the pre-launch buzz by including content from social media and event hashtags.

Supercharge event marketing - Social Proof

Upsell pre-event

Ticket sales aren’t the only way to make money from events. They also offer plenty of up-sell opportunities.

Whether that be better seats, VIP perks, hospitality add-ons, or accommodation. The options for up-sell opportunities can be vast. And there are some great email tactics you can utilise to promote them.

Segmentation

Key to offering up-sell suggestions of interest is ensuring they are relevant to the recipient. A great place to begin is through segmented campaigns.

This ensures that you are not sending out a generic up-sell email and wasting valuable email real estate on promotions that aren’t of interest.

For instance, if your recipient has already bought VIP tickets, you don’t want to waste communication on promoting these items to them. Instead, segment these VIP attendees into their own group, and promote other relevant products and services. Such as food, drink, or accommodation.

Dynamic content

Marketers can become even more advanced with their up-sell communications by utilising their customer data and dynamic content blocks.

This means that marketers don’t even need to bother with creating different campaigns for different segments, dynamic content does the hard work for them. These blocks will use the purchase data on each individual recipient, offering up different content based on what they have already bought.

So, if a recipient has purchased accommodation, the dynamic content block can serve relevant up-sell items, such as a room upgrade, or breakfast.

Live pricing and availability

One of the benefits of up-sell emails is that the recipient is already engaged. But sometimes they need an extra nudge.

With the use of live pricing and availability, marketers can show limited-time pricing or availability of their up-sell recommendations. Adding a sense of urgency to encourage the recipient to purchase.

Supercharge Event Marketing - Social Proof

Key information

Event emails aren’t just about making sales, they’re essential to ensuring the event runs as smoothly as possible on the day.

This involves keeping attendees up to date with key information so that they are reassured and aware of what to do on the day. And also manages their expectations.

Nurturing series

To eliminate potential overwhelm or any points of confusion in the lead up to an event, marketers can send out a pre-event nurturing series.

The focus of these emails could include relevant information such as event timings, health and safety (particularly with Covid), travel, food and drinks options, and contact details.

It could also include social media channels and hashtags so the recipient can join the conversation pre-event.

Geotargeting

The use of the recipient’s location, or the location of the event, is ideal for offering highly relevant key information in the lead up to the day.

For instance, by using the recipient’s location marketers can offer tailored travel advice, such as public transport and driving directions.

If the event is going to be held throughout multiple locations, marketers can use dynamic content to serve up relevant location-based information on the venue the recipient is going to. For instance, travel advice, recommended accommodation, and points of interest nearby.

Supercharge Event Marketing - Geotargeting

Engagement during the event

Encouraging engagement during the event can be a fantastic way to add an interactive element to any occasion. It ensures that event organisers can keep on top of feedback and sentiment and builds a sense of community through audience members.

Q&A

Q&A sessions are popular amongst a wide variety of events, and are a fantastic opportunity to spark audience and community interaction.

Marketers can send out Q&A emails throughout the event encouraging recipients to email in their questions, and have them answered live.

This can raise different topics, points of interest, and can be a really fun break from the schedule.

Real time social feeds

If Q&A sessions don’t work with an event’s schedule, or seem too much additional work, real-time social feeds are a simple alternative.

Marketers can encourage online conversation with their audience through social channels and hashtags, and then incorporate these feeds into their email communications. And as the feeds are in real time, they are updated each time the email is opened.

Live stream

Of course, there will always be those who haven’t been able to bag a ticket to an event. Or possibly weren’t able to attend last minute.

If there is a live stream option, recipients will be most engaged and keen to watch on the day as it is happening. So make the most of promoting your online offering through an email reminder with a direct link to your stream.

Supercharge event marketing - Livestream

Post-event follow up

Even when the event is over, it’s still important to continue engaging with audiences. This is especially true for events aiming to build a community, and host further events in the future.

Thank you email

Start simply with a thank you email featuring key memories from the day. This can include video snippets and photos, as well as round-ups of information or presentations.

At this stage, marketers can also encourage recipients to share their experiences. Either via email or social media. This can be utilised by the event in the future as social proof.

Social proof

Talking about social proof, follow-up emails are a great opportunity to share what the online community was talking about during the event.

Marketers can use photos, videos, and posts from the day to reinforce a sense of community. And show off that others also enjoyed the experience.

Gather feedback

Post-event, recipients will be in a highly engaged state. This is the perfect opportunity to ask for feedback, and gather some invaluable insight into how the event can be improved in the future.

This also means if the recipient has negative feedback, they have an opportunity to voice this via email instead of somewhere more public.

Alternatively, if they had a positive experience, now is the time to encourage them to share the event and refer their friends and family to become future attendees.

Supercharge event marketing - Post Event Marketing

Want to learn more about how you can use email marketing to supercharge event engagement?

At Pure360, we can help you make the most of your event, whether it be online or offline, through innovative email and website marketing.

Get in touch with our team of experts to find out more.