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Do you want to level up your hybrid events email marketing campaigns? Sorry, a silly question!
Who doesn’t want to leverage this huge marketing channel in this going pandemic?
But, wait a minute! Do you know the altitude of emails sent and received per day?
Let us tell you- it exceeded 293 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow to more than 347 billion by the end of 2023.
Imagine, how many people will read your emails in jam-packed email inboxes?
And the only way to make your event marketing campaign a success is to stand out from the crowd. Yes, it is difficult but not impossible.
So, today we will discuss practical email marketing strategies along with easy-to-follow tips and tricks to get you higher open and click-through rates.
10 Best Hybrid Event Email Marketing Strategies
Fasten your seat belt because now you are ready to consume valuable information that will lead you to huge event marketing success.
Let’s go!
1. Be Crystal Clear About Your Target Audience
Defining your audience is the most crucial step of an email campaign.
Do you know why?
It is the base upon which the success of your email marketing relies.
Just imagine, you have sent an email to 1,000 random people and only received the desired response from one or two recipients. On the other hand, what about sending an email to 100 relevant people and receiving an overwhelming response?
Yes, the latter scenario has fewer recipients but a “relevant audience” has made this campaign successful.
Hence, at first, be clear about your audience. Instead of focusing on quantity, your focus should be on quality.
It is just like, you can’t expect to sell non-branded stuff to the elite class. Will you receive any response? Well, you are wise enough to understand.
So, define your market carefully. You must be aware of your potential audience before launching a campaign.
You might be thinking, where should I grab all these quality recipients?
You can achieve this by having a newsletter subscription on your website. It helps in garnering the email addresses of the potential audience.
Likewise, if you have conducted relevant events in the past then the email addresses of those attendees aren’t less than a gold mine for your event’s email marketing. As it is easy to sell to an audience already familiar with your brand.
Pro Tip:
If you are starting from scratch then work hard on building your subscribers list. Along with other hundred ways, offering a free invaluable digital gift in return to the email address works quite well.
2. Choose Campaign Timing Wisely
Let’s assume, you are all set to launch an amazing email marketing campaign just a few days before your hybrid event’s starting date.
Will it work effectively? “NO”
The reason is you need appropriate time to drive your audience’s attention and get reasonable registrations.
So, when should you start your email marketing campaign?
For hybrid events, launching your campaign 7-8 weeks before the event’s starting date is a wise move. It is a reasonable time frame to build buzz and keep your audience engaged till the end.
On the other hand, too short a period results in inadequate campaign reach – resulting in losing potential leads. Likewise, for longer time frames you might fail to keep your potential audience glued till the end.
Moreover, this time frame is also appropriate for attendees interested in joining hybrid events on-site. As they can plan their trip properly.
Wait, have you ever thought about days and perfect time slots as well?
Data shows that Tuesday is the best day to send emails.
Likewise, several studies prove the effectiveness of choosing an appropriate timing. Many find 10 am as a sweet spot because it has the highest opening rates.
Yet, email opening and replying are two different things.
If you are sending emails with intentions to get a response such as event registration, then you should send emails at relatively free slots of recipients.
It seems to be 8 pm – 12 am as the highest engagement occurs between this time slot.
3. Address Recipient’s Pain Points Instead of Bragging About Your Business
Remember, it isn’t about you, it is about them. Yes, read that again till it becomes part of your event’s email marketing strategy.
Your potential audience has no interest in knowing how much effort your business is putting into making this event successful. All they want to hear is “what will they get?”
So, wrap your all emails – informational, teaser, or action-oriented, around your audience benefits. Make these emails “buyer-centric”.
How can you do this?
Get into the shoes of your audience. Analyze their pain points and sufferings. Look out for their needs and wants.
Make your recipients understand that you understand their pain quite well and highlight what makes your event the “best solution.” Let them realize why they couldn’t afford to miss your event in the presence of hundreds of other ongoing workshops, events, and free content available online.
It drives us to another crucial point…
4. Practice Event Email Segmentation
The point to ponder is, do all of your potential audience have the same pain points, needs, and wants?
Most probably NOT!
So, can the same email bring an overwhelming response from all your recipients?
Not at all!
The solution here is to categorize your audience. In the formal language, we call it email segmentation.
You can categorize your audience based on their demographic, age, gender, income, profession, and more. Afterward, sending emails based on their interests will drive more engagement and conversions to your table.
Do you know the powerful tactic used in this regard? Well, it is…
5. Use Smart Content In Your Email Marketing Campaigns
How cool will it be to use content that dynamically updates based on the people who are seeing it?
Yes, smart content changes videos, images, and other content in your emails based on the person’s preferences.
For instance, if you are sending emails to different countries the same content will not work equally well for both citizens.
So, in order to add a touch of personalization, you should use smart content.
“72% of consumers reported they only engage with personalized messaging.”
SmarterHQ
In this regard, you can send images, use videos, write language or add offers that match precisely with recipients’ background and culture, etc.
Moreover, it is a powerful tactic to categorize your content based on device type and ad source.
6. Conduct A/B Testing
You must separate yourself from the email marketers who throw darts blindfolded by using A/B testing. Test your emails before sending them to the whole list.
How?
Like experienced email marketers, you should craft multiple versions of your email. Afterward, send them to a small portion of the subscriber’s list. The email version getting a good response should be your finalized email.
In this regard, you can play with different subject lines, preview text, visual content, and CTAs. (We will discuss all of them in detail in the later sections, keep reading.)
7. Leverage Reminder Emails
Make reminder emails part of your event strategy; it gives you an edge to boost your event registrations.
According to Splashthat, 70% of tickets are sold 2 weeks before the event’s starting date.
What does it take? Nothing much!
By only crafting time-sensitive email copy, you can convert a huge ratio of potential buyers into attendees.
In general, sending three reminders is good enough.
But, as we said earlier “it isn’t about you but them.” So, rather than begging for registrations, make your audience understand how getting enrolled in an event will be beneficial for them.
Moreover, don’t write long stories; instead, deliver your message clearly and concisely.
Pro Tip:
What if you get 30% off on the item you are highly interested in? Most probably, you will grab this offer instantly. The same is the case with an interested audience. Offering them a last-minute ticket flash sale can magnify conversions.
8. Send Follow Up Email
Don’t make the mistake of ending your email campaigns with reminder emails. Remember, now attendees have become familiar with your business, and retaining them can sky-rocket your revenue.
“Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer. Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.”
OutBoundEngine
But, wait! Will you only practice the age-old tactic of asking for feedback or you’ll include other things as well?
We recommend writing a ‘thank you’ message first; thank your participants for joining your event. You can also add visual content – event images and videos, to make them remember the good time they had with your business.
Pro Tip:
You might be thinking that follow-up emails should only be sent to the attendees. No, you should consider the other two categories as well, i.e.,
- People who were interested but couldn’t join due to some reason.
- Recipients who didn’t respond to your invitation.
And don’t forget that PERSONALIZATION is the key. Sending relevant emails based on the above-mentioned categorization is likely to generate better results.
9. Use Automated Email Marketing
Can you manually implement whatever we have discussed till now? Well, it is a daunting challenge. Here, automated email marketing is a breeze of calmness for you.
With automation, your email service provider (ESP) will send personalized emails based on the person’s actions. For example, when someone registers their email address, a welcome email will be automatically sent to them.
Moreover, you can make those emails more interesting based on registrants’ ticket type, location, and gender, etc.
Before you may start thinking, “Is this worth it?” A BIG YES.
Statistics show that automated emails get 119% higher click rates than non-automated ones.
Likewise, by using the drip emails strategy, your pre-written emails are dispatched on the determined time automatically. It keeps marketing streamlined.
Pro Tip:
You are using automation for your ease but don’t give it a boring or robotic feel. Craft engaging automated messages with a conversational tone. Recipients should feel that a live human being is talking to them, not a robot.
So far, we have discussed the “event email marketing strategies” that will keep your marketing efforts on the right track. Now, we are going to dive deep to make each marketing email stand out from the crowd!
10 Tips to Craft High-Converting Email Marketing Copy for Your Event
No matter how much value you are providing, you still need enticing subject lines, alluring preview text, and visually appealing content to grab your audience’s attention.
Thus, let’s learn the factors that can get you high open and click-through rates.
1. Craft Irresistible Subject Line
As they say, “The first impression is the last impression.”
Well, consider the subject line as your email’s first impression on the reader. It is the first thing they are going to read. So, make sure your subject line is extremely exciting.
There are multiple effective ways to craft interesting subject lines, such as:
Personalization: Yes, give your email a personalized touch right from the subject line. Adding the name of the recipient is an easy way to do it. Just imagine for a moment, what will be more effective? Calling someone “Oh boy!” or by their name? Indeed, by name.
State the Benefit Clearly: You should give a strong reason to the reader to open the email. It can be a captivating incentive, a huge discount offer, or a clear-cut solution to their problem.
Create Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): There is no harm in making your event marketing campaigns sound like “now or never.” Induce fear of missing out in the mind of the reader. It is one of the powerful emotions, so let’s cash it in positively.
Pro Tip:
Remember to make your subject lines interesting without sounding salesy. Likewise, don’t exaggerate your offerings and deliver what you promise.
Otherwise, clickbait subject lines may higher your open rates for the time being but it is detrimental for the long run. You can lose your audience interest – resulting in a heap of unsubscribers!
2. Leverage the Option of Preview Text
The subject line comes with a word limit. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to wrap up your message concisely in the subject line.
Here comes the role of preview text. Crafting a fascinating preview text enhances the email open rate.
What can you do to make your email’s preview text inviting?
- Highlight the most exciting aspect of your email here.
- Induce curiosity in the mind of your readers by asking interesting questions.
- Emphasize why opening the email is worth it.
3. Include Attractive Visual Aids in Your Emails
Gone are the days when emails contain simple text. Now, visual aids have become a necessary part of email marketing. So, along with crafting the action-oriented email text, you should add images, GIFs, and videos to keep your audience glued.
If you have added a video in the email then mentioning it in the subject line can increase open rates dramatically. As per Marketo, emails that use video content for direct CTAs are most likely to have a 53% higher click-through rate.
The same is the case with GIFs. They are observed to increase click rates by 22%.
We recommend adding visual aids at the top of the email. It delivers the message right away in a short period. Otherwise, on average readers spend 13 seconds reading an email. It means that without displaying visual content at the start, you are at high risk of losing user attention in a jiffy.
Pro Tip:
If you are a small business and don’t have an expert design team, then you can use free tools such as CANVA and GIPHY to design the visual content.
4. Understand and Cash Color Psychology
Experienced email copywriters know the importance of colors. It isn’t just confined to making your emails attractive but different colors trigger different emotions. For instance, red induces dominance, excitement, and energy. Whereas, yellow drives the emotions of creativity and happiness.
Moreover, use different colors for men and women audiences because certain colors attract men more than women and vice versa. For instance, men like darker tints of colors such as blue. On the flip side, women fall for lighter shades such as pink. You can use all this knowledge to make your email visual content charming.
5. Encourage Subscribers to Share the Email
You may have a few hundred subscribers but if they share your email on social media and among their social circle, it can help you reach thousands of other people. As a result, getting you to plenty of registrations organically. So, make your subscribers share your email in their social circle.
You can do this by offering the bulk-registrations discount or giving 5-10% off to the ones sharing emails on their social media profiles.
Moreover, don’t forget to add social media share links in your emails. You should add the link of all potential platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Linked In, etc.
6. Highlight the Contact Forms in Your Emails
You should make the contact process extremely easy for your audience. The simplest and effective way is to add contact forms in your event marketing emails.
You may think FAQ is enough but nothing can beat the power of real-time communication. Moreover, make sure to reply promptly to your recipients because it helps enhance leads. Otherwise, they might lose interest in your event because of not getting a timely response.
Pro Tip:
Your contact forms/links should be prominent so users don’t have trouble “searching” for them.
7. Make Your Email CTAs Clear and Bold
No matter how much open-rate your emails have got, it is of no use if readers aren’t taking the desired action. So, make sure that your CTA is appealing because CTAs’ visual appearance can make the reader take action.
Likewise, your CTA should be clear and prominent at first sight because you can’t expect the reader to deliberately lookout for a CTA.
Pro Tip:
We recommend using buttons instead of hyperlinks because of their better visual appearance and prominence. Moreover, buttons are likely to outperform hyperlinks by 33%.
8. Email Your Subscribers the Picture of Venue
For hybrid events email marketing, you should email the picture of the venue to your subscribers as well. The luxury and glamour of the venue will ignite curiosity in them. As a result, along with getting bookings for virtual slots, you will also get an overwhelming response for on-site event registrations.
Moreover, you can use backstage scenes and ongoing event preparations as a teaser to increase appeal.
9. Avoid Being Marked as a Spam
Nowadays 36% of email spam is related to marketing. Hence, don’t portray yourself as a fraud by sending emails to irrelevant users or non-subscribers.
Otherwise, the algorithm will block your email from reaching out to other inboxes as well. As a result, you will lose a huge chunk resulting in the event’s failed marketing.
10. Include Testimonials In Your Emails
People who haven’t attended your events already or don’t know about your quality services, need social proof. So, make sure to add a few testimonials to build trust and attract new attendees.
Also, make sure that testimonials are strong- that clearly show how your events added value in the client’s life. Your testimonials should be short, conversational, and effective.
Pro Tip:
If you have a well-reputed speaker on board then don’t forget to mention it in your emails. You can also ask them for collaboration. These combined marketing efforts will generate more leads and conversions.
To Wrap it Up
So, till now you have come all the way along with us while learning the tested and proven hybrid email marketing strategies and tactics. Remember that you don’t have to use all of them in a single email. Make sure that your emails are highly personalized that the reader could relate to. For this, you need to wisely implement the above-shared strategies to make your next hybrid event a huge success.
