When it comes to marketing your event, one of the most effective digital marketing tools is still email.

According to statistics published by Campaign Monitor, the organic reach of the biggest social network Facebook is around 6%, compared to typical email open rates that are still in the 20-30% range, making email invitations the clear winner.

This makes email an incredibly powerful driver of traffic to your event. However you do need the correct strategies to make the most of this powerful event promotion tool.

Eventbrite recently run a series of live seminars as part of our Brite Space week, and at one of the events, “Connect & Convert”, we brought in experts in digital marketing to help event organisers just like you understand how to use email invitations effectively to sell out your event.

The golden nuggets that were delivered at Brite Space were too good not to share, so here’s a summary of the key points and the slide decks, so you can benefit from the great advice delivered on the day too!

Getting Results With Email Invitations: Simon Dunant, Senior Product Specialist, Eventbrite

It’s been 15 years since Seth Godin published the ground-breaking book “Permission Marketing,” however many event organisers are still using email as a crude broadcast medium, instead of harnessing its power to target specific segments of their list separately.

Before you send your next email, take some time to put yourself in the recipients’ shoes and see how it would feel to get the email in your own inbox. Ask yourself if it’s genuinely interesting? Valuable? Does it speak to you specifically or does it feel generic? An email contact is a valuable contact and is worth respecting for the long-term relationship and value you can build through it.

You must also make sure that you’re complying with opt-in regulations Not only will this mean you’re compliant, but it will keep you off the email blacklists too. Email blacklists are bad as they can stop you sending emails from your email client, so making sure you’re opt-in compliant also helps increase the deliverability of your emails.

If you want to find out whether your IP address is on an email blacklist, MXToolbox is a great tool to check this.

When you’re using the Eventbrite invitation tool, the following presentation will give you some insight into the great features on offer inside your Eventbrite account for contacting potential attendees to your event via email.

Key questions you’ll be able to answer from this presentation:

• What is your email strategy? Are you still “blasting” like it’s 1999?
• Are you complying with the opt-in regulations? Is your email marketing “Permission based”?
• How can I be confident that the emails on my list are fully opted in?
• Do you understand blacklists and the importance of avoiding them?
• How does the Eventbrite invitation tool help deliverability of your invitations?
• What email integrations does Eventbrite connect with and how can I leverage them?

You can also get answers and insight on using Eventbrite invites effectively at our help centre.

Conversion Tips & Tricks: Tim Watson, Email Marketing Consultant, Zettasphere

When it comes to emails, answering the recipient’s question “What’s in it for me” should be top of mind, and making your communications crystal clear on what action you want people to take will take your conversions to another level.

Open rates will be significantly higher if you can ensure that recipients of your email understand who it’s from and what it’s about from the outset.

Write your email copy to drive anticipation, get people motivated to take action and click through to your event. You’ll only get a registration if you can get your recipient to your event page, so the key job of an email is to drive traffic to your event page. Make sure you’re focused on this goal when you’re writing your next email invite.

Check out Tim’s blog for a great post that outlines the “Three C’s” of effective email copywriting.

Tim also shared some great examples of emails that have been top converters for event organisers in his slide deck below, take a look at these and use them as your templates to build out your next successful email invitation.

Key Takeaways in this presentation:

• Four key questions every email must answer
• How to motivate people to click through to your registration page
• The 3 powerful secrets of successful email copywriting that will get people to register for your event

What one tip we’ve shared can you take action on to improve your event’s email marketing?

Grab one from this post and put it into practice to sell out your next event, and don’t forget to let us know your results in the comments!