Event planning can often take months of hard work and organisation, so having access to methods to simplify the process makes everyone’s life easier! Text messaging is one of the most effective tools that can be used to contribute to making your organisational duties easier. With a little imagination, SMS has the potential to help make your event even bigger and more successful than you first anticipated. Regardless of the size of the event, you can connect with a large number of relevant people. This can be used to help maximise exposure of your brand, product or service.
There are various ways text messaging can be used to help ensure your event is a success, from the early stages of planning to following up with attendee feedback afterwards. Below are a few ways to incorporate SMS to ensure your event is well attended and runs as smoothly as possible!
Sparking interest
Connecting with your target audience to notify them and convey relevant information about your event is fundamental leading up to the event itself. SMS is an ideal way to create a sense of excitement around the event, while sharing important details to ensure potential attendees are well-informed and enthusiastic! Using our TextCampaign is an excellent way to send bulk text messages. Include shortened URL links to relevant event registration pages and personalise your messages to increase engagement rate. Times, dates, and fun facts are all components that could be included to create a buzz and keep your audience engaged. Maybe you created a hashtag for social media that you want to start trending – Include this in your message as a critical call to action. Furthermore, if your CRM is integrated with our API, you could automatically send event information to customers based on past attendance and areas of interest!
Converting Registrations to Attendance
Offering your audience incentives such as exclusive discounts or giveaways at the event is a great way to keep them interested. Using a short code and keyword, attendees can enter giveaways and discounts by simply texting a keyword to the given number. Take up on these type of incentives will highlight the aspects of the event generating the most interest, informing wider promotional activities. You can also increase your customer data base by sharing the short code and keyword on other platforms such as social media to spark interest. Sending a text a few days leading up to the event, then again on the day of the event itself will ensure they are engaged and will increase the likelihood of a high turnout.
Generating Attendee Feedback
Following up with attendees after your event is vital. Not only will this enable you to receive some valuable feedback (so you can establish areas you need to improve on for the next event), it is an effective way to continue engaging and building customer loyalty. Using TextSurvey, you can easily and quickly find out what your guests liked or disliked; which aspects of the event they may or may not have enjoyed (i.e. the food, music, venue, etc.) and if they have any suggestions for future events. Plus, a pleasant ‘thank you so much for attending’ (perhaps including a link to future events), is always very much appreciated by event attendees! Sending such text messages following an event helps to keep prospects engaged, enabling you to progress them into a more viable business opportunity.
Improve customer retention
Don’t let all the effort you have put into this event go to waste, engage with your customers to ensure they keep attending to future events. Once the event has finished quickly follow up with discounts for future events that are exclusive to those who attend your previous event. Ensure your messages are personalised and include a URL to the registration page. Keep following up every now again with reminders and then repeat the whole SMS campaign process again!
Text messages and notifications are undoubtedly a key, valuable element in event planning and promotion. At all stages, from initial planning to following up with attendees afterwards, it is the perfect tool to ensure everything runs as smoothly and productively as possible – with minimal stress, time or effort!
To start using text messaging to drive attendance and help your events thrive, contact our dedicated customer service team on 0845 122 1302.