Four Effective Event Invitation Email Strategies Proven to Work

When we talk about marketing as a whole, email marketing becomes an integral part of any business model for promoting their goods, services, brands, offers and events. Email marketing is the kingpin of event marketing and promotion campaigns.

According to the latest statistics by Oberlo, 87% of marketers use email marketing to disseminate their content. As new as it might sound, the first email marketing blast was sent in 1978 by Gary Thuerk from Digital Equipment Corp, which surprisingly resulted in US$13 million in sales.

As an event marketer or a business owner, if you are looking forward to inviting attendees to your events, the biggest challenge is framing an effective message which gets through to your audience. Even though you have a creative idea for an event and the speakers involved are good, the percentage of event check-ins may be poor. Why does that happen? It happens when your promotion campaign or email strategies lack a clear message and fail to captivate the audience to register for your event.

Now, to learn more about effective event invitation email strategies, we have prepared a guide to bring that attendee to your event.

1.Type of Event Invitation Mails

There are plenty of good emails out there, but how do you come up with the best one for yourself? The answer is simple. Based on your business type and event agenda, you can develop personalized strategies that align with your objectives and that bifurcate different types of invitation emails into segments that suit your goals.

You can replicate the email strategies into your invites and see if they work for your event and business. Below is the list of different types of invitation emails. Check this out to understand the particular traits each one holds.

1.1 Driving Action

When we talk about emails that drive action, these emails are written keeping in mind to derive a specific action from the target audience. For instance, in the case of event invitation emails, your goal might be to get people to register for your event. Now, do not fret as there are multiple ways in which you can persuade your audience to register for your event. Given below are some effective strategies which display what works for a variety of businesses vying for registrations.

1.1.a Back to In-Person Events

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event industry took a hit, but it wasn’t for long. All kinds of businesses ranging from small to medium to large started organizing virtual events to promote their services.

With mass inoculation programs in full effect across the globe, the situation looks better for the global economy and the markets are opening again for good. So, if you are planning to organize your upcoming event , in-person format can be your biggest USP.

Don’t shy away from good old copywriting. Instead, make the message urgent and display your USP, i.e. in-person event multiple times in order to derive ‘direct action’ responses from the audience.

1.1.b Urgency Through Humor

Because social media heavily influences audiences and businesses, one of the effective tactics would be to use humor as a part of your event invitation email strategy.

Many businesses, including big multinationals, have used memes or viral videos as part of their marketing strategy, so, why can’t you? Using trending viral videos or memes makes the human connection between you and the audience easier. In this way, the audience is entertained and informed and more likely to register for your event.

Note: If you are a highly professional organization in a strictly corporate business and target C-level employees or audience, it might not be wise to use humor in your invitation emails. However, if you want to, it can be subtle and not too informal so that it keeps your brand image intact.

1.4 Engagement through Video

you know how effective videos are? According to a study by Syndacast, even if you use the word “video"in the email subject line, the chances of the audience clicking on the email increase by 65%.

When you design specific and targeted videos related to your event and send them in all your event invitation emails, the readers will be more excited to learn more about your event. It is proven that videos engage all the viewer’s senses, thereby increasing the brand recall percentage drastically.

You can use videos in three simple ways to lure attendees to your event.

1.4.a Personal Invitation from Speakers

If you have a good speaker lineup ready for your event, then you can use that to your advantage. Instead of using their names in plain text, you can create a video using one of the speakers or multiple speakers inviting the attendees to your event. This promotes the feeling of personal touch.

If the speakers are very well known and reputable, you can count on them to turn your target audience into event attendees.

1.4.b Recapturing the Experience

By including various eye-catching snippets of your previous events in a video, you can send that in your event invitation emails to let the users know about the success of your events and what they will be missing if they don’t register.

1.4.c Tell a Story

You’ve got the brain, and you’ve got the skills. Use the power of effective storytelling to create a fantastic video that entertains the audience and also tells them what your event and brand are all about.

Using crisp videos that tell a story and relay a message is an organic approach to lure the audience. They are bound to visit the landing page and register for your event.

These four event invitation email strategies discussed above are proven to work and will definitely get the audience to look through others and choose you.

FAQs

1. How effective are event invitation emails?

Your event invitation email is a core contributor to the success of the event. Without a creative event invitation email, gathering attendees for your events will become a mammoth task. According to statistics, the average open rate for welcome emails is around 82%.

Here are some statistics to help you know how frequently you should send out emails:

• 29% send the most emails in the month leading up to their event
• 43% send an email a week during that period
• 25% of event creators send three emails in total to promote each event
• 22% send six or more emails in total (Source: Eventbrite)

2. How do I design event emails?

The following are the five basic elements your event invitation emails must have-

1.  Time, date, location and duration
2. Catchy invitation phrases
3. The design of your email should be centric to your brand and event goal
4. A catchy email subject line
5. Simple, yet crisp information about your event