Tag: event technology

INFOGRAPHIC: The Power of Event Invitations

Posted on by Eventsforce

Regardless of whether you’re hosting a meeting, a networking event or a multi-day conference, we all know the importance of the event invite. It sets the tone of your event and is one of the first opportunities to make a good impression with potential attendees. It is also what convinces most people to take action and sign up.  But what are the latest trends around managing event invitations and how are event planners measuring success?

Research Study on Event Invitations

Last month, Eventsforce conducted a research study looking at what event planners are currently doing around event invites – and the results have been interesting.  The study – which was conducted with more than 100 senior event planners in the UK and the US – looks at key aspects around event invitations, including targeting, content and distribution. The findings also reveal what benchmarks and performance metrics organisations are using today when measuring the success of their event invites.

Key highlights include:

  • Only 23% of respondents are still using print invitations for their events – email is seen as the preferred format by 98% of organisations, followed by social media.
  • Almost 3 in 4 event planners are personalising invitations by using personal names in subject lines and creating specific content for different audiences.
  • Event highlights such as agenda and details on a keynote speaker, are more important than design and visuals when it comes to maximising registrations.
  • More than 90% of event planners send reminder emails after sending the first event invite, with 40% sending two reminders for each event.
  • Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings get the best results when sending out event invites. Almost a third of invitations get a 10% conversion rate.
  • Top 3 challenges of managing event invites include not getting enough people to click through call-to-action links, measuring performance of campaigns and difficulties in creating attractive, responsive HTML invites.

For a more comprehensive look at these results and some of the other findings from the Eventsforce ‘The Power of Event Invitations’ 2017 study, have a look at the infographic below:

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New eBook: The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance

Posted on by Eventsforce

The events industry needs to pay attention to Europe’s changing data protection laws or prepare to face the consequences.  A new eBook by Eventsforce, titled ‘The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance’, explains why the events industry has to start taking responsibility for the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its impact on event marketing, data management and event technology and what steps event planners need to take now to get ready for the May 2018 deadline.

How ready is the events industry for GDPR?  Find out what other event planners are doing by taking part in this 2-minute survey and a chance to win a £50 Amazon voucher!

Why Is GDPR Compliance Responsibility of Event Planners?

GDPR will come into effect on 25th May 2018 and will apply to any organisation that collects and processes personal data on European citizens or residents. So, if you are hosting events in Europe or your attendees are European citizens (regardless of where your events take place), then the new regulation will apply to you.  And if you’re using some kind of event management or registration software that helps you capture and process the data around your events, then GDPR will apply to your technology providers too – even if they’re based outside the EU.

Is it a big deal?  Yes, because GDPR is going to change the way you collect and process personal data through things like registration forms and mobile apps. It’s going to impact how you use that data for marketing and personalisation. It’s also going to impact the measures you have in place to keep that data safe. And though you’ll be right in thinking that compliance is something that will be dealt with by your IT, legal, operations or marketing teams, the reality is that the responsibility for the new regulation does not stop there.  And that is because many of the things event planners do today can put their organisations under serious financial risk with GDPR:

  • Using pre-ticked consent boxes and vague opt-outs within registration forms and apps
  • Not having the proper processes and systems in place that store consent
  • Not being able to access or delete the data you hold on people – quickly, at no cost
  • Sharing delegate lists freely with venues, speakers and other attendees
  • Not paying attention to the data freelancers and temp staff have access to
  • Emailing unsecure spreadsheets & leaving unattended registration lists on-site

The consequences of these actions are huge compared to current data protection regulations, especially if the data gets into the wrong hands. And though people aren’t fully aware of their rights yet, they will be.  And once they are, the enquiries will start to come.  As will the lawsuits.  It is therefore important that event planners understand exactly what they should and shouldn’t do under GDPR – so that they can then figure out what changes they need to make around collecting and managing the personal information of people that come to their events.

eBook: The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance

GDPR presents some big challenges to the events industry, but it also brings some big opportunities too. The ‘Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance’ eBook gives a simple overview of what GDPR actually means for event planners, what changes it will bring about compared to current regulations, the rights of attendees, the risks of non-compliance and the consequences of BREXIT.

It also provides insight on how GDPR will impact event marketing, data security and event technology, as well a step-by-step guide on what event planners need to do now to meet the May 2018 deadline.  Highlights include:

Event Marketing Under GDPR – One of the major changes for event planners with regards to GDPR compliance will be the conditions of consent – this will have a profound effect on the way we currently use personal information to build mailing lists and push the marketing activities we do around events.  The eBook covers the topic through a Q&A that provides answers from experts on some of the most common questions event marketers have about GDPR.

Data Security Under GDPR – Data security is another issue that becomes more of a priority under GDPR.  Organisations will have to show that they’re doing their best to protect the personal information of individuals to minimise the chances of it getting into the wrong hands. The eBook exposes a number of important vulnerability areas that event planners should be putting greater attention to and what they need to do in the case of a data breach.

Event Technology Under GDPR – GDPR regulations require compliance both by the company hosting an event and by the event tech companies that process data on their behalf (ex. registration systems, mobile apps, surveys, networking tools etc.). The eBook explains why event planners dealing with non-compliant vendors can pose a big financial risk to their organisations.  It also outlines the important questions planners need to ask tech suppliers to ensure they’re fulfilling their legal obligations.

What Steps to Take to Prepare for GDPR – A simple nine-point checklist which highlights the key steps event planners need to take to prepare for GDPR, based on advice published by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Highlights include how to create awareness about the new regulation across your team, how to run a data audit to assess what needs to be done with all the personal data your systems hold on people, as well as guidance on managing consent boxes within forms.

The eBook also highlights the opportunities that GDPR brings to the events industry.  It looks at how compliance will give organisations the chance to show that they’re dealing with personal data in a transparent and secure way.  This will help them build a new level of trust with attendees and customers, which will be key in deciding which organisations people choose to deal with in the future.

To get a FREE copy of the ‘Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance’ eBook, please click here.

To learn more about Eventsforce and how it can help events with GDPR compliance, please contact one of our team at gdpr@eventsforce.com

If you’d like to get weekly updates on all things event tech, along with some expert advice on how to make the most out of your technology investments, then sign up to our EventTech Talk Newsletter today!

Will GDPR Change the Rights of Your Attendees?

Posted on by Eventsforce

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, has radically changed the way event planners collect and handle the personal information of people coming to their events. But compared to the past data protection regulations, what has actually changed when it comes to the rights of attendees?

eBook: The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance

GDPR: Giving Individuals More Control

One of the big things about Europe’s new data protection law, which came into effect in May 2018, is that it focuses on the rights of individuals over organisations.  And it’s happening because current legislations no longer meet the privacy needs of the digitally connected world we live in today. The existing EU Data Protection Directive was first put in place in 1998 – long before the Internet, social media and cloud computing completely changed the way companies use data, and GDPR aims to address that.

GDPR is also happening because of the exponential rate that data is being collected by organisations today – and the events industry is no exception here.  We use so many different data collection tools that help us gather and analyse information on our attendees – from registration systems and mobile apps to surveys, social media, lead capture tools etc.  We also deal with a lot of personal information (attendee names, contact details, employment information, gender, disabilities, dietary preferences).  And this is one of the key things GDPR wants to address: that organisations dealing with personal data are doing so in a transparent and secure way – and always in the individual’s best interests.

Did you know that a data breach is essentially what can get your events into a lot of trouble under GDPR? Find out what you should do to prevent your attendee data from getting lost, stolen or compromised by getting your copy of ‘The Event Planner’s Guide to Data Security in a Post-GDPR World‘.

GDPR Will Standardise Individual Rights Globally

If your events are based outside the EU, then you may feel GDPR isn’t relevant to you.  But if you’re collecting personal information on European citizens and residents through registration forms and apps, then it doesn’t matter where your events are or where your events team is based, GDPR compliance is going to apply to you.

In fact, experts are predicting that the regulation will eventually expand outside the EU as the subject of data privacy and security becomes more and more front of mind.  The UK government has already confirmed that it will adhere to GDPR after it completes its exit from Europe and there are similar regulations in Canada and Australia (though not the US).  People all over the world are going to start demanding more rights over their personal information and we expect GDPR standards to become the norm over the coming years.

Read: Infographic – Are Your Events Complying to GDPR?

How Will GDPR Change Your Attendees’ Rights?

GDPR will certainly change attitudes to individual rights – especially in events. It will change the mindset of event planners when it comes to deciding what data they should collect from attendees, how they use that data for things like marketing campaigns and what they need to do to keep that data safe. People aren’t fully aware of their rights yet, but they will be.  In fact, IBM’s GDPR lead in the UK, Steve Norledge, recently commented how the new regulation may prompt legal firms behind the PPI claims industry to shift their business model to the GDPR and start flooding Facebook and Twitter feeds with adverts like: ‘Do you want us to do a subject-access request for you?  If they can’t serve it, we’ll raise a class-action’.

And as awareness goes up, enquiries from individuals will go up too.  As will the lawsuits -especially for those organisations who suffer a data breach or can’t show what steps they’ve taken to comply to the new regulation.  It is therefore vital that event planners understand what changes GDPR will bring about – especially when it comes to the rights of people coming to their events.

Let’s take a look at what rights GDPR will bring to attendees when it comes to organisations collecting and processing their personal information:

Right #1:  Find Out Exactly How Their Data Is Being Used

One of the major changes with GDPR will be the conditions of consent that attendees need to give for you to store and use their personal information.  Using pre-ticked boxes and automatic opt-ins within registration forms, for example, will no longer be an option. Instead, consent will need to be unambiguous, using unticked opt-in boxes, separate from other terms and conditions. Attendees will also expect more clarification on how their information will be used. For example: When you’re asking attendees if you can include their details in a delegate list, then you will need to clearly state what personal information will be included in that list, the names of the third parties you will be sharing that data with (industry sectors will no longer be enough) and how these organisations will be using their information.

Read: Event Marketing Under GDPR – Consent Vs Legitimate Interest

Right #2: Access Their Personal Data for Free

GDPR will give attendees a lot more power to access the personal information you hold on them.  Under current regulations, a Subject Access Request (SAR) allows organisations to charge £10 to be given what’s held on them.  With GDPR, requests for personal information have to be met within 30 days and free-of-charge.

Would you like to stay up to date on all things event tech?  Sign up to the weekly EventTech Talk Newsletter here and get all the latest news, advice and tips on the technology trends shaping the events industry today.

Right #3: Request the Deletion of Their Data

GDPR will give attendees the power to get their personal data erased from your systems without delay – particularly if the information is no longer necessary for the purpose it was collected (ex. they only shared their information for that one event), if consent is withdrawn, there’s no legitimate interest or if it was unlawfully processed. Not only will they have the right to get you to delete their data, but to also stop sharing it with third parties that they had previously given consent to (ex. suppliers, hotels, venues etc), who will also be obliged to stop processing it too.

Right #4: Obtain and Reuse their Personal Data

Your attendees will now have the right to ask your organisation to give them back a copy of all the personal data they previously provided you at an event –  or send this information to another organisation, which may be a competitor.  They have the right to ask for this data in a commonly used and machine-readable format.

Right #5: Be Informed of a Data Breach within 72 Hours

If you lose or misplace your attendee’s personal information (think of printed delegate lists) or their data is compromised through theft or a cyberattack on your systems, then they have the right to be informed within 72 hours from the time the breach is first discovered.  This can be difficult to do as most breaches can happen and no one will know about it for a while. However, failure to inform them in this timeframe can result in substantial fines for your organisation or a class-action lawsuit which your attendees can also now resort to in the case of a data breach.

Read: Look after your attendee data…or face the music!

Conclusion

The EU GDPR clearly presents some new challenges for event planners, but it also brings some big opportunities too. By focusing on the rights of individuals over organisations, the new regulation will help events become a lot more creative in the way they engage with attendees. Those that can show they’re dealing with personal information in a transparent and secure way and have respect for the privacy of individuals will succeed in building new levels of trust. And this will be key in deciding which organisations people will choose to deal with in the future.

Get your FREE eBook: ‘The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance’, and learn what impact Europe’s new data protection regulation will have on event marketing, data management and event technology – as well as what steps event planners need to take now to get ready for the May 2018 deadline.

If you’d like to learn more about Eventsforce and how we can help your events comply to GDPR requirements, please contact one of our team on +44 (0) 207 785 6997.

 

 

 

5 Questions to Ask Event Tech Providers About GDPR

Posted on by Eventsforce

One of Europe’s biggest shake ups in data protection and privacy laws is coming into effect in May 2018 and preparations across the events industry are already underway. A new industry poll from Eventsforce this month has found that 95% of event planners have started planning for the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – but are they doing enough?

Why is GDPR So Important for Events?

GDPR is a new legal framework that is set to change the way we collect, process and protect the personal data of people in the European Union. We published an article on the topic a few months ago (Blog: What Event Planners Need to Know About GDPR), looking at what the new requirements meant for our industry, the implication of BREXIT and how non-compliance, compared to current data protection regulations, can bring serious financial consequences to organisations worldwide.

For event planners, specifically, there are three main reasons why GDPR matters:

  1. Responsibility for GDPR compliance extends to marketing and event operations – not just IT and legal departments. It will apply to every organisation hosting events in the EU and ANY organisation collecting data on EU citizens and residents – regardless of where the events take place.
  2. Events deal with high volumes of personal data collected through registration forms, mobile apps, surveys and networking tools (attendee names, contact details, gender, dietary preferences etc). With data-driven marketing increasingly at the forefront of meetings and events, it is inevitable that planners need to know what they can and can’t do under GDPR.
  3. GDPR requires event planners (and event management agencies) to play a bigger role in securing their event data and ensuring that third party suppliers (ex. event tech suppliers) are also GDPR compliant. Not doing so can result in hefty fines and lost business.

Did you know that a data breach is essentially what can get your events into a lot of trouble under GDPR? Find out what you should do to prevent your attendee data from getting lost, stolen or compromised by getting your copy of ‘The Event Planner’s Guide to Data Security in a Post-GDPR World‘.

Event Technology and GDPR Compliance

GDPR regulations require compliance both by data controllers (ex. company hosting an event) and data processors (ex. event tech companies like registration and mobile app providers that processes data on their behalf). The requirements clearly state that data controllers must show how they are complying with the new regulations.  And part of that responsibility is making sure that all the data processors they are also dealing with are also fulfilling their legal responsibilities. If in the course of an investigation it is found that these parties have not been compliant, then the organisation hosting the event may also be found liable too.

It is therefore important for event planners to find out how their event tech providers are planning to meet their obligations around GDPR by asking them the following questions:

1. Where is Our Data Hosted?

Hosting and sharing data within the EU is legally not a problem – as long as your event tech providers meet the requirements of GDPR. What can create issues and a much heavier burden on you, however, is if the data in these systems is stored in servers outside of the EU.   Remember, it is your organisation’s responsibility to ensure that data transfers outside the EU still meet GDPR standards.  Some countries like Canada have equivalent standards, while others like the US don’t.   US transfers may be covered by the ‘Privacy Shield’ agreement but this is currently under challenge in EU courts and can be a risky long-term option.

If your data is hosted in servers outside the EU, then you need to ask your providers what steps they’re taking to make sure your data transfers are compliant.  They also need to explain clearly what contractual and legal safeguards they have in place to look after your data at all times.

2. Who has Access to Our Data?

It is not enough meeting GDPR requirements with just data storage and the location of servers.  You also need to find out how your data is being used while it’s being processed by their organisation. Find out who from their organisation has access to your data and where are these people located.  For example, the support centre of your event management solution provider will have remote access to your attendees’ personal data.  If the support team is based outside the EU (event if data is hosted within the EU), then you will need to ensure that they’re also complying with GDPR standards.

Find out if they also subcontract any part of your data processing to third parties or if your data is accessible through other countries or legal entities within their own corporate group. If they do, then find out what kind of data processing agreements they have in place that meet the new standards.

Get your FREE eBook: ‘The Event Planner’s Guide to GDPR Compliance’, and learn what impact Europe’s new data protection regulation will have on event marketing, data management and event technology – as well as what steps event planners need to take now to get ready for the May 2018 deadline.

3. How Does Your System Allow Us To Store Consent?

One of the key changes that GDPR will bring is ensuring you have the right processes in place to store the consent you get from individuals when collecting their personal information.   For example, if you’re using an event registration system, you would want it to store the date and time an attendee ticked a particular consent box, along with the IP address that was used.  That way, if the person complains or there’s an investigation by authorities, your organisation can prove what consent was given, when it was given and how.

4. How Does Your System Help Us Delete Personal Data?

Similar to the earlier point, GDPR gives individuals the right to be forgotten – which means you need to have a process in place that allows you to quickly ‘erase’ any personal information you hold on people.  So, if someone attended one of your events but wants you to remove all their information from your database, you need to make sure that your systems have the proper processes in place to help you do that – quickly and at little cost to your organisation.

Ask your providers how their system will help you delete the information, whether this data is also deleted in back up servers and how quickly this is done.  Make sure they confirm in writing whenever they do this as this will give you protection if they’ve failed to delete as promised.  It’s also worth asking them what their general policy is around data retention: how long do they keep your data on their servers, whether it is moved to other locations and whether or not they delete it after a defined period of time.

5. How Does Your Organisation Comply with GDPR?

Ask your tech suppliers how they themselves comply with GDPR. Having an EU-based tech provider will ensure that they’re also subject to the new regulations, which will limit your own risk of non-compliance.   But that’s not enough. What is their understanding of the new regulations and how will they help you meet your own obligations?  How important is data security for them as an organisation – do they follow best practices?  How do they monitor vulnerabilities? Who has access to your data, how do they handle authorisation and what happens when someone leaves?  And what about their own suppliers and third-party contractors who also have access to their data? Having the answers to these questions will protect you from any unpleasant surprises in the future.

Conclusion

If you haven’t already started, we would highly recommend that you start planning for GDPR now by thinking about how your events are collecting data on EU citizens, how you’re storing this information and what your event tech providers are doing in preparation for the new regulations – especially if their datacentres are based outside of the EU. Finally, implementing changes will be a team effort where everyone is aware of the new requirements, along with all the new processes that you’ll need to put in place.

Eventsforce offers a comprehensive set of event management solutions, services and expertise that can help support the event planner’s journey to GDPR readiness.  If you’d like to have a chat about GDPR and how we can help you out, get in touch with us now on +44 (0) 20-7785-7040 or info@eventsforce.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How LinkedIn Videos Will Help B2B Events and 5 Other Stories Planners Should Read

Posted on by Eventsforce

 

In this month’s round-up of top event tech news, we look at how event planners can use LinkedIn’s new video offering, as well as an interesting piece on how technology is revolutionising B2B events. We also bring you some cool new tech tools for meetings and events, including a fun augmented-reality app and an online platform that provides individualised lunches for event attendees. Finally, we look at Snapchat’s new ‘Crowd Surf’ feature which uses ‘video-stitching’ technology to create unique multi camera-angle footage of events on mobile devices.

The Drum: LinkedIn Adds Video Support to Become More of a Social Network

This week, LinkedIn announced that it will begin the global rollout of its new video offering to users after it began experimenting with the format last month.  The update means B2B event planners can now upload videos onto the network – though no live streaming support is available to date. The tool can also provide key insights into which audiences have viewed posts, including the top companies, job titles and locations of post viewers.  In addition, those posting native videos on the network can get feedback on how many views, likes and comments their posts have received.

For those of you using the LinkedIn mobile app, look for the share box at the top of the feed (on iOS) or the post button (on Android) and tap on the video icon.  You can then record a video in the app or upload a video you may have recorded at your event.  You can also access the analytics data in the dashboard section of your LinkedIn profile to help you better understand if you’re reaching the people and companies that matter. For more information, click here.

Event MB: Crowd Surf: Snapchat’s New Weapon in Event FOMO

New reports suggest that Snapchat’s user base is set to overtake Facebook amongst younger audiences in the UK and US markets – something worth keeping in mind if your events are targeting the 12 to 24-year old age bracket. The networking giant has also launched a new feature called Crowd Surf which will helps bring the event experience to a much wider audience in a completely new way. Using AI machine learning technology, Crowd Surf can stitch together Snaps (pictures and videos captured by the app) recorded by users at an event. It does this by using the recorded audio as a guide for putting the clips in order and in sync with the audio at the event.  This gives social media users worldwide the opportunity to have a multi camera-angle view of the event on their mobile devices.

Snap tested out Crowd Surf a few weeks ago at pop singer Lorde’s performance at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival. When she played her hit “Green Light” and everyone thrusted their phones in the air, Snapchat combined the clips using Crowd Surf.

As this article from Event MB points out, the new feature is completely aimed at sharing the emotion and excitement of the moment and in that sense, it’s perfect. For events with a high-level of fan engagement, such as sports and music festivals, Crowd Surf could be a very useful tool for extending the reach of event and sponsor messaging beyond the venue to a wider social media audience. And the best thing about it is that all of the work is left in the hands of the fans and the app’s AI.

Contently: How Technology is Revolutionising B2B Events

Events can be chaotic, complicated, and expensive. Yet in B2B marketing, there’s a reason they’re still incredibly popular. In fact, a report from market research firm Demand Metric, has found that events are second only to email when it comes to the most effective B2B marketing tactics. But that doesn’t mean B2B events aren’t affected by the digital revolution. A recent study from eMarketer shows that a new events technology stack makes all those conferences more effective than ever.

This story from Contently outlines how events should be tightly integrated into the rest of the marketing technology stack. Most marketers, for example, are already using CRMs like Salesforce to track and attribute sales deals to events. But many are also not integrating their event data into any CRM at all. The article also goes on to say that marketers are beginning to track as much as they can about events, not just sales deals won and lost. For example, tracking the quality of leads generated at an event offers a much more nuanced view of how to improve future events. Integrating events into marketing automation platforms like Marketo is also becoming more common as it can speed up post-event sales touches and make them a lot more personalised.

Integrating event data with CRM and marketing systems can help organisations drive more value from their events. Find out everything you need to know about event data integration by downloading this free eBook from Event Industry News and Eventsforce:  The Event Planner’s Guide to Data Integration.

BizBash: 5 Cool New Tech Tools for Meetings and Events

BizBash has put together a nice roundup of five of the newest and updated technology products for events and experiential marketing.  One of the highlights include Forkable’s online platform, which offers a new option to providing individualised lunches for office meetings and events. Attendees can put in their dietary preferences, after which they receive a message with a suggested lunch from a nearby restaurant – based on the budget determined by the event planner. On the day of the event, Forkable delivers the lunches, which are labelled with the names of each attendee.  Users are also asked to rate their lunches so the system becomes ‘smarter’ over time.

Other tools include Bizly, an online platform for booking and managing small meetings and events with an AI-powered messaging centre and Skyrite – an augmented-reality app that allows users to upload content such as words, drawing, photos and logos in the sky above an event location. The app is free for content creators and viewers, but also offers a fee-based model for brands that want a more customised interface or if they want to ‘rent’ an entire zone.

EventPlanner: How to Learn More about Your Attendees Preferences and Needs

We all know how essential it is to have access to information about attendees’ demographics, preferences and needs in segmenting audiences and delivering personalised event experiences.  Yet you can’t just run an app and miraculously find out what your attendees wants from your next event.  What you need to do, as suggested by this article from Event Planner, is to analyse information from different data sources, including social media, surveys, interviews, registration forms and more. Check out what your industry influencers are worried about, for example, along with their followers’ opinions or reactions. This will help you make a comprehensive list of hot topics, reactions and interests – as well as a list of important influencers which you can invite to your event.  Use survey tools to ask your past attendees what they would like to learn at your next event – and make sure to ask that question within registration forms too.

Read: 10 Effective Data Collection Tools for Events

Digital TV Europe: New Event Video Streaming Technology Tested at Edinburgh Fringe

This month’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe saw the first live tests of a new technology that enables live, high-quality, large-scale event video streaming over a WiFi network. The Bx-WiFi system allows simultaneous streaming of uninterrupted audio or video content from multiple sources – such as satellite feed, ‘live’ video or digital radio – to thousands of smartphone or tablet devices all located in the same hotspot (for example at an event). According to this article, it uses Forward Error Correction to maintain video quality despite potential Wi-Fi loss, as well as multicast technology that minimises bandwidth usage when a large number of users are streaming simultaneously.  A certainly interesting development that will probably redefine video broadcast for large-scale events in the future.

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7 Effective Tips for Successful Event Email Marketing

Posted on by Eventsforce

Like it or not, email still remains as one the most effective marketing tools for events today. Unlike your website or event your event app, the event email is a very controlled experience where you, as the event planner, can decide everything from what it looks like, what time it shows up, the call to action and what kind of personalised content it should use.  And best of all, it’s effect is measurable. But with more than 20 percent of legitimate marketing emails never reaching a recipient’s inbox, what steps should event planners take to ensure the successful delivery of their email campaigns?

What is Spam Scoring?

As of March 2017, spam messages accounted for 57% of email traffic worldwide1 – and consequently, email providers are becoming more and more stringent on what content makes it into an inbox and what ends up in junk.

Mail servers and applications use different ways of ‘scoring’ emails – if the score is too high, then your event invite, for example, gets classified as spam and will not reach your attendee’s inbox.  What makes it complicated, however, is that each spam filter works a bit differently to the other and ‘passing’ scores can vary.  Your email invitation could pass through one attendee’s spam filter, but get flagged by another’s as junk. Spam filters can sometimes even synch up with each other to share what they’ve learned and this will also affect the variability of your spam score.

How to Avoid Your Event Emails Being Marked as Spam

The bad news is that there is no fool-proof formula in addressing the spam issue as filtering criteria is constantly growing and changing. There are, however, some basic steps you can take to help you reduce your email spam score:

1. Check Your Email Settings

Your attendees’ email servers are likely to reject your event emails when the address of your sending server doesn’t match the sender address on the email.  So you may be using your registration software’s mail server (eg. info@eventtech.com) to send out your email invitations but the ‘sender’ address on the email that appears in your attendee’s inbox is registrations@myevent.com.

To solve this problem, contact the person or organisation that manages your domain – in this case, myevent.com – and ask them to add ‘eventtech.com’ to the SPF record (Sender Policy Framework) for that domain. This tells your attendees’ servers that eventech.com is allowed to send emails on your behalf.

Read: Top Subject Lines for Your Event Email Campaigns

2. Do You Have a Good Sender Reputation?

The delivery rate of the email marketing campaigns you do around your events relies heavily on your sender reputation.  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) consider sender reputation as the most important factor in determining whether or not to block certain emails. It’s something you need to keep a constant eye on as it can fluctuate from one email campaign to another. Make sure you have a double opt-in strategy to ensure your attendee list is healthy and engaged, with clear unsubscribe links which will dramatically reduce any spam complaints.  There are websites than can help you measure and monitor your sender reputation, like Sender Score and SenderBase.

3. Avoid Buying or Renting Lists

As tempting as it is to grow the potential attendee list for your event, purchased lists are not best practice when it comes to sender reputation. More often than not, they are riddled with dead emails and spam traps, which can mislead mailbox providers that you break the rules by sending unsolicited emails.  Your emails will end up in junk folders or you may be branded as a spammer.

Sending to a list that hasn’t given you permission can also impact your ability to market your event, potentially damage your brand and even have legal implications, especially with the enforcement of GDPR next year.  Instead, allow your attendee list to grow organically. Give them the option to sign-up to your marketing list when they register for an event – this way, you can ensure that they get all email communications from your organisation for all your events.

Read: What Event Planners Need to Know About GDPR – Europe’s New Data Protection Law

4. Remember that Content is King

Spam filters look into your email content. An email containing only a clickable link that takes your attendee to the event registration page, for example, is likely to be marked as spam.  Whereas adding some descriptive text to your email will help to avoid this.  Make sure you have informative content about your event and try to limit the use of what these filters consider as risky words, such as ‘free’, ‘buy’, ‘order’, ‘purchase’ and ‘promo’.  Also, do not capitalise your ‘from’ address or subject line and generally avoid using capitalisation and exclamation marks in the body of your email message, as these will all have a negative impact on your spam score.

Balance your image-to-text ratio – Mail Chimp recommends a ratio of 80% text to 20% images. Emails with lots of images or large images and not much text will get a high spam score. Avoid linking to images that are held on another sever as you’re better off uploading pictures into the email itself.  If you are going to use links, make sure your images are hosted at credible services only as this will also have a negative impact on your spam score.

5. Check Your ‘From’ Details

Your attendees’ mail servers check more than your domain and content, with some putting particular attention to your ‘From’ address.  Try and avoid frequent changes to your ‘from’ address as this will impact your spam score.  When sending invitation emails for your events, ask your attendees to add your ‘From’ address to their address books. This way you can avoid all future email communications with that attendee from ending up in the spam folder.

Lastly, try and avoid using vague field names in your address, such as ‘noreply@myevents.com’. Instead, use clear, trustworthy names such as ‘registrations@myevents.com’ or ‘firstname.lastname@myevents.com’.  Stick to a limited number of these names and build a good reputation for these addresses by sending engaging emails and you will notice a difference.

6. Consider Whitelisting

It is possible to stop emails being rejected by your attendees’ servers by adding your mail server to a ‘whitelist’ on their servers.  This can help if you are targeting individuals from one particular organisation (internal employees) or those attendees using public mailbox providers, such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail.  The process, however, does require making changes to email servers that are normally outside your control.  It also stops working if the address of your sending server ever changes.

7. Test Your Email ‘Spamminess’

There are a number of free email spam checker tools that can help assess the ‘spamminess’ of your emails and get the most out of your event marketing campaigns.  Email Spam Test, for example, is a quick simple test that will analyse your email content, including subject line, HTML source and links, to determine whether most spam filers will block it.  Others like Mail Poet, are designed to test the “spamminess” of newsletters.  It checks content for specific words, while also comparing your email address to common blacklists.    Another one you can use is Blacklist Check – it allows you to compare IP addresses in your company to 100 common DNS-based email blacklists. If any of your company’s IP address have been blacklisted, messages sent from them will not be delivered to inboxes that are secured with most traditional email spam filters—and that might include your own organisation.

Conclusion

Avoiding spam filters isn’t usually something event planners will worry about – yet it can have a huge impact on the success of your event’s email marketing campaign. So next time you’re sending out invitations by email, think back to some of the tips we talked about here.  Configure your account to the right settings, use relevant and engaging content and send to permission-based email lists.  Doing so will not only increase your open and click-through rates, but will also send positive signals to your attendees’ email providers to ensure all your future email campaigns end up in the right inbox.

Are there any other spamming tips you’d like to include in this list?  Let us know as we’d love to hear your views!

 Would you like to stay up to date on all things event tech?  Sign up to the weekly EventTech Talk Newsletter here and get all the latest news, advice and tips on the technology trends shaping the events industry today.

Sources:
1 Statista: Global email spam rate from 2014 to 2017

How Robots Are Speaking at Events and 5 Other Tech Stories Planners Should Read

Posted on by Eventsforce

In this month’s round-up of top event tech news, we take a glimpse into what events may look like in the future with a story of two robots playing the part of event speakers at a tech event in Hong Kong.  We also look at some of the latest tech innovations in our industry including audio-based ticketing machines and the world’s first self-service online exhibition platform.  And finally, we bring you Event Tech Lab’s new list of engagement tools for events, as well as a colourful infographic that shows you the best times to post stuff on social media.

Have a look at this month’s round-up of top tech stories that you don’t want to miss:

TechCrunch: World First for Two Robots Talking on Stage

We’re seeing more and more how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bring some incredible new possibilities for the events industry, even though there’s still a lot of uncertainty about how viable the technology really is.  But doubts aside, this month saw a world-first, when two robots went on stage at a tech event to ‘debate’ the future of humanity with each other.  As the article suggests, the conversation (which was partially scripted), wasn’t as slick as the human-to-human panels at the show, but it was certainly a sight to behold for the packed audience. Topics ranged from an early joke about taking over the world with a drone army, to ethics in robots and humans, robot job potential and whether it is better to be rich or famous. There was even singing.

Though still in its early days, it’s not hard to imagine how this kind of application of AI can become a more common sight in events of the future.  Just this month, the BBC reported how researchers at the University of Washington used AI to create phony speeches from a synthetic version of former US president, Barak Obama. Using just 14 hours of footage to produce their model, they were able to match any audio to the synthetic Obama or put the words of an impersonator into his mouth.  Though the purpose of the research was to help people identify fake news, the world it opens up in terms of what we can do with event content and speakers is quite mind-boggling.

BBC News: Audio-based Ticket System Launched

Ticketmaster is launching a new ticketing system that can passively check attendees into events using audio data from smartphones to reduce entry wait time.  As this article from The Verge explains, rather than manually scanning a QR code or barcode from a paper ticket, a ‘smart tone’ technology can receive attendees’ data over their smartphone’s ultrasonic sound transmission to verify their mobile ticket and ID, allowing people to cruise in simply by showing a green approved screen on their phones.

Since the e-ticket is tied to an individual’s account from a unique smartphone, Ticketmaster hopes the new check-in system can prevent fake tickets from being sold. Gaining access to a particular attendee’s smartphone also grants event venues precise geo-locations of each guest, allowing organisers to send personalised messages to individuals even as they move within the venue. In the future, Ticketmaster plans to add shopping capability with this sound recognition technology, so guests can purchase food and drink from their seats without waiting in line at concessions. The technology is currently available across specific venues in North America, with a global roll out expected to take place over the next four years.

Contently: What Are the Best Days and Times to Post on Social Media

One of the most important aspects of an event’s social media strategy, is knowing the best times to post content.  The reality of course is that there is no definitive truth and trends do vary, based on the individual behavioural patterns of your target audience.  Having said that, we came across this colourful infographic on Contently which does a good job of outlining general social media behaviour across key networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram.  Some highlights include how weekends are better for B2C than B2B, how everyone’s wasting time on social during their 3pm coffee break and how Mondays and Fridays are far less effective days to post than you think.

How are event planners managing invitations?  What are the best days and times for sending out invites? And is there a trend for more video and personalised content? Find out what your peers are doing by taking part in a two-minute survey here.

While on the subject of social media, we thought we’d also give you a heads up on Snapchat’s new set of self-serve tools, which allow marketers to create bespoke ads and target them without the need for a third-party. Snap Publisher has the potential to remove some of the costs associated with creating Snapchat campaigns by letting brands do things like convert horizontal video into vertical formats, enhance video with text and animation, as well as turn websites into Snap Ads.  For more details, have a look at this article from The Drum here.

MeetingsNet: New Tools to Engage Your Event Attendees

Engagement is at the heart of conferences and meetings. And while we all know that event apps are a great tool for getting attendees to engage with your event (and with each other), there are other technologies out there that can also do the job.  This article from MeetingsNet outlines some of the new tools that can help capture and maintain an attendee’s focus.  Highlights include a crowdsourcing tool called SharedXP, which allows organisers to consult with their networks and get ideas on the best and most relevant types of content they want to experience. Another one is the Play 2 Lead gamification platform that integrates leaderboard and quiz elements into VR or AR experiences.  Other featured tools include Giant iTab screens, smartphone microphones and robots that come pre-programmed with custom content for your attendees to engage with and learn from.

Read: 8 Ways to Boost Engagement AFTER Your Event

Moving slightly away from the world of events, we thought it would also be worthwhile sharing with you a video that showcases what impact technology can have on engagement. It is a visually stunning art project in Washington, DC that explores how humans interact with technology by inviting people to play with light. Its aim is to transport people to an immersive digital world where you can walk on ‘grass’ or manipulate a ‘swarm of bees’. Worth taking a look.

Event Industry News: FeedFloor Launches AirBnB for EXPOs

Launched earlier this year, FeedsFloor is the world’s first self-service online EXPO platform, which allows anyone to set-up and host their own EXPO online in just over two minutes. And it’s free. Organisers can invite exhibitors, whose profile and product information is automatically published on the EXPO page.  And once the EXPO is live, visitors can be invited to chat and engage with exhibitors in real-time.

It is an interesting development because even though face-to-face meetings are still the preferred method of meeting customers and business partners, the technology provides an opportunity to boost that participation online.  As explained in this article from EIN, the platform opens up new ways to include the digital engagement of exhibitors and visitors into physical exhibitions in a simple and cheap way – yet with great value for both exhibitors and visitors. An exhibitor can put a person that would normally not be standing on an exhibition stand (ex. CEO) on a chat with visitors for a couple of hours from anywhere.  Or a company from the UK can chat with a company from Singapore via an EXPO in Dubai. The platform also allows new niche concepts to be tested before investing resources into creating physical exhibition booths.

Event MB: 8 Events Innovating with Beacon Technology

Beacons have been around for several years now but they’re starting to be used more frequently with apps to improve attendees’ experiences and personalise events. If you’re considering using beacons for your next event, then it’s always a good idea to get some ideas from those events that have used the technology with success.  This article from Event MB lists some good examples, along with the benefits the beacons provide – from reducing waiting times and providing personalised information, to improving sponsorship deals, tracking attendee behaviour and hosting treasure hunts.

Did you enjoy reading this article? If you would like to get similar monthly round-ups on all things event tech, along with some expert advice on how to make the most out of your technology investments, then sign up to the EventTech Talk Newsletter here!