Communicating effectively is a crucial part of being a successful event manager, especially during uncertain times like the COVID-19 pandemic. A good communication strategy blends in with the marketing strategy and will help you stay in touch with your stakeholders.
After you decide on your event dates and have a working event plan, you’ll need to start delivering results. Below, we’ve put together a communications strategy checklist for your next event:
Before the event
◻ Create a buzz
The first thing to do after deciding the event date and location (online/offline) is to announce it publicly. This typically involves creating an event website or minisite, putting together promotional videos, and creating social media accounts for the event and posting details on them. You should also be sharing that promotional material onto your business’s main website and social media pages.
◻ Send event invites
If you’ve shortlisted your speakers, send out an invitation to them. Make sure to include all of the details about the event, including the kind of attendees you’re inviting, the goal of the event, and the topics you’d like the speaker to cover. Similarly, get in touch with the sponsors who are relevant to your event and might be interested in sponsoring. Use your previous year’s attendee database to jumpstart your attendee numbers. Send them an email campaign with the news of this new event–you can even include an exclusive discount, if you want. Don’t forget to share the links to the registration page and the event agenda.
◻ Share promotional discount
Discount codes help you engage differently with each of your target segments — based on their location, type of audience, role in the event, or on how you plan to engage with them in the future. You can share the promo code to your audience as a part of the event invitation or send it as a separate email, based on what works best for your event.
◻ Email order confirmation receipts
After the sale is made, send out an order confirmation email to the purchaser. This email should include an order invoice, ticket ID, event name and dates, QR code (if applicable), and any other details necessary to join your event.
◻ Schedule event reminders
Send reminder emails to people who have registered for your event one month, one week, two days, twelve hours, and one hour before the event. Keep the excitement going. As most events are happening online now, you don’t want your attendees to forget that they’ve registered for your event.