Email marketing has long been considered one of the most effective components of digital marketing and it still works quite well. In fact, it can help you tremendously with your events if you use it well. Here are five email marketing ideas to get you started.
Prepare Beforehand
There is no stressing how important this actually is yet many business owners overlook this stage partially or completely. Preparing properly beforehand will make you more confident about what you are doing. You will also be able to get ready for unexpected situations that may be a challenge at other times.
The first thing you should do is drive engagement to your organization by targeting different groups of people with the help of email marketing. The ideal target audience would be the attendees of your past events that allowed you to email them about other events of yours. This group will be more likely to attend your upcoming events. Use an email marketing automation tool like Mailchimp to help you to manage your email marketing campaigns, and to send messages to targeted segments of your audience. And, with the Event Espresso Mailchimp add-on you can automatically sync your event attendees to your different audiences in Mailchimp.
Make sure that you segment your audience and send them relevant content that will make your authority stronger. You want to establish yourself as a specialist in your field and leverage your industry knowledge in an effort to generate more interest in your events, and email marketing with a segmented audience is the perfect way to do that. Providing unique insight to your subscribers will also signal to your readers and prospective event attendees that you value them.
Be Active During the Event
You may have prepared beforehand for the event but you must be active during it as well. Your email marketing is not something you can do once and then forget about it. Instead, you must keep working towards your goal until you reach it. Here are some tips on how you can be active during the event:
Know who attended your event
Many event organizers put out the event invite and ask for attendees to sign up for their events, but they fail to understand who actually attended the event after registering. Knowing who attended and, who did not after signing up for the event actually allows you to create yet another sub-segment to target in your follow up emails. You can use a ticketing scanning app that will automatically record attendance such as Event Espresso’s Ticket Scanning & Attendance Tracking Mobile App
Presentations
If you can, set up a presentation at the event and then collect the emails of those who attended it. This will allow you to create a very specific audience segment to target with your email marketing. If they attended your presentation at the event, this is likely a highly engaged target and a segment that should be treated with high priority in your communication strategy. After the presentation send them an email with additional resources or content that connects your presentation to your organization.
Giveaways
Running giveaways will keep people engaged especially if you combine the giveaways with social media and ask participants to engage with you on these platforms in some way. Send out reminders before, during, and after the event about your giveaway.
Follow Up Afterward
Once the event is over, you still need to continue with your email marketing. It’s about long-term relationships now that you’ve established somewhat of a connection with your audience. This stage is where you must provide relevant content of the best quality you possibly can.
A good idea would be to create a newsletter that covers topics that will be valuable to your specific audience. You can either take something new or continue with the topics covered on the event. Once again, don’t forget to divide your email list into different groups according to your interaction with them.
Make Use of Automation
Automation is amazing and it can help you reduce costs and allow you to make your email marketing more effective. You will be able to run your campaigns more smoothly, so why not use automation? Here are some examples of how it can be applied in practice:
Landing Pages
You can make landing pages with certain actions people can make. For example, you could ask the visitor whether they want to know more about the event or get an invite to it.
Segmented Approach
It’s a good idea to include a block in your emails where you ask your recipients whether they want to receive updates about a certain topic. If they choose to subscribe to the subject, send them automated emails that will educate them on this particular topic.
Reminders
After the event is over and you have collected emails, send reminders to the attendees thanking them for visiting and reminding them to attend any of your upcoming events. Reminders can be used prior to your events too. You can use Event Espresso’s add-on for sending Automated Upcoming Event Notifications to your registered attendees about the event they sign up for. this can help to increase attendance for your events.
Giveaways and Contests
Set up special “journeys” that are triggered once someone enters your giveaway or contest. You can thank them for participation and send them to the terms and conditions page.
Remember the Basics
Lastly, don’t forget about the basics. You may be using all of the best practices, but if you forget about the simple things, there will be no point in succeeding with the more complicated tactics. These are the foundation of your email marketing, so you must know them well.
Send emails only to the people who gave permission for it and don’t spam. It’s not only annoying but will also prompt your audience to unsubscribe. Plan your email marketing strategy wisely around your event and don’t use automation in a negative way. Add calls to action to make your emails more effective.
To truly engage your audience you will need to provide value and send relevant content that is of interest to you target audience.Supplement it with nice visuals that will capture the attention of your audience and give even more insight. Images, videos, GIFs, and infographics should become your best friends.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, you will need to prepare beforehand and then act accordingly afterward. In addition to that, you should keep in mind the basics and start using automation to make your email marketing more effective. Follow the advice in this article, but choose the strategy that is most suitable for you rather than taking everything at once.
________________________________________________________
Guest Post contributed by William Rogers
William Rodgers is a content writer working for The Word Point, an international translation service. As he knows several foreign languages, William’s main focus is writing SEO articles for businesses that want to drive their brand in the international market. His goal is to continually help more marketers fill Google search results with content that really matters.
Feel free to contact him here https://twitter.com/William81597390
