Event email marketing: How to build excitement for your next event

By Kaleigh Moore November 21, 2023

Occasion e mail advertising is a key technique for constructing anticipation on your subsequent occasion—whether or not on-line or offline. This submit explores key occasion e mail advertising examples and methods to assist.

When a survey requested occasion entrepreneurs their only technique for getting the phrase out, the outcomes had been attention-grabbing:

The most effective technique wasn’t word-of-mouth. It wasn’t social media.

It was e mail.

Over 75% of the occasion entrepreneurs polled stated e mail advertising was their desire. They reported 45% of their complete occasion ticket gross sales got here from e mail advertising campaigns.

That makes occasion advertising easy, proper? Join an e mail platform, tie in an occasion advertising platform like Eventbrite, and also you’re good to go.

However simply because one medium is the most efficient doesn’t assure future outcomes.

To make occasion e mail advertising be just right for you, it’s essential to study what it’s and use it. You’ll want announcement and drip marketing campaign emails to pump up pleasure effectively earlier than the occasion. And some examples to point out the way it’s completed received’t damage, both.

Let’s dive in.

What’s e mail advertising for occasions?

E mail occasion advertising is a newsletter-based technique for constructing urgency and a focus for an upcoming get-together. A very good e mail occasion advertising technique has a couple of completely different options:

• Constructing pleasure and anticipation for the occasion, which helps you promote extra tickets
• Saying, with excellent readability, the important thing particulars—such because the date, the time, and get to your occasion
• Offering hyperlinks and particulars in case your occasion is web-based
• Answering questions in regards to the occasion upfront. This creates much less confusion when the day lastly comes

These steps sound intuitive sufficient. However bear in mind: occasion e mail advertising might be completely different than your ordinary e mail advertising methods.

The standard technique is likely to be to filter new potential clients to your lead magnet. The advantages you’ll be able to obtain from this technique can construct over time, endlessly.

Occasion e mail advertising greatest practices

E mail occasion advertising is extra like constructing a marketing campaign round a narrative. It has a starting, a center, and an finish: the occasion itself.

If you wish to do it successfully, you’ll have to preserve a couple of greatest practices in thoughts:

Personalization

An occasion ought to really feel extra “actual” than most newsletters. 

Occasions imply assembly folks face-to-face, both on a webcam or in individual. It’s one factor to get a possible buyer to enroll in a lead magnet. It’s one other factor to get them to decide to attending, say, a convention.

With e mail advertising platform, you’ll be able to incorporate personalization options aplenty:

• Use a platform like AWeber to mechanically enter every subscriber’s distinctive first title
• Use subscriber segmentation and tag every person with a selected class so you’ll be able to ship them event-specific content material
• Add code to your web site and have interaction with subscribers primarily based on their specific site-browsing habits

Arrange your marketing campaign appropriately from the get-go, and your occasion emails will come throughout as eerily telepathic. 

However there’s nothing unusual happening. You’re simply training good personalization habits and skipping these e-newsletter subscribers who may not have an interest.

Buyer segmentation

Talking of buyer segmentation: you wouldn’t invite an e mail record of cat lovers to an occasion at a dogs-only park, would you?

Not in the event you needed anybody to point out up.

With buyer segmentation options, you’ll be able to tag particular subscribers. Or you’ll be able to drill down even additional, separating subscribers by the varieties of occasions they may need to attend.

When you’ve got a far-reaching viewers, for instance, you’ll be able to tag “NY-Occasions” for subscribers native to the New York space.

Segmentation ensures that you simply don’t waste any time by campaigning to crowds of people that haven’t any intention of ever attending your occasions. 

It’s not sufficient to have a “[CUSTOMER_NAME]” field at first of your e mail.

Use buyer segmentation tags to make sure each e mail feels related to each group you’re participating. Your objective? Determine particular niches of subscribers who might be enthusiastic sufficient to order a spot at your occasion.

Making the occasion appear actual

There’s a humorous factor that occurs with on-line interactions. We regularly overlook we’re interacting with different folks. As Psychology At this time notes, one survey discovered that school college students had the best improve in well-being after they interacted with folks in individual.

 Merely put, on-line interactions don’t register fairly as “actual” as face-to-face interactions do.

And that may be a tough promote. In spite of everything, you in all probability acquired most of your subscribers from on-line interactions. 

Now, with occasion e mail advertising, you’re asking folks to begin seeing you as an actual individual. You’re asking to vary the context of your relationship, which requires a distinct type of engagement.

Begin by making the occasion appear actual:

• Open loops that may solely shut in individual. For instance, possibly somebody enters a contest on-line—however they will solely gather the prize in individual. 
• Use compelling visuals. Do you may have snapshots from a earlier occasion? Embody them. Even when your occasion is totally on-line, embrace headshots for each visitor who will seem.
• Share a private story. Does the occasion come out of a private story or realization you had? Share it together with your viewers. In case your occasion is a lecture or net convention a couple of particular subject, discuss in regards to the private circumstances that led to your discovery of that subject.

Easy methods to use e mail advertising to spark curiosity in your occasion

E mail advertising is like every other sort of promoting. Besides this time, you need greater than a click on. 

You must inspire folks to show up, enroll, and even pay a hefty amount of cash simply to get in.

These are large asks. When you’ve got a younger e-newsletter subscriber base, they’re particularly large asks. You should still be in the course of constructing familiarity together with your viewers.

To make sure your occasion sparks sufficient curiosity, construct the next methods into your marketing campaign:

Get your announcement in early

Ever discover how Hollywood doesn’t kick off a film marketing campaign with a full film trailer anymore?
It’s normally a collection of teases. They’ll launch photos from the set years upfront. Or they’ll hype up a quick “trailer tease” on YouTube.

Lastly, the total trailers grow to be blockbuster occasions themselves: typically they debut throughout halftime of Monday Evening Soccer.

The ultimate trailer. Tune in to Monday Evening Soccer on @ESPN to look at it reside. #TheRiseOfSkywalker pic.twitter.com/QAme0H5j0D

— Star Wars (@starwars) October 19, 2019

The important thing to this technique is beginning early. Plant these seeds of pleasure. Get on peoples’ radar effectively upfront of the occasion.

Pleasure begins together with your first announcement e mail. So now’s the time to begin brainstorming.

Brainstorm your e mail topic traces

We’ve acquired a couple of concepts for greatest practices on e mail topic traces. Let’s do a quick assessment:

• Hold them beneath 45 characters. This ensures folks can learn an entire thought with out clicking. In any other case, your topic traces would possibly fade into ellipses in your recipients’ inboxes.
• Use the “sentence case” on your headers, which retains issues informal. These emails ought to appear like they’re coming from outdated associates.
• Create a “curiosity hole.” This implies you must introduce a thriller together with your topic line. If readers need to clear up it, they’ll really feel compelled to click on the e-mail.

Then write down an inventory of your greatest concepts for announcement topic traces. 

And right here’s the trick: sleep on them. Once you’re recent, have a look at them anew. Ask your self which one popped as probably the most compelling.

Chances are high, that’s your winner.

Construct an occasion touchdown web page

True: an occasion is just not a static factor. It would come and go. Constructing a web site can really feel like overkill when you already know that is only a momentary marketing campaign.

However you continue to want a centralized hub the place folks can discover key data and join marketing campaign emails.

Inside AWeber, you’ll be able to construct a selected touchdown web page with buyer tags. This manner, solely the e-newsletter subscribers who is likely to be occasion attendees will get the segmented emails.

You may also use the touchdown web page as a chance to do a few of the legwork.

Any occasion goes to have Incessantly Requested Questions:

When and the place? How will you attend? How a lot do tickets price?

You’ll possible repeat this data in social media posts and emails. However having FAQs up on a touchdown web page will make sure the solutions are there for anybody who desires them. 

(Extra on constructing your touchdown pages in a second.)

Start capturing pictures from the venue—or use inventory pictures

For those who’ve already booked a venue, use that venue’s present pictures to make the occasion appear extra “actual.”

It’s one factor to say you’re renting an auditorium. It’s one other factor to point out an image of 100 empty seats and write the headline: “Three extra days…”

For those who don’t have entry to these photos, you’ll be able to all the time select inventory photos, together with these related to the occasion’s metropolis, to assist construct anticipation.

Or ask visitors for headshots you’ll be able to embrace in your touchdown web page and emails.

Images are so vital to our perceptions, they will even affect our recollections. The extra visible your marketing campaign will get, the extra “actual” it’ll really feel when the week of the occasion rolls round.

Create periodic reminders

A typical story has a three-act construction:

• An inciting incident, which pulls the story out of its complacency and creates urgency
• A second act of more and more advanced issues and escalating rigidity
• A climax the place the destiny of the story hangs within the stability

You don’t have to show your occasion emails right into a novel anytime quickly, true. However you ought to have a unfastened sense of this construction as you construct anticipation on your occasion.

Enter “periodic reminder” emails.

If the announcement e mail was your inciting incident, these interval reminders will fill the area of an extended second act. 

And that may be a problem. The thrilling first announcement and the third-act buildup to the occasion are sometimes probably the most thrilling elements of an e mail marketing campaign.

What do you do to create periodic reminders in between? Listed below are a couple of concepts:

• “Unpeel the onion.” Like an important thriller author, solely unveil one clue at a time. Create intrigue by presenting pictures, prizes, and different parts out of your occasion out of context. Hold your viewers guessing, then slowly reveal what every layer of the onion means to the final word occasion.
• Give away the small print. No should be coy in regards to the logistics of your occasion. As a substitute, enable folks so as to add occasions to their calendar—together with dates, instances, and net addresses.
• Construct your reminders in sequence. It’s extra enjoyable in case your emails run in a selected order, with every e mail increasing on what you wrote within the earlier version. For instance, Canva sends educational emails the place every lesson provides mini-skills on high of the emails that got here earlier than.
• Create a drip marketing campaign. Schedule your “second-act” emails as a drip marketing campaign from the outset, which helps you create a pure chronological timeline that appears like a narrative unfolding.

Collect FAQs and retailer them in your touchdown web page

It’s solely pure: an occasion goes to garner some questions.

When? The place? Who?

For those who deal with your occasion e mail advertising marketing campaign as a true-blue marketing campaign, then each marketing campaign wants that touchdown web page. 

That is the “gross sales web page” on your occasion. And like gross sales web page, it ought to anticipate—and reply—each buyer query beforehand.

Begin with Incessantly Requested Questions you already know folks could have. The 5 Ws: who, what, the place, when, and why. 

Clarify what folks can anticipate to get out of your occasion, even when it’s one thing so simple as a enjoyable night time out.

And as questions are available, don’t overlook to notice these and jot down your solutions. Ideally, your touchdown web page might be an entire “hub” of any and all data associated to your occasion.

All that’s left for the shopper is to ask themselves by coming into their e mail handle. From there, you’ll be able to tag them to a segmented e mail record and get them began in your drip marketing campaign.

Become involved on social media

Occasion e mail advertising could also be one of the best ways to get folks to enroll, however you continue to want folks to find your emails within the first place. And social media might be an effective way to attract them in.

One technique is to maximise your use of hashtags:

• Create an event-specific hashtag (like #Your-Occasion-Right here-2024) to construct a hashtag “hub.” Anybody who desires to submit their submit, connect a photograph of their invitation, or announce they’re attending can use this hashtag for visibility.
• Use event-adjacent hashtags to get extra eyeballs on your posts. These are significantly efficient when you may have industry-specific hashtags you should utilize. Individuals in your {industry}—who could already be searching for occasions—can discover your posts with a easy search.

And preserve at it. Possibly your hashtag posts received’t draw 500 likes and engagements in a single day. However each new submit retains your occasion on the high of the search outcomes each time somebody appears to be like for the hashtag.

Social media can be an important place to start contests and prizes to create pleasure. You’ll be able to even use Re-posts on X and different social shares as methods folks can enter, drumming up much more engagement out of your viewers.

Within the instance above, an occasion for Ukraine Support reveals off create social posts:

• Inspiring, high-contrast visuals to attract the attention
• Important data: who, when, the place, what, and why
• Hashtags like #PossibleWithU assist improve the visibility.

Ideas for constructing urgency when it’s crunch time

Now we enter the third act of your marketing campaign: the climax. 

It’s crunch time.

Your software for constructing urgency right here ought to be to play on shortage. Shortage is straightforward: the much less of one thing there may be, the extra folks will need it. 

Shortage is a pure match for occasion e mail advertising as a result of an occasion is inherently scarce. It solely occurs as soon as. And chances are high, there are all types of alternatives to focus on shortage:

• You could solely have a specific amount of on-line visitors
• There are solely a sure variety of seats or areas
• A venue could have a most capability
• If the occasion is simply occurring as soon as, your viewers may miss it
• A restricted variety of VIP spots

That latter level is essential. Creating “VIP tickets” might be an effective way to encourage new sign-ups once you’re nonetheless within the “Drip marketing campaign” part of the general marketing campaign.

For instance, “Withings” watches as soon as created a Cyber Monday sale with the next headline:

“Tomorrow is simply too late.”

It’s an prompt eye-grabber. 

Why is tomorrow too late? If I take motion now, am I one of many fortunate few?

For those who don’t have particular VIP affords, you’ll be able to construct urgency with distinctive incentives. Possibly time is operating out on a prize contest. Possibly there are solely so many prizes you may give out on the door.

These incentives are significantly helpful in the event you’re approaching the occasion date and nonetheless don’t have sufficient signups. Some clients could want one remaining nudge earlier than they decide to your occasion.

Forms of occasion emails (with examples)

Utilizing story construction, you must break up your occasion emails into three main classes:

• The announcement is the inciting incident: you need to shock folks, pull them out of their lull, and inform them what they will get by attending your occasion.
• The drip marketing campaign emails are the lengthy second act: slowly construct urgency, reveal new solutions (comparable to thriller visitors), and remind folks of what’s coming.
• The pleasure emails might be your large climax: constructing urgency for the occasion.

Announcement emails

XXIX’s ten-year occasion announcement e mail begins with a enjoyable “incitement” sentence: Unsubscribe in the event you don’t like events.

Properly, all of us like events. Now they’ve our consideration.

Listed below are the keys to this announcement e mail’s success:

• A gap sentence that challenges the reader and creates a little bit of a curiosity hole. Don’t inform me I don’t like events!
• It will get the announcement out early by mentioning a key milestone: XXIX turning 10 years outdated. There’s the reply to your “why.” It additionally makes the occasion date slightly simpler to recollect. 
• The e-mail offers particulars immediately so people who find themselves already can begin saving the date and placing the handle of their calendars. Sure, it’s good to create intrigue, however you don’t need to be mysterious in regards to the logistics.

Right here’s one other instance, from TwitchCon:

With the arrogance of “you’re going to be there,” this announcement e mail will get straight to the purpose:

• It explains why you’d need to attend TwitchCon in Paris: “Get able to rejoice all of the stuff that makes Twitch particular.” And it solutions one other “W” query by explaining who might be there.
• It makes use of social proof with particular faces and usernames of common streamers. This instantly attracts the curiosity of those streamers’ followers.

Drip marketing campaign emails

Bloomreach makes use of particular particulars to attract your curiosity. For those who’re a part of their viewers, there’s likelihood you’ll discover one thing at this occasion you’ll like.

• This e mail for Bloomreach re-invites folks by mentioning the precise occasion particulars they need to know. Nevertheless it doesn’t have the large “splash” of a launch e mail. As a substitute, it tackles the meat and potatoes of the explanations to attend the occasion, together with particular subjects and audio system.
• Contains fundamental particulars about when the occasion is, together with an above-the-fold call-to-action for people who find themselves instantly .

Now let’s have a look at an identical instance from a 2023 convention from Maze:

Keys to success:

• Discover the time right here, a enjoyable, urgency-building transition to the ultimate leg of the marketing campaign. 
• The e-mail nonetheless highlights what the enjoyable of the occasion is likely to be: “Be a part of on-line on September 19 for X, Y, and Z.”
• The e-mail mentions the DJ leisure whereas discussing particular audio system on the occasion, providing you with extra causes to hitch in.
• It finishes off with a powerful name to motion: registering totally free.

Pleasure emails

It is nearly time! ⏰ We’re again tomorrow for G2E 2022.

Observe alongside on our pages this week, October 10-13, as we share highlights from the present. It’s not too late to register: https://t.co/WolNcdnYIY pic.twitter.com/ZqgBUO69EM

— World Gaming Expo (@G2Eshows) October 9, 2022

Though not an e mail, this tweet with an animated “timer” builds urgency and anticipation by letting you watch the seconds tick away.

• Discover the road “it’s not too late to register,” together with a powerful CTA. It could be a tweet, nevertheless it reads like an e mail.
• The animation highlights how rapidly time is passing, which builds urgency—even when it’s unconscious.

Sundance’s upcoming 2024 movie pageant makes use of some related ideas:

This e mail for the Sundance Movie Competition doesn’t go off-brand with last-minute contests and prizes. Nevertheless it does spotlight {that a} “countdown” is starting:

• The e-mail builds urgency by highlighting that the lodging is promoting “quick.” Even when folks assume they’ve loads of time left to register, there are different parts of logistics you should utilize to construct shortage.
• The e-mail consists of particular occasion particulars, which is crucial at this stage of occasion advertising emails.
• Lastly, the e-mail features a new provide that may assist nudge individuals who had been on the fence about attending.

Construct an occasion e mail advertising marketing campaign

An occasion e mail advertising marketing campaign remains to be like different campaigns you’ve tried. It ought to have a selected touchdown web page, populated with all types of data. You need to use buyer segments to personalize your messaging.

What’s completely different? Each occasion is a narrative with a starting, a center, and an finish—a climax that culminates within the occasion itself. For those who can construct urgency as much as the top, you’ll have a profitable marketing campaign.

Nevertheless it all begins with a succesful e mail platform. An e mail platform that enables for efficient person tagging, buyer segmentation, and automatic drip campaigns to assist construct pleasure.
Don’t have an account with AWeber simply but? Join free right now. In spite of everything, the clock in your subsequent occasion is ticking.