Registration


As soon as your event strategy is in place, begin developing your event registration page. Create a document outlining all the details, such as content, page flow and technical issues and get approval before getting your programming or design staffs involved. Listed below are some of the required steps to follow when working on your event site:


Page Structure - Determine your site registration requirements and include the following pages at a minimum:


  • Information Page – This page should provide an event description, a bulleted list covering the event benefits and what attendees will learn, speaker pictures, bios and any incentives you are providing.
  • Registration Form – ONE PAGE only. Do not try to gather a lot of information from registrants, as you will only annoy them and possibly lose registrations. Keep in mind that the average conversion rate of visitors who view your registration page or site is 50 percent. Having more than one page of information to complete will lower your registration percentage significantly.
  • Thank You Page – A confirmation page that registrants see after the registration form is completed. Make sure this page is simple and straightforward. Thank them and inform them that they will receive an e-mail confirmation detailing the upcoming event.

Tracking and confirmations – Decide on how the data will be captured and assign a resource to monitor the process. Ideally, you should capture all event information in a database and the system should send automatic confirmation notes.


Home Page Promotion - Create a noticeable link from the Home page to drive visitors to the registration page. Don’t forget that this type of promotion is at NO COST to you, so always take advantage of opportunities such as this.


Review Registration Numbers – Throughout the marketing process, occasionally check your registration numbers. Evaluate which channels are working best. You may need to adjust your marketing strategy to meet your registration goals.


Registration Validation – In some circumstances, you may want to decline certain attendees, such as competitors and e-mail accounts with yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. Decide at the beginning of your planning process how you wish to deal with these registrations. You can simply ignore these individuals and not send the access information or inform them that the event has reached its capacity.