The OpenWater Blog

Improve Event Registration With 5 Simple Strategies

On its face, event registration seems like an unimportant, administrative process. While it’s true that it’s an administrative process, considering it unimportant is a mistake. In fact, your event registration process can be the reason some attendees choose to come to your event and others don’t.

So, how can you improve the event registration process? We have 5 simple strategies that will keep your guests happy and your event attendance higher than ever before.

1. Allow Attendees to Register on Mobile Devices

More and more people are using their phones or even tablets to manage basic tasks, event registration included. By making your event registration process mobile friendly, meaning the forms and pages are optimized for smartphone usage, you can ensure you aren’t missing out on potential attendees because they weren’t able to register where and when they wanted to.

Mobile friendly pages are straightforward and don’t contain filler information. Most importantly, you need to ensure these pages are easy to click and use with your target demographic in mind.

2. Create a Sense of Urgency

A sense of urgency may not matter much to attendees but it does when you want to maximize attendance on your end. The simplest way to create a sense of urgency is to create a focused landing page with calls-to-action that demand something of attendees.

For example, instead of saying “click here to register” you should say something about how tickets are limited and demand that attendees act now. This may look something like “Register now to guarantee your spot!”

3. Keep the Registration Process Short

If you have page after page in your registration process, attendees may get discouraged or run out of time and won’t complete the form. The problem is that many organizations believe they need more information than they do. This makes the registration process much longer than it has to be.

Your event registration process shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes. Most importantly, you should only ask for essential information, such as:

• Full name
• Address
• Email
• Phone number
• Payment information

Do you need anything other than that for a person to attend your event? Not likely.

4. Do the Work of Your Attendees

When you really want to encourage attendees to come to your event, you should do the work for them. Doing so is simple with abstracts software because if attendees have been to your event before, you can pre-fill their information and they won’t have to do any of the work.

This makes your event registration process extra accommodating for those most loyal to your organization, which is essential when you want to encourage brand loyalty and boost prestige.

5. Add Accommodating Questions to the Form

While it’s true you should keep your registration form short and to the point, you shouldn’t ignore questions that may be useful. Accommodation questions are a great example of something you can add to the form that serves a dual purpose: it’s information you need to know and makes attendees feel as if you’re going out of your way for them.

You should use accommodation questions to ask attendees about any special needs they may have or specific requests. This will show attendees your organization cares, boosting event registration rates in the process.

Make Registration a Focal Point for Your Organization

An optimized registration process is essential when you want to maximize attendance while making your program more efficient and prestigious in your attendees’ eyes.

Remember, the process isn’t just about getting people to your event; it’s about creating an experience reflective of your organizational goals from start to finish.

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