(Event invitations) How to automate the registering and reminders for event-registrations? Print

Whenever you have a meeting or an event for many people set on a fixed date in the future, you're likely getting stressed, and therefore will be less focused on how to get the attendees to register for the event, and to remind them to come when you get closer to the actual event date.

This is how you can easily automate the whole process with just a bit of planning when you set up the event.

Let's assume you have an event planned on the 30th, and that you are now on the 1st so about four weeks away. For this you will need a minimum requirement of an Otto Light that you will find here.

Steps to take:

1. Create a List(L) with names and e-mail addresses to send invitations to, and upload it into Otto. You can call the list just "L" or "Invited to the Event".
2. Create a Sequence(S) to add subscribers to the event that you can call just "S" or "Registered for the event".
3. When you've created your sequence, you'll likely want to create two Events in the sequence:
   1. one Message to the one who signed up that will be sent directly confirming that their application is received, and including the time, date and place for the event.
   2. one Notification to staff about the subscriber to state e.g. if they want vegetarian food.
4. Now, set up the event registration using the Form Builder to register contacts for the event on your web-page. Feel free to contact us for any special case you need, here, we're glad to help!
5. Then write e.g. these 3 e-mails under the Otto menu-item Newsletters at different times up until the meeting itself:
   
   1. Firstly, the invitation to be sent to the list (L) e.g. 3 weeks before the event
   2. Secondly, a reminder to be sent to the ones who have not yet registered for your event. So to the list (L), but not to the ones who have already registered within the sequence (S). You can set this to go out two weeks before the event, i.e. you send it to (L) and filter (S) out.
   3. Remind the attendees e.g. one day before, which means you send this e-mail just to the subscribers of the sequence (S) only. (This might feel weird considering that when you created this newsletter to be sent to the sequence (S), it would have likely been empty at the time of setting it up). Hopefully, it will not when the reminder will go out, though, so then it will go to all who are registered, which is what you want.

(If you want to do even more advanced things such as only sending reminders to people who for sure have actively shown interest by clicking a link, you can do that, too)

Good luck with your event!

So, how do I get started?

Contact us to get your own copy of Otto today if you don't already have one!