E-mail has become an invaluable tool today for communication. In particular for those who organize and promote parties, concerts, music festivals, and other events, e-mails ensure that invitations and other information on these events are sent at a much quicker pace and get to reach more people. But the technology is just part of the equation for a successful event. As far as emails go, one must make sure that those invites sent actually reach the eyes of their intended recipients.
That part, admittedly, poses quite a challenge. Sometimes, invites fail to reach their intended recipients due to factors like the e-mail being detected as spam or unfortunately getting buried in the many e-mails the recipient gets in a day. There is also the question as to how often should event organizers and promoters send e-mails in the first place. Sending too many e-mails annoys recipients and will result in a spam block versus the sender. Meanwhile, sending fewer e-mails run the risk of reduced engagement that leads to lower attendance.
These questions have been addressed recently by Eventbrite in its first Event Email Benchmarking Report. Gathering input from the survey responses of over 340 event organizers in the U.S. and U.K., this report seeks to provide event organizers and promoters an idea on how to improve their communication for these events and ensure their success. If you’re an event organizer or promoter, read on and learn from these invaluable insights.
It is interesting to note in the report that organizers in the U.S. and U.K. are sending less than two e-mails a week on average. This means recipients always receive a regular weekly e-mail from the organizers, as well as an occasional second e-mail if necessary. Based on this and other data, the report offers a few tips on email frequency:
Knowing the best day of the week to send emails to your audience can dramatically improve your engagement with them. Determining what day may be though will depend on your audience’s preferences. For instance, music venue promoters who usually send out last-minute invites find sending weekend emails to be highly effective. Other organizers who send out regular e-mails prefer sending them on a weekday. This too varies as U.K. respondents tend to send regular emails on a Tuesday while U.S. respondents prefer a Wednesday.
But if you still don’t know where to start, start with sending e-mails on a Tuesday, which studies indicate as the best day to send. If you send two e-mails in a week, the same studies say that you send those second emails on a Thursday. While it may not be the case for your audience, it’s still a good place to start and you can make adjustments along the way.
Once you have determined the day(s) to send those regular e-mails, make sure to do some “tests”. For a certain period, stick to a specific schedule in sending e-mails then set another schedule for the next period. Make sure to measure the metrics to see which of the schedules you’ve tried performs best in engagement. Keep tweaking on the schedule if needed until you achieve the best results possible.
The secret to effective e-mail communication for events is not just about sending invites to hundreds or thousands of people. It is about knowing the best practices and techniques and applying them to your communication thrust. With a wide network to tap and sound email strategies in place, you can be sure that your event will be a successful one.
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