Email marketing may seem a fairly old school method of marketing your next event in a world full of messaging and social media channels. However, it’s still one of the most effective ways to get in front of your target audience and get results.  

Email marketing is one of the few ways you can build up an authentic connection with your audience to keep your event alive. It doesn’t need to be spam or come across as a personal note between friends. It has its own unique identity. Your audience won’t have given you their contact details lightly. If you manage to create the right tone, you’ll build up a relationship between you and your attendees and build a great profit creation tool. 

You can build on any existing relationships with your audience, subscribers, and leads by providing them with relevant and valuable information to help them with their ticket buying process. 

The most important thing to remember with email marketing is that it isn’t about you; it’s about your audience. 

If you always keep this rule in your head when writing your messages to your subscribers, they’ll not only be more likely to open your emails but will look forward to receiving your updates. 

How to get started 

Creating an email marketing campaign can be broken down into a few key steps.

1. Define your audience: If you want to create an effective email, it needs to be relevant. Like all marketing, you need to start with your buyer persona. Think about what your attendees and audience are looking for from you and tailor your message from there. 
2. Set your goals: There’s plenty of information out there about industry averages for setting goals for your campaign. You can set goals for open rates (where they open your email) or even click-through rates (if they click on a relevant link in your email). Once you’ve picked your goal, you’ll now have something to work towards. 
3. Create a way to sign-up: You’ll need to create an email list. If you need help doing this, or even if you’re starting from scratch, you can find out more details here. If you have an email list ready to go, you’ll still need to create several ways for new people to subscribe to your emails. Email lists can take a while to build up, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a huge amount of sign-ups straight away. Treat every subscriber like gold, and you’ll soon see your email list grow. 
4. Choose an email campaign type: There are many options you can choose from, whether you want to send out a weekly update or just announcements for your event. It’s best to have a campaign type in mind so you can plan out what you’re looking to share with your audience. 
5. Make a schedule: After selecting your campaign type, it’s important to put together a schedule of when you want to contact your audience. This will depend on the campaign type you’ve chosen. Inform your audience upfront about what to expect and stick to a consistent schedule, as this will help build trust and make sure they don’t forget about you! 
6. Measure your results: When marketing anything, you’ll also need to measure everything. This is how you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t. Keeping an eye on all these small details will ensure that you can make the most out of your efforts and see great results.

Build up that email list 

You can build up your email list in many creative ways – check out our previous blog here to build up your list effectively. Traditionally, there are two key ways to build up your email list: lead magnets and opt-in forms. 

• Lead magnets: A lead magnet is pretty much as it sounds. It attracts potential email subscribers to your email list, usually in the form of an offer. The offer can be anything relevant to your event and should be valuable to your audience. In recent years people have been increasingly protective over their personal information, so you’ll need to make sure your offer is super relevant and valuable, as their personal information is just as valuable to you. 

  Your lead magnet should be actionable, easy to consume, relevant to any future content you wish to publish, and a stepping stone to ticket purchase.
   

• Opt-in forms: Your opt-in form will need to be attention-grabbing if you’re looking to get your audience to give you their personal information. It’s the gate between you and your future leads and can be an incredible asset to your marketing toolkit. The form should be simple and set up to offer double confirmation of your intent to market to that person. Don’t set up too many fields to fill in – generally, just a name and email will be enough.

  Make sure the process flows. Take yourself through the experience several times, so you get a real feel for your users’ experience. This is one of the first impressions you’ll give your audience, so it’s important to make sure it’s a positive one.
  

Email marketing can be highly effective when done right, and we at Helm are here to help you through the process. In our next blog, we’ll be taking a look at best practice for email marketing, as well as the regulations you should follow. Keep up to date via our blog as well as on LinkedIn! 

Market your event via email more effectively with Helm Tickets