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November/December, 2001 - Issue 8
Promote Your Holiday Event Online:
'Tis the Holiday Season'
By Gagan Kanwar
In a season when many groups are competing for attendees at their events, getting your message out quickly and promoting your event is critical to maximize participation. Moreover, the administration associated with sending out invitations and processing RSVPs can be time consuming and expensive.
Promoting your holiday event through an online calendar, offering ticket purchase options online, and sending out email invitations can be a great way to sell out your holiday event in rapid time, and reduce administration and mailing costs.
Promote Events in an Online Calendar
Posting an events calendar on your Web site will help to inform and remind supporters of upcoming activities.
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Convio EventsTM makes it easy for nonprofit professionals to create an online calendar of events. Events can be classified as general listings, events requiring an RSVP or ticketed events. Events can be categorized by interest topic, and constituents can select to see all events or a filtered set of events. Additionally, event planners can also create distinct calendar views for different constituent groups so each member sees a calendar unique to his profile. For example, if only major donors are eligible to sign up for a particular stewardship event, the nonprofit can customize its calendar such that only major donors can view that event.
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Build an Invitation List with No Duplicates
Convio Events enables organizations to build invitation lists based upon past events that are automatically filtered for duplicates so that multiple invitations are not sent out to the same constituent.
Send Personalized Email Invitations
Convio Events enables organizations to quickly promote an event through email. Organizations can select from a variety of predefined formatted email invitations that can be automatically personalized with constituent information including name, address, and last year's ticket purchase level. Because some recipients may not able to read rich format (HTML) messages, Convio sends out email invitations in both HTML and plain text format. Constituents can click on embedded links in the email and visit the Web site to find out how many seats are available per event, RSVP for events, and easily purchase tickets online. Additionally, event planners are able to practice permission marketing, by giving recipients the ability to "opt-out" or unsubscribe to communication from your organization.
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Make it Easy for Supporters to Sign Up, Buy Tickets
With Convio Events, organizations can create event registration or ticket purchase forms, allowing constituents to easily sign-up for events or buy tickets. Forms can be customized to gather valuable information about a constituent's preferences such as seating or dietary restrictions. Events coordinators can also create different ticket levels for special levels of membership, specify capacity and if necessary, limit event attendance.
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After registering or buying tickets online, constituents automatically receive a personalized confirmation e-mail that provides a tax receipt.
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Updates and Reminders
Convio Events allows event planners update event details with a few mouse clicks, and send out friendly email reminders. Constituents can also request an event reminder at a scheduled period before the event when they sign-up or purchase a ticket.
Track Results
With Convio Events, nonprofit organizations can constantly monitor the progress of event sign-up. In one click, planners can find out how many supporters have registered for events, how many tickets have been sold, the number of people needing baby-sitting services, and how many vegetarian meals have been requested. This constituent information is automatically stored in the organization's database, eliminating the need to do any double entry of data. Moreover, nonprofits can fine-tune their capacity and resources for events with information gathered from online interactions, well in advance of the event, and enable coordinators to prepare for events and plan for the future.
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