Best practices to create event marketing email campaigns

Around 3/4th of the marketers prefer promoting their events through email marketing because more than 45% of the bookings come from these emails. These emails also have a significantly high open rate compared to other emails. This is because email marketing helps the marketers generate buzz around the event long before the registration opens. These figures can then be boosted using follow-up and promotional email campaigns. Here are some best practices to help you create the perfect email campaign for your upcoming event.

Best practices for event email marketing

• Prepare a launch campaign

Preparing an announcement email marketing campaign for your events will help you create awareness about the upcoming events. These emails will also help the subscribers save the dates for booking tickets and the event. The announcement email needs to be simple with a memorable message. The main aim of the pre-launch should be to build hype and generate buzz around what the event has to offer. Instead of announcement emails, you can send teaser emails with snippets and highlights from the previous year’s events. Including testimonials of the previous attendees helps with setting the expectations for the prospects.

Emma announces its upcoming Marketing United event by unveiling the speakers on its website. Their pre-launch event marketing email has a CTA button that redirects the readers to their website to check out the speakers. They have also included an early bird offer in the email to drive the registration numbers. As you can see, they have added a deadline to create a sense of urgency. Emma has added another CTA button alongside the previous one that leads you to a humorous blog that contains tips and tricks to justify your trip to your boss. 

• Encourage people to share the event

Encourage your email subscribers to share the event details with their friends and families. Word-of-mouth marketing can work wonders when it comes to increasing your reach. You can also create a referral program specifically for this event. The program should offer incentives like discounts on tickets or special access features during the events. Utilizing event ticketing companies can go a long way with having these type of options. Remember to include your social media handles to make it easier for the subscribers to search and share your event posts on those platforms. 

• Invite people with exclusive offers

After a successful awareness campaign, you need to capitalize on the hype to increase the number of attendees. You can enter exclusive offers and early bird discount codes to make the signing-up process more enticing for the subscribers. You can also include free promotional merchandise and digital gifts in the emails. Including an expiration date with these offers will create a sense of urgency and bring in more ticket sales.

Google offers a special discount code to all people that register by a certain date. The offer encourages the customer to book the tickets to avail of the Google Cloud products at a discounted price. Moreover, they have subtly mentioned a deadline to fabricate urgency and make the subscribers act fast.

• Keep the guests informed about the events

Now, after the initial registration is complete, segment your subscribers based on those who have not registered and those who have. For the first segment, share the details about the events along with prices and registration data. For the latter, you should only share event details like the schedule, key-note speakers, information about the vendor stalls, special access features, etc. If you have resources to spare, you can create multiple other segments and run different email campaigns for them. You can take the help of Klaviyo experts for the same.

Salesforce keeps its subscribers updated about their live events. They have included the link to watch the live stream as well as the schedule for the entire week. Such a detailed event schedule helps the subscribers choose and attend the events they want to watch the most. 

• Send regular reminders

Sending regular reminders to participants keeps them informed about the potential changes and helps them plan their day accordingly. In addition to that, reminder emails build relationships while keeping them excited about the event. These reminder emails also open new avenues for cross-selling and up-selling products.

• Thank the attendees

Lastly, thank your attendees for attending the event. Remind them that without them, conducting a successful event would not have been possible. On top of that, these appreciation emails encourage them to come again for the next year’s event. If you are feeling generous, you can always attach discount codes and freebies as a thank you gift. 

Litmus’ appreciation email contains all the highlights and attendee testimonials of their London event. Furthermore, they have leveraged the success of this event to sell the tickets for their upcoming live event in Boston. Litmus also encourages sharing the event with other people by including a discount code for teams.

Conclusion 

Email marketers need to be familiar with the ins and outs of event email marketing to help their brands promote events. If you want to conduct an event but don’t have the resources, you can always contact Klaviyo experts to help you prepare the event email marketing campaign for your brand event.

Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.