As the vaccination drives start catching pace, more than 35% of the US population has already been administered with the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Soon we will be able to take a sigh of relief, but this whole situation has taught us many things; one among them is our thirst for personal warmth can’t be replaced that easily. People are likely to celebrate this freedom and turn towards attending some interesting events with due precautions. It is high time that email marketers sharpen their saws since many events will be organized with a higher footfall this year. You can probably beat the 4400% ROI benchmark for marketing events if you play your cards well. Let’s begin.
Running Email Marketing Campaigns With A Fresh Outlook
The evolving landscape can confuse marketers as the pandemic era practices and mindset may impact their decision-making. As we come out of those situations, all our marketing efforts need to reconcile with the fresh situations. This applies largely to the creative aspects and overall strategic outlook. Let us explore the particulars in detail:
List Hygiene And Opt-Ins
Ideally, you should be targeting the people who are genuinely interested in your event. It is necessary to have a procedure in place to maintain a high degree of list hygiene. The process starts right from the beginning; the lead acquisition should start from avenues where you can find people who are genuinely interested in the event. On top of that, it is a good practice to insist on using double opt-ins. You will also need to periodically weed out dormant leads from your mailing list.
Segmentation And Personalization
To curate highly engaging content. I would suggest sending 2-3 emails focusing on different aspects based on your event’s target audience segments. Based on the subscriber’s engagement, realign your campaign for that recipient. With the help of automated workflows, personalize the messages so that your messages stay relevant for all your valuable subscribers. You can use free HTML email templates to run this pre-event campaign but make sure it’s customized to your needs.
Subject Line And Email Copy
We are all aware that the subject line is a maker or breaker for most email marketing campaigns. Keep your subject line contextual, personalized, and crisp. Make full use of preheader text and avoid using spammy words. When curating email copy, make sure it coincides with the campaign’s maturity phase. Your email copy should only contain only appropriate information, not more, not less.
Visual Consistency
Visual inconsistency in your email marketing campaign would lead to confusion in the recipient’s mind. You should decide on a visual strategy and stick to it throughout the campaign. This should include logo, font, color scheme, hero images, and content blocks that work with each other in total synergy to event email marketing. You should use responsive HTML email templates so that your campaign renders in the same way regardless of the device used.
Since we have brushed our basics, let us go through a basic overview of running an event email marketing campaign:
Create Buzz About Your Event
Now that we have gone through the basics, it’s time to start running the real campaign. You will need to start creating a buzz around your campaign from six months to six days before based on the type/size of the event. In this introductory email, you can use responsive HTML email templates to create a stunning welcome note consisting of a speaker’s introduction, a couple of images of the venue, a video clip of the main attraction/main speaker. If possible, schedule your event on holidays so calendar conflicts can be avoided.
Inspire and Invite
Once you have warmed up your audience, the next step would be to invite them to participate in your event. Inspire them to register early through tangible takeaways or even early bird discounts. Consider offering exclusive discounts to past attendees. This might take an entire drip campaign so make sure you reveal only the required information at each phase.
Seek Confirmation
Craft a visually appealing email copy using customized HTML email templatesto congratulate them for registering. You can use this email to provide the necessary information about events and pandemic precautions. You can also share details they should look forward to during the event. Before the event, you need to mail to remind them about the date and timings. You should also include FAQs and support information.
Run A Post-Event Survey/Thank Attendees
The follow-up email/post-event survey should start with thanking them for their attendance/participation. You can conduct the survey 2-3 days after the event date and make sure to share a few photos to maintain relevance. Free HTML email templates can be easily customized to adequately satisfy the requirements of the post-event survey copy. For thank you notes, sending them an email the very next day works well.
Summing Up
The post-pandemic scenario will witness a sizable increase in the number of events and participation. With this, competition will go up and therefore, it’s time for you to recharge and re-energize yourself to get back into the groove. Start planning and calibrating your automation workflows up your mailing list. I am pretty sure if you follow all the points discussed above, the success rate of your event’s email marketing campaigns will increase tremendously.
Author: Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing PSD to Email coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, custom Mailchimp email templates design and coding in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.