91% of people check their email every day, which makes email marketing a channel with high potential. But with only 20-25% open rates for marketing emails, if you want to get noticed, you’re going to have to do something special.
It’s crucial to craft your event emails strategically to grab attention, convey your message, and, ultimately, drive registrations.
To help you, we’ve analyzed Eventbrite’s top creators to bring you top event email marketing strategies to drive attendance and get people talking about your upcoming event.
From crafting the perfect email subject line to optimizing for mobile devices, these strategies will ensure your event promo emails get read and make your readers take action.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
Essential email marketing strategies
Event email marketing metrics to boost email performance
Bonus: Reach a targeted audience through your ticketing partner’s event emails
The anatomy of an event email
First, let’s take a look at what makes an effective event marketing email. We’ve pulled together a few examples of emails from people who used Emma. This application integrates with Eventbrite to market your events and shows you how successful creators make their emails work for them.
Grab their attention with your subject line
First, we’ll start with a breakdown of five essential components of a great event marketing email, like the one in the example above.
Your email’s subject line is the first thing readers will see when they open it. In the above example, they used the phrase “Sunday funday pisco party,” which adds charisma to the headline.
It’s short, intriguing, and communicates exactly what the email is about.
Here are some more examples of winning subject lines for event marketing emails:
- Last chance to get tickets for [event name]
- See [influencer/band] live for one night only
- You’re invited to the exclusive [event name]
- Don’t miss out: Tickets for [event name] are almost gone!
- Enjoy [event name] for [discount] with this exclusive offer
Great email subject lines can grab your audience’s attention and market your event as effectively as possible. Consider how to start your emails in a similarly strong way, and you’ll be on your way to email marketing success.
Use eye-catching visuals
Visuals are another key component of a great email. In the case above, the eye-catching visual is the headline itself. The creators have used striking colors and incorporated a GIF to make it more exciting.
Make sure your visuals are attention-grabbing and relevant to your message. A video or photograph of the event is always a safe choice, but don’t be afraid to experiment and get creative with your ideas.
Give key information
A stellar email’s imagery needs to be attention-grabbing, but it’s supposed to communicate something, too! Once you’ve grabbed your reader’s attention with a great headline and visual, you’re ready to hit them with key event details.
Using the example above, that means including more details on what a “Sunday funday pisco party” is, the date and time, price, and what’s included. You can think of this section as the basic “who, what, when, where” of the event. As for the “why,” that’s your call to action (CTA).
Write a compelling and clear CTA
A call to action is where you ask your readers to take an action like register for your event. It’s a very important part of your email because it drives people to do something. It should be easy to read and understand, and it should have a sense of urgency to get readers to take action as soon as possible.
In the example above, the CTA is “Buy Tickets” on a button with a direct link. This kind of direct instruction makes it easy for readers to take the next step.
Let people opt out
It’s very important that if people don’t want to receive your emails, they have a clear option to opt out of receiving them. On top of being courteous, this can help you comply with laws regulating the content of marketing emails, such as the US CAN-SPAM Act.
Marketing emails that don’t include an opt-out button are likely from less legitimate sources, so having an opt out button helps to establish a relationship of mutual respect with your target audience.
Essential email marketing strategies
In this section, we’ll delve into 11 innovative event email marketing campaign strategies designed to elevate your event promotions. Inspired by Eventbrite’s top creators, they encompass everything from developing engaging subject lines to optimizing your email for mobile devices.
1. Make it mobile-friendly
According to Adobe, 81% of emails are opened on mobile devices, which means that making your emails mobile-friendly is pivotal. Not only does it enhance user experience but it also increases the chances of your email being read and acted upon.
Mobile-friendly emails display correctly regardless of the device’s screen size, ensuring that the layout, design, and formatting of your email remain intact. Not optimizing your emails for mobile users could lead to poor readability, resulting in your target audience overlooking crucial information about your event.
Eventbrite’s email marketing platform keeps this top of mind. Any emails you write on Eventbrite’s platform will be mobile-friendly, ensuring that your event promotions get the maximum visibility and engagement regardless of how your potential event attendees choose to access their email.
2. A/B test CTAs and subjects
It’s not enough to write subject lines that you think are great. You should also put them to the test. The same goes for your CTAs.
One great way to test your emails is with A/B testing. That’s where you write two emails with a single, specific difference (like a different subject line) and send each to a different group of people. Then, you can compare the results to see which one got a higher conversion rate.
A/B testing is simple with Eventbrite’s email marketing platform. You can send emails to different groups and carefully track and analyze their performance to improve your email marketing for events.
3. Advertise your ticket packages & discounts
Offering ticket packages and discounts is an effective event email marketing strategy because it creates an immediate incentive for prospective attendees.
Discounts, early-bird tickets, or added benefits in a VIP ticket package often prompt immediate action, which can dramatically increase your event’s registration rate.
Eventbrite’s platform can be a tremendous help in this regard. It allows you to easily set up different ticket tiers or packages and automatically applies discounts as per your settings. Moreover, Eventbrite’s robust analytics can help you track your different ticket packages’ performance and discounts, giving you valuable insight into what works best for your target audience.
3. Segment potential attendees into groups
Segmenting your audience refers to the practice of dividing your potential attendees into distinct groups based on their shared characteristics — this could include demographics, purchasing habits, interests, or any other relevant factors. Audience segments allow you to tailor your event marketing and communication to resonate with each specific group.
For example, creators like Thrive City that host frequent events through Eventbrite can easily tell if they’re reaching out to a past attendee or not. That valuable information could let them segment their potential attendees into ones who have been to a past event and others who haven’t, shaping their outreach to each of those groups. Then, each would receive more relevant and compelling information to urge them to attend the future events.
Want to make segmenting your audience easy?
4. Advertise your ticket packages & discounts
Offering ticket packages and discounts is an effective event email marketing strategy because it creates an immediate incentive for prospective attendees.
Discounts, early-bird tickets, or added benefits in a VIP ticket package often prompt immediate action, which can dramatically increase your event’s registration rate.
Eventbrite’s platform can be a tremendous help in this regard. It allows you to easily set up different ticket tiers or packages and automatically applies discounts as per your settings. Moreover, Eventbrite’s robust analytics can help you track your different ticket packages’ performance and discounts, giving you valuable insight into what works best for your target audience.
5. Provide a clear event schedule
A detailed event schedule in your promotional emails can be a game-changer. It gives potential attendees a clear idea of what to expect: who will be speaking or performing, the topics covered, the timing of each segment, and more.
This transparency not only builds trust but also generates excitement, helping to convert potential attendees into registered ones.
Eventbrite makes it easy to present your event schedule succinctly in your emails. You can automatically insert the key details of your event into the email content and even use AI to write the content of your email if you prefer!
6. Highlight what makes your event special
The way you communicate the unique elements of your event in your email can make a huge difference in how many people sign up for it.
One of the best ways to draw attention and interest is by highlighting key features such as unique speakers or performers, panels and lectures that are part of the event, special activities, or anything else that sets your event apart from others.
For example, when the Florida International University School of Music has a performance with a guest conductor, highlighting this in their marketing emails would certainly pique readers’ attention.
7. Provide value to potential attendees
The best event marketing emails should provide value to potential attendees. This could include offering discount codes, access to exclusive content or VIP treatment at the event, helpful tips related to the event’s subject matter — or anything that adds tangible value for those attending your event.
These added incentives can be a powerful way to attract more people to attend your event. Research other events on Eventbrite to see how they entice attendees to come!
8. Tap into FOMO
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a powerful emotion that’s commonly used in email marketing to drive people toward taking action. You can use FOMO to emphasize the scarcity or exclusivity of your event and get people excited about being part of something special.
For example, you could highlight that tickets are limited or emphasize that this event is a one-time opportunity. You could also appeal to the reader’s sense of adventure by emphasizing the experience’s unique and exciting qualities.
For annual events like LatinaFest, you could even say that the event only happens once a year!
9. Encourage pre-event interaction
Encouraging people to interact with you leading up to the event is a great way to engage your registrants and keep them interested. This could include providing attendees with resources like blog posts, podcasts, or articles related to the topic’s event that they can go through before attending.
Eventbrite makes it easy to reach out to your registrants leading up to the event, so you have a built-in email marketing tool for keeping in touch. You could also have online discussions with attendees or feature speakers a few days prior to the event so that attendees can get to know them.
10. Tidy up your email subscriber list
Staying in touch with your registrants isn’t just about encouraging them to interact with you before the event! It can also be a powerful way to re-engage people who haven’t been opening or interacting with your past messages.
As with the example above, check-in emails can entice subscribers to continue engaging with your content by specifying that you miss them and have noticed their lack of presence. This type of email also allows you to clean up your email list, as those who are no longer responding or interacting with your messages aren’t serving your brand.
11. Emphasize the event’s exclusivity
If your event has a limited capacity, emphasizing its exclusivity can be an effective way to make people sign up. For example, you could highlight that tickets are selling out quickly and only a few spots remain.
This will create urgency for people to register and time-box their decision-making process, which could help increase registration rates.
You could also emphasize the scarcity of your event by promoting limited-time discounts for early birds or exclusive experiences that only a select few will get to enjoy.
Event email marketing metrics to boost email performance
The first step to making emails your most powerful promotional channel is to understand how you rank against the competition in a few key metrics. Based on survey responses from 377 event organizers across the U.S. and U.K., this exclusive event email marketing data will help you better compare your email performance against other events and see how you can improve.
Improve your event email marketing campaign’s effectiveness by paying attention to your open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate. Here are some important key metrics to assist you:
- 21–30% of recipients open their event emails
- 2.1–3% of recipients click links in their event emails
- 25% of email list members unsubscribe over the course of a year
Here’s how to use each of those metrics to make your event’s email marketing campaigns more effective.
Metric #1: Open rate
Your open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email. The average event email has an open rate of 21–30%. But not many event creators are doing everything they can to improve these numbers. A little less than half use segmentation to target their email sends, and only 36% use A/B testing to optimize their emails.
If your email open rates fall below this range, it’s time to rethink your email subject line and the sender’s name. For example, you could test sending emails from your company name, your own name, or the name of a popular speaker at your event (with their permission, of course). You might also want to experiment with the best time to send your emails.
For subject lines, aim to be specific and create a sense of urgency in about 50 characters or less. If you’re sending a save the date or sharing a promotional code that expires in 24 hours, include that in the subject line.
If you have the technology to personalize your emails (including the recipient’s name or city in the subject line), you can boost open rates significantly.
Metric #2: Click-through rate
The average click-through rate (CTR: the percentage of people who click a link in your email) for an event email is 2.1–3%. But an impressive top 14% of creators report a CTR above 11%!
One quick way to up your click-through rate is by adding more links in your emails and including your links at the top of the email. So, for example, if you have a “Buy Tickets” link at the bottom of your email, add it to the top or include an alternative link to find out more information.
The best way to improve your CTR is to get more targeted with your email list or your content. For example, you could segment your entire email list by geo to reach a local audience or send a discount just to previous attendees.
If you’re like 36% of US event organizers and use MailChimp for your email campaigns, you can sync your account with Eventbrite to automatically transfer attendee email addresses and other data between systems.
If you don’t want to trim down your email distribution, it’s worth testing your content. Create a version “A” and version B” for your emails to test the results. Send one version to your subscribers and the additional version to a limited set of people. The winning email should be the one with the highest open rate.
Metric #3: Unsubscribe rates
The average event email has about 25% of its members churn out every year. If your rate is above that, it’s worth becoming more targeted in your sends or asking for feedback in a prompt on your unsubscribe page.
Also, be sure to include another communication option on your unsubscribe page; just because someone doesn’t want to receive your emails doesn’t mean they don’t want to hear from you on Facebook or another channel.
Learn more about how to improve your event emails in the 2019 Email Benchmarking Report.
Bonus: Reach a targeted audience through your ticketing partner’s event emails
Your ticketing and registration partner should also use emails to help you boost event ticket sales. If you use Eventbrite, your event will automatically be included in emails to ticket buyers, targeted by their previous event activity.
The personalized nature of these emails drives a higher open and click-through rate than the industry standard. To make your event the most appealing in these newsletters, make sure you have a concise event title, an intriguing thumbnail image, and select the most accurate event category when creating your event.
Your partner could also tailor sends depending on eventgoers’ friends’ behaviors or their engagement matching the event. Eventbrite informs people if more than two of their Facebook friends are going to an event and sends a reminder email to those who began the process of buying tickets but didn’t complete their purchase.
Event email marketing done together
That’s just one of the things that makes Eventbrite the most effective event email marketing tool out there.
Whether you’re looking to optimize your campaigns through accurate analytics, automate emails completely, or follow any of the other leading email marketing strategies, Eventbrite has you covered.
