Thank you so much for being here today.
I am really excited to talk to you.
I know it is coming up on event season,
and you are probably getting ready for that.
So today, we're gonna look at some very high level tactics for putting
together effective event registration,
pages and processes and,
some elements that you can add to those pages to,
make them really compelling.
So before we get started, I'm gonna do a quick introduction.
My name is Abby, and I am part of the team here at Neon One.
I've been in the nonprofit tech industry for a little over
eleven years now, which is wild to say,
and I am really interested in understanding what people
actually want from the nonprofits they support and
what they are looking for when they're doing things,
like filling out forms for making donations or signing up for events.
So before we get started,. I wanna ask you a question.
So I want you to drop in the chat how comfortable you are
with building event registration pages that give
your community a really great registration experience.
So on a scale from the I have no idea what I'm doing
dog to, I know more than you,
and I don't actually need to be here today.
How do you feel? And drop your answer in the chat.
This is always one of my favorite things because I get
to I get to feel out kind of where everyone is.
No idea. No idea. I've never done this before.
Somewhere in between.
Okay. Great.
You guys are all over the place.
We're gonna cover some some beginner tactics.
So we're we're gonna look at some high level things that you can do.
Regardless of where you fall on that scale,
this is a handy checklist that either you or someone at your
organization may find helpful.
I'm gonna drop this in the chat too. Copy that. Put it in here.
Okay. So this is also gonna be available to you tomorrow.
We're gonna send a, a follow-up email.
I'm gonna send you a link to the recording,
and this will be on that same page.
So if you've never done this before,
if you're a volunteer and you're just getting started,
if you are planning your first event,
we this will be helpful for you.
If you're super experienced,
this can just be a great gut check,
because I plan all kinds of online events like this
webinar, and I make some mistakes,
as I'm doing it.
So I also have a checklist very similar to this. Okay.
So
one question that you may have,
if you've never done this before,
is when when I'm creating an event registration page,
does the experience actually matter?
Aren't people who want to go to my event just gonna sign up
anyway regardless of the registration process?
And the answer, unfortunately, is no. Not necessarily.
Now as a matter of fact,
when I I did a little research into this,
and I found that around twelve and a half percent of people
who land on a an event registration page actually go on to register.
Now that percentage may be a little different for you.
That percentage is not for nonprofits specifically.
That registration percentage is for all events.
So yours may be a little higher,
especially if you've got a really engaged community.
It also may be a little higher if you have done a really great
job marketing your event,
if people know what it is and know what they're getting into
and are excited about what you've been planning.
So yours may be higher than this,
but what this does tell us is that a lot of people who land
on event registration pages aren't actually ready to to go
about signing up.
So,
oh, Zoom just did something very, weird.
So hope that didn't show up on your end.
Okay.
So not everyone who lands on your event registration page
knows about your event.
They may not have yet decided to attend, and even someone
who has decided to get involved,
has decided to attend,
they may be looking for some more information.
People who land on your event page are going to be looking to
understand what to expect, what's
involved, whether they wanna show up or not.
Oh, thank you, Jonathan,
for for the reassurance that you guys didn't see that word
blip that Zoom just said.
So people who are gonna land on your page are looking for information.
They may have decided to attend.
They may not yet have decided to attend.
If you give them a great experience on your form, on your page,
they are going to have a positive impression of your event.
They're going to be more likely to want to attend and want to participate.
If they are buying tickets to a workshop or if they're signing
up for your gala and the process is clunky or confusing,
they may choose not to to engage at all.
So today, we're gonna cover some basic steps you can take to give
people a good experience and to set a positive tone for future
interactions, including the ones you have with them at,
at your event.
So the first thing you wanna do is use your event registration
page to get people excited about the event that you're planning.
And while you're doing that,
you wanted to combine practical elements,
like details about when and where your event is taking place,
and maybe some even some information around what people can expect.
We'll get into that in a minute.
With copy, that makes your event sound like something the people who
are looking at your page absolutely do not wanna miss.
So here here's some some ways this can look.
So and this is an event I created.
These two screenshots are a snapshot of the event that I,
as a nonprofit organ event organizer,
am gonna put on my website.
So, this here right here,
this little snippet is where. I'm gonna this will show up on
my events page, and then this will actually be, like,
my full event registration page.
You'll notice because of the bobbing arrows that I have
included some some key elements here.
In both places, the date, time, and location are all
immediately visible.
So you don't even have to you don't have to try to suss that out.
We know exactly when, where,
and at what time this is happening.
On the event registration page itself,
there's even a map I can look at to get an idea of where
exactly the event is taking place.
And I can hear you thinking,. Abby, isn't this kind of obvious?
And the answer is yes, but you would be amazed at how
easy it is to forget these details.
I nearly did it myself.
I wrote the event registration page copy would know when this
event was
taking
would know when this event was taking place.
So it's very easy to forget
because it is so obvious,
and that is why I am emphasizing this here.
It's why it's on the checklist that I just shared with you.
Double check or have someone else double check that this is
included because it's very easy to forget.
I do it all the time.
Another thing you wanna do is use your event registration
page to help people understand what they should expect when
they participate in your event.
You don't have to go into super minute detail here.
You don't have to share a detailed agenda or schedule if
you don't want to,
but you should try to give people enough information that
they can make an educated decision about whether or not
your event is right for them.
This is an example.
So in this instance,. I've set up a a tour.
It's a Florida native plant tour.
I'm an avid hiker, which is why I've chosen this.
But what I've added,
I've told people in the copy that it's a three mile hike,
and I've let them know that there is a catered lunch available.
So we'll see that in the in the tickets, but,
I've told them that that it's a hike.
They're gonna see some plants.
It's a guided hike, and there's going to be a lunch provided.
Now I if you hate walking, you're probably not gonna sign
up to attend this.
If you hate walking and. I hadn't included this
information in my event in details,
and you show up, and I tell you that this isn't just a
cute tour through a garden.
This is a three mile hike.
You're probably gonna be really irritated with me,
and you're gonna be. I'm gonna if I'm staff,
I'm gonna have to refund your ticket,
and it's gonna be a thing.
So give people some information about what they will what they
will experience at your event.
If you're having a gathering,
are you gonna have just hors d'oeuvres?
Are they gonna be light hors d'oeuvres or heavy hors d'oeuvres?
Are you gonna have a full dinner?
If you're hosting a class,
are you going to provide the materials?
Do students need to bring their own?
If you're having an event,
is it going to be indoors or outdoors?
If it's outdoors and it's hot I live in Florida,
so this is top of mind for me.
Are you going to have cooling stations available?
So these kinds of details can be
worked into copy in a way that is engaging,
but in a way that sets expectations and lets people
make the decision that's right for them.
So let people know what to expect.
And as you are writing that copy and setting
expectations, it's really easy to create copy that just reads
like a series of bullet points.
And that's better than nothing.
We would rather have just bullet points than nothing.
But I would encourage you to add a little flare to your copy
to get people really excited about your event and what
they're going to experience.
And then if you can, based on the system you're using,
add an image or two to really drive home how special your
event is gonna be.
So your goal here is to present event details in a
way that gets people to experience a little bit of
FOMO.
You they really don't wanna miss out after reading this copy.
So here's my example.
In my plant tour,
I talk about the fact that we're having this this hike,
during peak wildflower season.
I mentioned that the three mile hike is going to include
hundreds of blooms.
The picture I chose reiterates that messaging.
So I'm sharing event details here, but I'm also
using colorful enough language that people are kind of getting
a feel for how exciting this is getting.
They're not gonna wanna miss out on hiking during peak
wildflower season.
Okay. Here's an example of something different.
If you're running a gala,
something like a wildflower tour may not be that exciting to you.
This is using another system.
This is using Neon One's legacy event system.
So this looks totally different.
This looks very different, but from this page,
all of the elements are here.
Someone can see pricing options.
There's copy that helps them understand what my gala includes.
They can tell it's a conservation focused evening.
It's taking place on the beach.
There'll be drinks and dancing.
There there's copy around what the dinner is gonna be like,
and there is language there that include or that mentions
that there's going to be,
an auction and some some programming too.
So I'm look.
I'm seeing a couple of questions in the chat.
Are you planning to go over how to create events with
registration links and donation forms,
how to tie this all together?
Are we talking about capturing custom data, like age, race,
gender, etcetera?
Are we talking about legacy or next generation events?
So two things.
So one, I'm showing examples from Neon One.
So this is an example of a legacy event.
This is an example of a, next generation event.
But the goal here because there are a lot of people here who
are attending that are not Neon One clients.
All of these tactics are meant to be applicable
to,
to capture all these things,
based on the the system that you're using.
If you're using. Neon's legacy events,
you may you may do some of these tactics differently.
If you're using next gen events,
you may be using some of these tactics differently.
But the goal is not to go into necessarily
the nitty gritty on setting these up in Neon CRM.
The goal is just to give some high level tactics that you can
use to make a compelling event page,
regardless of the system you're using.
So,
let's focus on the high level tactics,
and I will drop some comments kind of at the end that points you to,
support documentation and examples that you can use for
your events if you are a Neon One user.
Okay.
So having all of these elements on your page,
regardless of the system you're using,
Neon CRM or something else,
we'll make people more excited about registering for your event.
So your next job,
once you've gotten them excited about registering,
is to make sure that registering is very easy to do.
And that's really important.
A frustrating or confusing registration process can give
people a bad impression about your event,
and it may even deter them from registering altogether.
So that said,
as you are building out your registration process, again,
regardless of the system you're using,
here are some steps you can take to make sure that signing
up is really easy.
So if you are running a series of events,
and we know that a lot of people do this.
If you are running a series of workshops or a series of
classes, or if you have multiple locations,
if you are a chapter based organization, maybe an AFP,
and you have multiple different meeting spots,
it's important that you make it easy for someone to identify
desired time.
This may or may not apply to the event you are currently working on.
This is something that frequently comes up for
organizations that run classes,
especially if they're membership based organizations.
This is something that you may or may not wanna do.
So if you do have multiple ticket options,
so you've helped them choose the right date,
you've helped them choose the right location.
Some people also have multiple ticket options.
So in this case, I've built out a wildflower,
bouquet workshop.
I have two ticket options available.
Make sure those ticket options are clearly labeled,
and make sure it's very easy for someone to understand which
ticket option is right for them.
When you do this, two things will happen.
You'll make their registration process smoother,
and then you will save yourself some work because you won't
have to deal with refunding people's registrations
or updating them manually or, or handling, those edits.
So make sure if you have multiple ticket options available,
you're very clear about what they are and what they include.
Another thing that we see is very popular.
A lot of people really like using promo codes.
So if you create promo codes that you send out to your community,
you want to make sure that it's very easy for people to
understand where to enter those promo codes.
These codes are fantastic tools.
You can send them to different groups of people.
Volunteers are a great option if you wanna,
incentivize volunteering.
That's really handy.
If you have a membership program, you may have,
as part of a membership perk package,
you may have discounts on events.
That's a really great, use case for a promo code.
You can send them to monthly donors.
There are all kinds of ways that you can use them.
But even the most compelling promo code is useless if
someone cannot figure out how to use it.
So this act this is an example.
This actually happened to me the other day.
I had a coupon code for an online retailer.
I went to their website.
I went to go make my purchase,
but they made it so difficult for me to enter my coupon code
that I left without making my purchase at all.
So if you are a membership organization,
your members get twenty five percent off events.
They get their their promo code,
but they don't know where to enter it in the registration process.
You it doesn't. They're not gonna attend.
They won't sign up. So you don't want that to happen.
Make sure people understand how to use the promo codes you give them.
Now some of you may or may not be using printed tickets.
If you are using printed tickets for an event,
an important part of the registration process is telling
people how they can retrieve those tickets.
So make it easy if you are using tickets to
save and print and retrieve those tickets.
This gives people a great experience, but, again,
it's good for you too.
Checking in your ticketed guests will be much easier if
you and your staff and your volunteers don't have to
manually hunt through your registration looking for them.
Alright.
Allen, well, I'll say this to you, and
I'll show you an example of this in a minute.
If you are asking for additional information and that
information is necessary for your event to go off without a hitch,
you can generally use custom fields to collect that
information, again, regardless of the system that you're using.
All of the examples here that I'm showing you are from Neon systems,
but these best practices are applicable to everyone
regardless of what you're using.
As a general rule, though, again,
regardless of the system you're using,
your form conversion rates,
the rate at which people actually complete the
registration process,
will be highest if you ask as few additional questions as possible.
Asking a ton of extra questions during the registration process
can turn people off from attending.
So here's an example of the kind of information you may
actually need to collect.
So,
I am going to have food at my gala.
I need to know if any of my guests have food allergies or
other dietary restrictions.
So I've included a space for them to tell me about that.
This is an excellent example of the kind of information that
you might absolutely have to collect during an a
registration process.
Examples and for information you might want but not
necessarily need include things like,
how did you hear about this event?
What other kinds of events would you be interested in attending?
So when you are creating your form,
when you're putting together questions to ask your
registrants, focus on keeping it to the absolute minimum.
If you are interested in collecting other information,
you can always follow-up with your registrants after they
sign up, or you can follow-up with them at the event itself.
You can also send post event surveys if you want more details.
Alright.
So, again,
there are a lot of Neon One users in here who are asking
very specific questions about the step by step processes for
doing some of these things.
And I will point you to some resources at the end.
I'll drop some links in the chat, but this is for everyone.
So if you're not using Neon CRM, this is applicable to you too.
So just to recap, here are some highlights for for best
practices for event registration forms.
You wanna collect any necessary information,
but you don't wanna include more fields than you need.
You can allow additional donations if it's appropriate for the event,
but you shouldn't require people to make a donation,
during the registration process.
You can create promo codes for different groups of people.
It's a really great retention tactic.
It's really useful if you're a membership organization.
But you don't wanna make those promo codes very long or
difficult to remember,
and you do wanna make them very easy to use.
Alright. So this all sounds great.
Again, high level tactics.
The next step that you wanna do,
it sounds like it's kind of after the registration process,
but part of the registration experience is how you follow-up
with the peoples who have signed up for your events.
So you can get the most out of your event by fall sending
maybe four different kinds of communications and choosing
which ones may be best for you.
So you'll wanna send a confirmation email.
This is something that, again,
regardless of the system you're using,
you should be able to configure very easily.
You set up your event,
and then you set up the confirmation email that goes
out after someone registers for your event.
This is an example of what that might look like.
This, again, comes from the Neon CRM, system.
This is our next generation event.
I have gotten my follow-up email.
I have the opportunity to, view my receipt and view my tickets.
You can also send reminder inform reminder emails.
So in this instance, I am choosing to send out an
automated reminder two days before my event.
If you are using a different system, what you can do instead
is download your list of event registrants,
add it to your email list,
create a special email list for them,
and then use that list to send out reminders if you can't
automate them this way.
Another step that you may wanna do is send out,
important updates through email and text.
I will say if you decide to use text messages,
you wanna be very choosy about when and how you send event
reminders and updates.
Text messages have really great open rates that are much higher than email.
However, if you are sending an update and it's not really
necessary or if you're over communicating via text,
people will unsubscribe from you very quickly.
So this is an example of an email, or not an email.
This is an example of a text message that,
I am going to send out.
There is a poor weather outlook, so I'm sending a text
message to my event registrant saying, hey.
We're going to be meeting at the picnic shelter instead of outside.
Please bring a raincoat.
So you might wanna consider doing this.
This is again, text messages are best for very urgent,
timely messages.
Emails are probably more appropriate for general updates.
We also may want to send post event emails.
Again, this is going to the the tactic that you agree or
the tactic that you use is going to change,
based on the system that you're using.
In this instance, again, this is a screenshot from Neon CRM,
but this is applicable to you regardless of what you're using.
I have pulled together a list of people who registered for my gala.
I am sending them a post gala email.
And I, because I have done this, I am able to send a very
targeted email only to people who attended.
Now here are some general best
practices for communicating with people.
You do want to communicate. You don't wanna overcommunicate.
If you have ever signed up for a, I don't know, text
message updates or something and you're getting a text
message two or three times a day,
you know how irritating it can be to be overcommunicated with.
So don't overdo your communications.
Make sure you follow-up.
Feel free to send a reminder or two,
but don't spam your event registrants,
with too much messaging.
That means if you really have a very timely update,
a change in venue, a change in weather,
the parking situation has changed.
Those are excellent candidates for updates,
but you don't just wanna send those messages,
for the heck of it.
After your after your event,
you do wanna thank your registrants.
You may even want to specifically thank people who
registered and attended versus registered and did not attend.
But when this has happened to me recently,
which is why I included this here,
don't send a FASC.
If you have heard, the word FASC,
it is when you are including an ask in your thank you,
and it makes your thank you come off as rather insincere.
So as you're thanking your event registrants after the
event, focus on thanking them, communicating their impact,
reliving how wonderful your event was.
Do not ask them to make us another gift.
And then when you have a list of people who have registered
for your event, use that list to send targeted invitations
to future events you think they may find fun.
But do not only send that list communications about events and events only,
especially because the people on that list are probably
engaging with you in other ways.
You want to make sure that they receive information that lets
them know that you,
personally recognize that they signed up and participated in your event,
but you don't wanna make them feel pigeonholed as only
someone in your system that attends events.
Now I have been keeping an eye on the chat,
and you all have been, talking a lot.
So, I am going to put this up here,
and then I'm gonna answer some questions.
So a lot of you are using Neon CRM,
and you have very specific questions about how to apply
these tactics in Neon CRM.
I am going to leave this up here for a moment.
So I was going to invite you all to Generosity Exchange.
It is our annual conference.
It's all virtual.
And if you are a Neon CRM user and you would like to attend
some sessions that are very targeted toward you and not as
focused on high level tactics as today's session are,
we are going to have a whole host of sessions that are
focused on Neon CRM.
So I'm gonna leave this up here.
I'm going to move this over here,
and I'm gonna drop some resources for you,
in the chat that you can use if you are looking for
information specifically about how to use Neon CRM and its events modules.
Alright.
Okay.
I'm going to drop in here.
So I'm dropping in here.
This is a general link.
This is a link to
support.neonone.com.
This is where you can go to look up everything.
So as I was building these slides, I also was learning
the events modules as I built this and getting a refresher on
some of these best practices.
I extensively use this documentation to help me, build,
these events.
So I'm gonna drop a note in here.
This is specifically about creating legacy events.
Let's see. I'm gonna pull oh, here's a good one for you all.
Here is an article that explains the differences
between legacy and next generation events.
That will I know I saw some questions from you all about,
like, when to use which system.
That that will be helpful for you.
And then let me find
exclamation events.
Oh, here.
Here is some documentation for next generation events specifically.
Now
okay.
I see some specific questions that will apply to everyone
regardless of the system they're using.
So I see one around,
promo codes.
So,
actually, good.
I saw a lot of comments from people who thought this would
be a how to for setting up pages.
I'm glad that you that this was okay, that we focused on best
practices more than specific how to's.
And what I'll do, if you are a. Neon Events user, I will let my
team know that there is demand for the it's very specific how to processes.
But if you joined this session knowing that it was gonna be a
high level best practices session, Thank you,
for being here, and I hope this was helpful for you too.
And I wanted to answer, a question that I got
about promo codes.
So it kind of alluded to there being promo codes that,
take the whole thing, make it free,
promo codes that kind of do different things.
So, generally and I've seen this in every
kind of event system, including Neon CRM,
and, I've also used event systems from other platforms.
There is usually usually have two options when
you're setting up a promo code.
You usually have the ability to set a, like, a defined
amount off, so five dollars off your registration.
There's also usually the opportunity to set a percentage off.
So if you are creating a promo code,
you may wanna have, for example,
five dollars off your registration,
if you sign up before a specific date.
Do that.
If you are a membership organization, just as an
example, my art museum does this.
If you're a member, you get twenty percent off,
any of your events.
What you can do is you can create a specific promo code
that is a percentage off instead of a flat fee.
Other options may be and this is something that we see more.
Do it a few different ways.
If you want to have a promo code where you just it's a
hundred percent off,
I did this actually with an event recently.
I was a a speaker at this event,
so they gave me a promo code that was a hundred percent off.
You can do that.
You may also be able to, depending on the system that you're using,
be able to set up a package that is a zero dollar package,
but make it hidden and just send people a direct link to that.
Jeanette also added this is a great point, Jeanette.
There is Neon One Academy.
If you are looking it's I saw that some of you are Neon One users.
I have never done this before.
I'm gonna drop a link to Neon One Academy,
because there are classes or courses on how to do a lot of these things.
So it includes the best practices,
but it does also include some specific tactics,
that is applicable to everybody.
Okay. I hope you all got those links.
Let me scroll back through.
Oh, I saw an a question that was talking about and then this
will be the last one I do, I think.
Okay. So questions about how to text registrants.
If you are using Neon CRM, you
will be able to log in to your to your account,
look at the dashboard, and we have the ability now
to send text messages.
I will look for a support article for that too
and drop that in there.
Boop.
If you are using a different system
and you are looking for a way to text your your attendees,
you probably are going to need to use a kind of system that
lets you send mass text messages,
unless you are willing to copy and paste your text message,
on your in personal phone, to everybody who's registered.
What you can do, if you're using Neon CRM,
you can turn that on.
If you're using a different system,
you will have to manage that differently.
Here is a key point.
If you're going to text message your event registrants,
please make sure that they opt into receiving text messages
from you when you ask for their phone number.
The reason I say that is because, again,
regardless of the system you're using,
if you start texting people willy-nilly without them
knowing that you're going to do so, it will feel very spammy.
This actually happened to me recently.
I made a recurring donation to a nonprofit that I love.
I gave them my phone number.
I didn't necessarily opt into receiving texts,
and I was very startled when I got my first one.
So let people know, one, that they're opting in.
And then if you really want to,
give them an even better experience,
let them know why you want their phone number and what
kind of text you would send them.
So even something simple as saying, like, yes.
I'd like to receive event updates
checkbox.
That can be,
much more effective and a much better experience for people
than just asking for their phone number and sending them a
surprise text message.
Okay.
Two things.
If you attended this event, you're not using Neon CRM,
thank you so much for being here.
I hope these tactics, albeit high level ones,
are helpful for you as you build out your next event
registration page.
If you are here and you are a Neon CRM client, I
have dropped a bunch of links in the in the chat that talk
about the differences between next gen events and legacy
events, links to support documentation for texting.
I will let my team know,
that people are looking for this kind of information.
I am so sorry that I wasn't able to go in as deep detail
as as you would like.
I'll let my team know that they're look that you're
looking for this kind of information.
I will make sure that you receive support documentation
in the follow-up email.
I will go change that email right now to include those links.
And thank you all for being here with me.
I know that these high level tactics, may sound very simple,
but these very simple best practices can make a really big
impression on your event registrants and the way they
experience your event.
I will send you an email tomorrow morning.
It is currently scheduled for ten.
I'm gonna go add some links to it,
and I will talk to you very soon.
Thank you all so much.