The Events Industry’s 2019 Email Benchmarking Report

Discover how your event emails stack up and where your results outshine the competition - or fall short - in this exclusive new report. 

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You know your emails drive ticket sales or registrations. But you don’t know if they’re driving as many sales as they could — or should — be driving.

Discover how your event emails stack up in this exclusive new report written by the experts at Emma, a leading email marketing platform. 

Based on a survey of hundreds of event creators across the United States, you’ll learn:

  • How your open and click-through rates compare to the industry averages
  • The best times and days to send your emails for the most engagement
  • Advanced email strategies Emma recommends to drive sales in 2019

Preview

Mailing list size benchmarks: How to grow your database

Events have a wide range for the size of their mailing lists. 25% of surveyed events reported an email list of fewer than 500 people. 32% had between 1,000-10,000 people on their mailing list, and 28% had more than 10,000 people on their mailing list.

No matter the size of your current mailing list, you can’t ignore it and expect it to stay the same size. In fact, the average email list churns about 25% each year. These unsubscribes are a natural part of the process as people’s interests change or they move to new cities and are no longer able to attend your events.

That’s why, even if your list is currently a healthy size, you should be taking an active approach to add new people to your list. Yet many event creators are overlooking this vital marketing step: Nearly a fifth of those surveyed (19%) don’t actively work to grow their email lists at all.

And remember that building a list of engaged subscribers should be your goal. For email to be effective, quality of subscribers is just as important as quantity.

“Purposefully and organically growing your email lists is a top priority when it comes to event promotion,” says Lane Harbin, a senior marketing manager at Emma who works closely with the team that manages email for their annual Marketing United conference. “Strategically attracting new, engaged prospects to put your event in front of is really important.”

If you use an event management technology that syncs with your email marketing platform, you can make sure all attendees are instantly added to your mailing list. But don’t stop there – here are more common strategies events use to grow their mailing list:

  • Inbound marketing and email capture forms (used by 48% of events)
  • Social media (used by 48% of events)
  • Free giveaways (used by 18% of events)

To read the rest of the Events Industry’s 2019 Email Benchmarking Report, fill out the form on the right.