Occasion e-mail advertising and marketing: Tips on how to construct pleasure on your subsequent occasion

By Kaleigh Moore November 21, 2023

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

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

One of the best 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 and marketing was their choice. They reported 45% of their whole occasion ticket gross sales got here from e-mail advertising and marketing campaigns.

That makes occasion advertising and marketing easy, proper? Join an e-mail platform, tie in an occasion advertising and marketing 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 and marketing be just right for you, it’s essential study what it’s and the best way to use it. You’ll want announcement and drip marketing campaign emails to pump up pleasure nicely earlier than the occasion. And some examples to indicate the way it’s achieved received’t harm, both.

Let’s dive in.

What’s e-mail advertising and marketing for occasions?

Electronic mail occasion advertising and marketing is a newsletter-based technique for constructing urgency and a spotlight for an upcoming get-together. A very good e-mail occasion advertising and marketing technique has a couple of totally 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 the best way to get to your occasion
• Offering hyperlinks and particulars in case your occasion is web-based
• Answering questions concerning the occasion upfront. This creates much less confusion when the day lastly comes

These steps sound intuitive sufficient. However keep in mind: occasion e-mail advertising and marketing may be totally different than your typical e-mail advertising and marketing methods.

The standard technique could be to filter new potential clients to your lead magnet. The advantages you possibly can obtain from this technique can construct over time, for ever and ever.

Occasion e-mail advertising and marketing greatest practices

Electronic mail occasion advertising and marketing 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 must maintain 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 a very good e-mail advertising and marketing platform, you possibly can incorporate personalization options aplenty:

• Use a platform like AWeber to robotically enter every subscriber’s distinctive first identify
• Use subscriber segmentation and tag every consumer with a selected class so you possibly can 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 working towards good personalization habits and skipping these e-newsletter subscribers who won’t have an interest.

Buyer segmentation

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

Not when you needed anybody to indicate up.

With buyer segmentation options, you possibly can tag particular subscribers. Or you possibly can drill down even additional, separating subscribers by the sorts of occasions they could need to attend.

If in case you have a far-reaching viewers, for instance, you possibly can tag “NY-Occasions” for subscribers native to the New York space.

Segmentation ensures that you just 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 in the beginning of your e-mail.

Use buyer segmentation tags to make sure each e-mail feels related to each group you’re partaking. Your purpose? 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 the moment 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 bought most of your subscribers from on-line interactions. 

Now, with occasion e-mail advertising and marketing, you’re asking folks to begin seeing you as an actual individual. You’re asking to alter the context of your relationship, which requires a distinct model 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 have got 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 internet convention a couple of particular matter, discuss concerning the private circumstances that led to your discovery of that matter.

Tips on how to use e-mail advertising and marketing to spark curiosity in your occasion

Electronic mail advertising and marketing is like some other sort of selling. Besides this time, you need greater than a click on. 

You must inspire folks to show up, join, and even pay a hefty sum of money simply to get in.

These are large asks. If in case you have a younger e-newsletter subscriber base, they’re particularly large asks. You should still be in the midst 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 often a sequence of teases. They’ll launch footage from the set years prematurely. Or they’ll hype up a short “trailer tease” on YouTube.

Lastly, the complete trailers turn into blockbuster occasions themselves: generally they debut throughout halftime of Monday Night time Soccer.

The ultimate trailer. Tune in to Monday Night time Soccer on @ESPN to observe it dwell. #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 nicely prematurely 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 bought a couple of concepts for greatest practices on e-mail topic traces. Let’s do a short evaluate:

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

Then write down a listing of your greatest concepts for announcement topic traces. 

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

Likelihood is, that’s your winner.

Construct an occasion touchdown web page

True: an occasion just isn’t a static factor. It’ll come and go. Constructing a web site can really feel like overkill when you already know that is only a short-term marketing campaign.

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

Inside AWeber, you possibly can construct a selected touchdown web page with buyer tags. This manner, solely the e-newsletter subscribers who could be occasion attendees will get the segmented emails.

It’s also possible to use the touchdown web page as a chance to do a number of the legwork.

Any occasion goes to have Steadily Requested Questions:

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

You’ll seemingly repeat this info 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 needs them. 

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

Start capturing photos from the venue—or use inventory photos

When you’ve already booked a venue, use that venue’s current photos to make the occasion appear extra “actual.”

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

When you don’t have entry to these footage, you possibly can all the time select inventory footage, together with these related to the occasion’s metropolis, to assist construct anticipation.

Or ask visitors for headshots you possibly can embrace in your touchdown web page and emails.

Images are so necessary to our perceptions, they will even affect our recollections. The extra visible your marketing campaign will get, the extra “actual” it would 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 complicated 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 free 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 a protracted 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 components of an e-mail marketing campaign.

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

• “Unpeel the onion.” Like an awesome thriller author, solely unveil one clue at a time. Create intrigue by presenting photos, prizes, and different parts out of your occasion out of context. Preserve your viewers guessing, then slowly reveal what every layer of the onion means to the final word occasion.
• Give away the main points. No must be coy concerning the logistics of your occasion. As a substitute, permit folks so as to add occasions to their calendar—together with dates, instances, and internet 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 looks 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?

When you deal with your occasion e-mail advertising and marketing 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 a very good gross sales web page, it ought to anticipate—and reply—each buyer query beforehand.

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

Clarify what folks can count on 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 in, 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 info associated to your occasion.

All that’s left for the client is to ask themselves by coming into their e-mail deal with. From there, you possibly can tag them to a segmented e-mail listing and get them began in your drip marketing campaign.

Become involved on social media

Occasion e-mail advertising and marketing could also be one of the simplest ways to get folks to enroll, however you continue to want folks to find your emails within the first place. And social media may 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 needs to submit their publish, 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 have got industry-specific hashtags you should use. Individuals in your {industry}—who might already be searching for occasions—can discover your posts with a easy search.

And maintain at it. Perhaps your hashtag posts received’t draw 500 likes and engagements in a single day. However each new publish retains your occasion on the high of the search outcomes each time somebody appears for the hashtag.

Social media can be an awesome place to start contests and prizes to create pleasure. You possibly can 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 Help exhibits off the best way to create social posts:

• Inspiring, high-contrast visuals to attract the attention
• Important info: 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 instrument for constructing urgency right here must be to play on shortage. Shortage is easy: 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 and marketing 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 spotlight shortage:

• You could solely have a certain quantity of on-line visitors
• There are solely a sure variety of seats or areas
• A venue might have a most capability
• If the occasion is barely taking place as soon as, your viewers might miss it
• A restricted variety of VIP spots

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

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

“Tomorrow is just 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?

When you don’t have particular VIP gives, you possibly can construct urgency with distinctive incentives. Perhaps time is working out on a prize contest. Perhaps there are solely so many prizes you can provide out on the door.

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

Forms of occasion emails (with examples)

Utilizing story construction, you need to cut 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 (similar 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 celebration announcement e-mail begins with a enjoyable “incitement” sentence: Unsubscribe when you don’t like events.

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

Listed here 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 previous. There’s the reply to your “why.” It additionally makes the occasion date a bit simpler to recollect. 
• The e-mail offers particulars immediately so people who find themselves already can begin saving the date and placing the deal with of their calendars. Sure, it’s good to create intrigue, however you don’t need to be mysterious concerning 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 well-liked streamers. This instantly attracts the curiosity of those streamers’ followers.

Drip marketing campaign emails

Bloomreach makes use of particular particulars to attract your curiosity. When you’re a part of their viewers, there’s a very good probability you’ll discover one thing at this occasion you’ll like.

• This e-mail for Bloomreach re-invites folks by mentioning the particular occasion particulars they have to know. But it surely 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 matters 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 take a look at an analogous 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 could be: “Be 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, supplying you with extra causes to affix in.
• It finishes off with a powerful name to motion: registering free of charge.

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 shortly time is passing, which builds urgency—even when it’s unconscious.

Sundance’s upcoming 2024 movie competition makes use of some comparable rules:

This e-mail for the Sundance Movie Competition doesn’t go off-brand with last-minute contests and prizes. But it surely 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 use to construct shortage.
• The e-mail consists of particular occasion particulars, which is crucial at this stage of occasion advertising and marketing 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 and marketing marketing campaign

An occasion e-mail advertising and marketing 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 knowledge. It is best to use buyer segments to personalize your messaging.

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

But it surely all begins with a succesful e-mail platform. An e-mail platform that enables for efficient consumer 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.