EUMA: You don’t have to be the Steve Jobs of communication to make your event a success

Whatever the size of your event, big or small, you will always need a well-defined communication strategy. Communicating effectively with your participants is an important part of making any event a success. In this article, we will discuss the different aspects of event communication and consider some things you should think about for your next event.

Preparation is key
Your participants should receive their invitations well ahead of the date, so that they have time to react. Include only the essentials in the invitation, and make additional information available from your site.

A short invitation will keep your participants interested long enough for them to read all the details. People get invitations and e-mails from left and right, so it’s crucial to make your message short and simple. The final thing you should do before sending out the invitation is to test it on somebody who hasn’t been part of the planning process. It’s necessary to get impartial feedback.

Essentially, a good invitation will lead to easy and successful registration.
Your registration options depend completely on your target group. Some target groups might require several registration options next to the typical online registration. Whichever way you choose, it is strongly recommended that you manage all registrations on one platform. One platform will make your life as an organiser a lot easier.

After registering, your attendees should get a confirmation to reassure them that their registration has been received and processed. The confirmation message will also give you a chance to recap important information, including the contact information for the organiser, the schedule, how to get to the venue and the information the attendee has given when registering.

A week or two prior to the event, it’s good to send a reminder via e-mail to the people who haven’t registered yet. This will increase the visibility of your event among all the other invitations. A week before the event another reminder can be sent to the actual event attendees.

When registrations are over and the event is fast approaching, create a text message that will be sent a day or a couple of hours before the event starts. Whilst smartphones are common, not everyone reads their e-mail constantly. A text message is a short and simple way to welcome attendees to your event. Furthermore, a text message receives ten times more attention than a regular e-mail and will set you apart from other events that might not use reminders at all.

Event communication can be a dreadful task, but with the help of event management tools, communicating even the biggest events will feel like a walk in the park.

--
First published in the EUMA magazine proActive No 43, this article was written by Linda Kullas, Lyyti-Event Management Software. Lyyti is a Gold Partner to European Management Assistants (EUMA). www.euma.org