When I oversaw paid ads for Drip.com's flagship virtual event, Automated, one of the most effective strategies we tested was adding a referral incentive. Here's how this works: As soon as someone registered for our virtual event, we emailed them to confirm their registration. In that same email, we also offered an enticing referral bonus if they shared the event with a friend or colleague who also registered. In our case, we promised PDF transcripts of all of the upcoming talks. But you could just as easily offer any enticing bonus: a free course, a discount, giveaway entry, etc. This single tactic ended up driving over 2,000 additional registrants, helping us easily clear our goal of 10,000 total registrants.
Working at a university, virtual events have become a critical part of our brand awareness and enrollment strategies. Life has changed over the last two years, and making events safe and effective to those all over the country has become a top priority. The most effective strategy for boosting registrations for our virtual events is making it easy to sign up. People don't want to click through a million links to find out what the event is or who it's for. Making the event accessible from every platform possible–email, social media, website, etc.–is key to boosting registrations. Don't make people hunt for what they are looking for. Point them in the right direction, and make it as clear as possible about what the event is. Don't make the sign up more than one click away for the user.
Offering exclusive perks to the event boosted registration while also generating interest in our other virtual experiences. For a live stream comedy event, we had to figure out what to offer fans that would stand the experience apart from simply watching a comedy special on Netflix. For fans of the comedian, we offered the option to purchase access to a live Q&A with him after the show along with an autographed poster. Through these offerings, we received engagement from fans interested about what other cool perks were being offered in other live streams.
When you post something that proves popular with your followers, Facebook encourages you to “boost” it. This is by far the quickest and simplest way of advertising on Facebook. Instead, Facebook’s Ad Manager helps you create and target an ad or a campaign from scratch. Also, another one of our favorite marketing strategies to advertise to other business owners on Facebook for less is targeting live streams of local business conferences or industry seminars, especially if you offer a product related to any online events in your area or niche. You can use the Facebook Live Events parameter to connect with people planning such events. For example, you could promote your business to people who will be live-streaming their wedding in three months or all concerts in your area that will be streamed live over the next year.
People are busy and don't always take the time to register for virtual events. If you send out a "last chance" email a few hours before the event, you're likely to see a boost in your registrations. People will realize they have availability and will join because of the email prompt, whereas they might have forgotten otherwise. Depending on the size of your database, you'll see a jump in last minute registrations.
Get a marketing plan together. Do not just post once about your virtual event and assume that people will still remember about it after a few weeks. Instead, post frequently on your social media accounts and in the blogs on your website. You could even implement a Facebook ad campaign as well. Without a proper marketing strategy, you will not reach as many people regarding your virtual event.
I think it's the best way to get more people to sign up for your virtual events since they're all going to be online. Using social media to connect with a broader audience and increase attendance is the name of the game these days. Use Instagram stories, create an event page on Facebook, or live tweet about the event to get the word out there. Host an online contest and select prizes. When tweeting on social media, employ the 4:1:1 rule, with four original tweets from others and one retweet for every self-promotional tweet you send. When it comes to drawing in guests and raising event revenue, registration is undoubtedly one of the most crucial and challenging tasks to complete. Your next event can easily sell out if you have the correct strategy and event management tools in place, whether it's online or off.
The best way to motivate anyone is with positive reinforcement - incentivizing your virtual event might seem cheap, but it's an incredibly effective motivator that offers your attendees even more value. Whether you include a gift-with-registration or event prize giveaways, the budget can be as big or small as you want to make it. If you've created eBooks or other related digital materials relevant to your audience, you can give these away to boost registration at no extra cost. Since registration is only half the battle, encourage actual attendance on the day of by making the prizes time constricted or include the link to redeem during the event itself rather than a pre-event or follow-up email. We've seen a 20% increase in attendance by giving our registrants extra digital materials to enjoy afterward.
Registrations for virtual events can benefit greatly from the endorsement of an industry thought leader, and I believe this is the most effective way for doing so. Request that these thought leaders promote your event on their social media channels, blogs, or websites by reaching out to them. In the same way, speakers and sponsors of an event can have a significant impact on the success of the event. Attendance at your event can be increased by encouraging your speakers and sponsors to promote the sessions they will be leading. Referral and reward programs can also benefit from affiliate marketing. People who attend your event will be more likely to bring others who share their interest in the event if you promote referral coupons.
A lot of digital platforms can help with promoting a virtual event. Some ways to boost registrations are by promoting on social media channels, paid advertisements, or blog posts. The most effective strategy to boost registrations is to take up email marketing! At Recruit CRM, email marketing is a must for promoting all online events like contests, webinars, or giveaways, as it has proven successful for us. Social media platforms are a great way to get people to register for your events, but through emails, you can personally reach out to people to make them feel special; that way, they would love to be a part of your events. For most of our events, our analytics show that major traffic comes from email marketing.
Incentivizing virtual registrations with a raffle prize has delivered great results for attendance. These don’t need to be extravagant prizes like concert tickets, though that is a great idea that would promote an event well. Restaurant gift certificates should encourage participation, and movie ticket vouchers are a good idea, too. Collaborating with small businesses at a local level is a great idea to generate buzz and boost attendance.
CEO and Founder at Personal Trainer Pioneer
Answered 4 years ago
Lead with an exciting offer if you want to boost registrations for your virtual event. That could mean early access to your product or service, a discount code, or a free e-book for attendees. You want a compelling offer with a strong call to action to intrigue people to register, and a sense of urgency can seal the deal. Boost registrations by leading with an enticing offer, and you will see results.
I present on multiple webinars within the engineering space. What I have seen to really drive the registration numbers is the ability to implement a promotional video campaign about 2 weeks before tha actual event. followed up with reposting about 3 to 5 times before the actual date. This video can provide snippets of speakers/topics/products etc. Posting these videos on social media platforms such as your LinkedIn, promotes social shares and a large registration base to the virtual event.
One essential strategy for boosting virtual event registration is to follow up after the initial communication about the event. That means emailing, texting, or using other methods to contact those who showed initial interest. Many would like to attend an event but aren't sure if they have the time or the money. A follow-up correspondence could be just what is needed to solidify in their mind that the event is worth the effort of signing up.
Offering early bird discounts is a fantastic way to promote your event by rewarding the first registrants. You should limit the number of tickets and set a deadline, but you will have the opportunity to create a buzz around your event. These discounts help the community remember your event. If your early registrants promote your event on their social media channels, you will be getting some free advertising to boot. We found that offering even a dozen early bird discounts helped spread the word and increased registration by 15%, which was well worth offering the discount for greater attendance.
Engaging content and appealing speakers. Like live events, virtual events are defined by what they are presenting and how. People want to know what they are getting into, especially if they will be sitting in front of a screen for hours that they can easily click away from. Previewing content that will appeal to your audience and being able to showcase speakers will draw in the people you are targeting to register. Being able to promise direct real-time engagement over conferencing tools is a big appeal to audiences. Content and people your audience wants to engage with are essential.
Because early bird discounts are a terrific method to build hype around an event and reward the first few registrants, I feel it is the most successful strategy for raising registrations for your virtual events In the case of early bird discounts, you can specify a quota at a discounted rate to be sold before the deadline. By doing so, you're encouraging people in your network to keep an eye out for your event and register in advance. To get the game started, run social media advertising and email your audience about the deal.
Incorporating entertainment elements into virtual events has been a great promotional tool to boost registration and attendance. Though these “talent show” portions are not the main draw, they are a great incentive to place in the middle and end of a virtual event. Friends and family love seeing performances from their loved ones, and this format is an easy way to make bland content more exciting.
A foolproof way of juicing up registrations for your virtual event is to keep your presentation topical. For example, consider putting a spin on your agenda so that it touches on things like the Ukraine-Russia War, the looming recession, or supply chain disruptions. Something like “The Impact of Inflation on Your Marketing Budget” would play incredibly well. Obviously, you don’t need to make the entire webinar about the impact of these issues, but you should strongly consider making at least a segment of the presentation about how these events and current issues can impact your topic. People don’t want the same old info on marketing, technology updates, or education. They want info that is current, topical, and gives them a chance to pivot their processes before others catch up. So grab them with a catchy event title to lure them in and boost registrations.
A fantastic strategy to use to boost virtual event registrations is to co-market with other companies that have a similar type of audience to yours. Co-marketing is a fantastic way to boost registrations because you'll be able to tap into their following and customers to drive sign-ups, which typically doesn't cost anything to your company either. Before the event kicks off you'll both come together with an agreed-upon promotion strategy to your audiences, that way, you set expectations for both parties. Another bonus is that when you're working with another company on virtual event content you'll split up the content share 50/50, so it's also less work on your presenters.