Event Registrations – Yapsody

Management Tips To Get Your Event Budget Planning Right

Yapsody — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 07:09:21 +0000

The most stressing part of an event planning is to fix a budget for the event. Event budgets are said to keep planner’s awake at night. Event registrations are unpredictable, so a planner always tries to reduce costs. But these can lead to your event being a complete failure. The budget determines everything about the event, the venue, the kind of catering you will hire, the type of arrangements you will make, event ticket price, etc. Your client will obviously ask you to cheap out, but you must stick to a substantial budget. Here are a few ways you can plan a good event that doesn’t look stingy, as well as saves some bucks.

Venue and decorations:

Booking a place and decorating it costs a lot. But that doesn’t mean you will book a shady place. You must try to keep a minimum décor, and highlight the natural ambience of your venue. For this venue selection is important. If you choose a slightly higher priced venue, you can save a lot on decoration, which costs a lot. But if you get a decorator for cheap, then go for a venue that’s not all that costly.

Highlights:

Many events provide their delegates with some extras, like a tour of the city, a day at some fancy restaurant or a trip to the market, etc. Such things cost. Many agencies offer cheap tour services for a large group, so you can send your delegates with them. You can also arrange to take your delegates for a public event that is free of cost.

Food and drinks:

Food and drinks are essential part of an event or concert. Everyone looks up to these in an event. So if you are skimpy about the quality of food and drinks you are providing you are dissatisfying many people. A little skillful planning can help you save here. Many venues provide food when you book them, for a subsidized price. Hire a caterer who can design a cheaper menu. You can keep one complimentary beverage and make delegates pay for extras. That keeps the budget in check.

One must also keep in mind that extra costs might crop up last minute. As a planner you must make accommodations for them in your budget. Remember if the overall quality of your event is good, people will want to come again. Plan wisely.

The post Management Tips To Get Your Event Budget Planning Right appeared first on Yapsody.

How To Improve Attendee Journey?

Yapsody — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 06:01:21 +0000

Attendee Journey is a concept involving the journey of your attendees throughout the event (how un-obvious was that!). On an extremely serious note, though, event presenters have identified that attendees are the reason why events happen in the first place, and there’s increased competition for their attention and time. Attendee Journey starts with the registration process and ends with obtaining feedbacks after you’re through with the event, and in order to master the Attendee Journey approach, you have to understand the expectations your attendees have at every point in the Journey and thrive to exceed them.

Let’s start with the registrations because those are usually the first impressions you make on your attendees. Also, beginning from the beginning (you see what I did there) will help you get the hang of this approach effectively.

Save Paper, Save Trees, Save Earth, and of course, Save the Trouble!

If you’re worried online registrations might be too high-end and technical for the grandmothers’ club, why don’t you drop them a text on WhatsApp or tweet to @groovygranny and find out?

That’s right – everybody today prefers online event ticketing system to paper forms because they’re easier, hassle-free, less complicated, and all other synonyms of these three.

Okay, class, form a Group!

*everybody looks at their homies*

Asking one person to register for an entire group is, again, less complicated, efficient, and cost-effective. You can promote group registrations by giving away group discounts, and including an option for group registration on your page. At the same time, communicate with group members individually to confirm their attendance through emails, just to make sure nobody is being dragged into it forcefully (if they’re homies, that is happening).

I call dibs on the Driver’s Seat!

Giving your attendees the chance to “personalize” their event experience will leave them much happier than pens and notepads imprinted with your logo. You could include preferences on your registration page wherein your attendees will be able to choose not just between a “vegetarian” or “non-vegetarian” meal, but also the cuisine, t-shirt sizes, room, and probably even vote for the guest speaker they desire.

Work for them.

If you’re all about focusing your event around your attendees, you might as well fill out their forms for them. Especially for repeated visitors, they would appreciate if their information is already available in the browser, relieving them of typing the same stuff all over again. This will reduce entry errors and there will be fewer people who’ll abandon the process mid-way.

Are you coming? Are you SURE you’re coming? Are you?

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph (yeah, go on, scroll up), event presenters are practically competing for attendees’ time and attention because everyone’s busy. You might want to send a series of emails to the registrants to confirm whether they’re going to show up or no because they might’ve changed their minds, or forgotten about the event completely. These emails will help you figure out if there are going to be free spaces and also act as reminders for your attendees.

I’m going if you’re going, totally!

The chances of me signing up for an event are directly proportional to the chances of my best friend doing the same. It’s always going to help you as well as your attendees if you include a list of attendees on your registration page and even in your confirmation emails so that registrants are aware of who’s attending and what sessions they’re signing up for.

Build Better Badges (try saying that five times without pausing)

It’s not just a great example of alliteration, it’s an even better tip that you should always have in your mind. Attendee badges should have all kinds of information that can be contained in a single QR code for easy scanning and exchanging. Along with their names, include their scheduled meetings, sessions they’ve signed up for, demographics, and other information that you think is relevant (try relationship status, just in case a hopeless guy is trying to pick up dates at your event. Well, he’s an attendee, too, so honor his needs).

Don’t ask too many Questions.

You’re asking me why? Really? Because you do ask too many questions, that’s why!

When you’re asking your attendees to fill out forms, they are most likely to get bored and annoyed if the forms are long and irrelevant. Try using conditional logic to form questions that get displayed based on what the registrant has previously entered. Less trouble for attendees, less workload for you.

Before The End…

Now that you’ve simplified the registration process (this is where the quote at the beginning makes sense), you have a head-start with nailing that Attendee Journey approach. Work on these lines when you plan out every step after this, and there won’t be a single unhappy attendee leaving your event (the hopeless guy trying to pick up dates can be excluded).

Ways to Use Offers and Discount to Retain Customer Attention!

The post How To Improve Attendee Journey? appeared first on Yapsody.

Valentine’s Day Event Ideas for Event Presenters

Yapsody — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 07:39:04 +0000

Love is in the air, and so is the buzz of a huge number of Valentine’s events. People are flocking into shops and stores, trying to look for the perfect gift for that special someone, and this is the best time to set up an event where people can bring their Valentines. Holidays carry with them huge opportunities to build a brand and make wild profits, but they also bring along competition. Like you, there are going to be hundreds of event planners who’ll be aiming for exactly the same target audience as yours, and employing the same marketing measures to woo them. If you want to be ahead of this race, you can’t rely only on marketing; you’ll have to rely on smarketing (smart marketing).

Find Yourself a Valentine

I mean, a Valentine for your event – a partner who does not belong to the same industry (and hence is not a competitor). You can offer their products at your event for a discount, while at their store they could offer a discount code for tickets to their customers. Basically, you build a symbiotic relationship with them. Make sure you’re choosing partners that innately draw couples during the Valentine’s season – cafés, theaters, confectioners, gift shops etc.

Offer Seasons Freebies

Go a little beyond greeting cards and give away special notepads or other trinkets that carry the essence of Valentine’s Day in them. You can either send these over to your registrants after they’ve registered, or you could give these away during or after the event.

Host a Competition

Organizing a creative competition based on the Valentine theme will attract your target audience and also the media. Competitions that are quirky, like the longest kiss or the best proposal, will be enthusiastically received by all kinds of couples. You need not have the competition at a physical location; you can always use your event’s Facebook page, Twitter handle, or YouTube channel for the same. Hosting the contest before your event will give it massive promotion and provide a build-up for it. Announcing the results of the competition during the event will also boost up event ticket sales.

Be an Early Bird

Early Bird is a concept that is not only meant to be a ticket category. To make sure you’re creating a buzz about your event, you need to start early with the promotions. Right after New Year, start telling people about your event so that whenever they think about planning how to spend their Valentine’s, they instantly get reminded of your event. Send customized post-cards and newsletters, put up banners and flyers in target locations, and maybe send over special hampers to your past attendees who have attended a lot of your events.

It’s okay to be a little repetitive as long as you’re not annoying your target audience. Always having a high sales pitch might irritate your potential attendees and drive them away, so come up with fun stuff that they’d want more of.

The post Valentine’s Day Event Ideas for Event Presenters appeared first on Yapsody.