There are many event management solutions available globally. Finding the right one for a specific niche and budget, however, can be a huge challenge. They tend to be pricy and if you own a small business or a nonprofit org, you can surely find a better way to invest your money.
In this article, we will teach you how to use a cost-effective solution like EmailMeForm to organize events with the same efficiency as with a more robust and expensive software. Now, let’s get cracking!
First things first… Invite with style!
You’ll need a beautiful online event registration form that provokes excitement about your event and a database to collect attendee responses in a secure and convenient way. With our form builder software, you can create RSVP forms that can be embedded into your website, blog or social media, or act as standalone pages. Your audience can learn more about the events you organize and respond to your invitation by submitting their data, right there on the page where your event registration form is embedded. Once they do, you will be instantly notified by email which includes a summary of each submission.
Here’s a nice example of a form you can create with a bit of CSS styling:
The Data You Need for Success
There are three points of contact when you can collect relevant information from your attendees. We warmly suggest you use them wisely to collect the data that will help you organize a stellar event. You can collect the data:
- before the event (while registering attendees)
- during the event
- post-event
Now, let’s analyze each point of contact to see which forms will work best to help you achieve your goals.
Event Registration Goals
During the event registration your main goal is to get your audience interested in your event, your mission, and your brand. On a smaller scale, your immediate wish is to turn passers-by into attendees and the easiest way to do this is to create an online registration form.
Think about the information you need to provide in the invitation, as well as the information you need your attendees to provide you with. Are they your customers or sponsors of your nonprofit org? What is their age, gender, interests, the company they work for, position, and so on? If your event promises quality entertainment, live band, tasty food, cocktails, or a professional development opportunity, then it’s natural that you can ask more information from those who intend to attend. You can then use the automated data reports feature to extract and visualize the data.
Here’s our Free Event Registration template that you can customize with ease and add to your website, social media, or use as an event’s landing page:
You can customize each of the fields to create a perfect RSVP form for your event:
- Apply your logo.
- Customize header and add a short or long event description with dates and instructions.
- Show event’s location on an integrated Google map.
- Add background photo to make this form more lively and attractive.
- Add questions and fields that will help you get to know your attendees/customers.
- Set up an email address(es) to receive notifications whenever someone RSVPs.
- Create a customized “Thank You” page to provide additional information or redirect your customer back to your website or other page.
- Analyze feedback in our Data Manager and extract data reports.
- Share the data with your team so that you can prepare for the event.
Gather Information During the Event
Events are usually organized for three main reasons:
- Promotion — to raise brand awareness, increase interest in a certain subject, gather support for a cause, collect funds, launch new product or service.
- Business Intelligence — to collect the data, opinions, sentiment, and rumors from potential customers, supporters, donors, and general public.
- Networking — to connect and create new opportunities.
We will cover the “Intelligence” part as it falls under the domain of online forms. For promotion and networking, you might consider other marketing techniques.
The most common practice nowadays is having your attendees fill in surveys on tablets you provide during the event or towards its end. You can put forth an Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey to measure the reach, interest and impact you made. This one-question survey will give you insight into the general sentiment about your company, organization, or brand.
Survey takers can choose on the scale from 1 - 10 (or 7) how likely they are to recommend your product/service:
- Detractors = 0 – 6
- Passives = 7-8
- Promoters = 9-10
Here’s our example: http://www.emailmeform.com/builder/form/34doU7W425dwepDMe5Fc2
Post Event Follow-up
Hopefully everything goes well and your event is a success! Don’t forget to thank people for their presence and support. Send them a thank you email with event summary, takeaways, videos, photos and include a simple Event Satisfaction Survey that will help you understand if the event made an impact on audience’s awareness about the event’s theme and your org’s mission.
In the end, these are just the basic principles of event success. You can expand and perfect your registration and feedback gathering process with different forms and surveys. EmailMeForm form builder offers various ready-made fields that you can customize indefinitely to create delightful forms for free. Ah, and worry not — the data you store with us is secure, shareable and always accessible!
In the end, if you have trouble with form creations or need specific robust forms built with much attention to detail, our CustomWorks service may come in handy. Let our CustomWorks experts design your forms and set them up for your team or your clients. The showcase of some of our CustomWorks team’s beautiful custom forms can be reviewed here: www.emailmeform.com/beautiful-forms-and-surveys.html.
Jovana Milankovic
Jovana is a content creator and marketing manager at EmailMeForm. Her job is to curate our software to the world and make it more human for our users.
