Outdoor Events & Advance Ticket Sales

Over the last few years I’ve encouraged my event marketing clients to build dedicated subscriber lists for their events. A crucial part of any list leveraging is to engage your list on a regular basis.  In the case of event promotion, you’ll want to engage your list more often as your event approaches.  Building anticipation for your event beforehand is crucial for event success.  One question that always comes up as more emails get sent is “are we sending too many emails?” The first place to look for an answer is by considering your ratio of opt outs to opt ins.

A Reference Point
To give you some perspective, one event marketing list I manage had a 3% opt out rate over six months.  The total list size was almost 3200 people.  Over 15 emails were sent to the list over 6 months. Ten of those emails were within 20 days of the event taking place.  Less than 100 people opted out through the course of the email campaign. There were 32 people signing up for every one person that opted out.  That’s a pretty good ratio.

If half your list removed themselves from getting more information about your event, you might need to reexamine your approach.  The ideal ratio is ultimately going to be up to you.  Look at the people who are staying on the list, are they responsive to your offers? The most important question to ask is "are people buying from you?" Lists are about quality and responsiveness, not quantity.

You’re Going to Get Opt Outs Regardless - Don’t Take It Personally
Keep in mind that anyone who signs up to your list has indicated that they are at least interested in finding out more about your event.  It’s in your best interest to keep their attention level as high as possible.  Don’t get discouraged if you see people opting out of your email list. I’ve always found that the more information you send in a short period of time the higher the list abandonment rate.  People are going to leave your list regardless of how good the information. You need to make sure that the abandonment rate is as low possible while consistently sending emails.  The best way to keep people on the list, and keep them opening email, is by giving them information that they deem valuable and relevant to their needs.

Want to get more great info? Check out the articles below:

• Why Well Planned Events Fail
• How to Get Them To Your Event
  
• Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early
• Turn Your Event Into an Experience
• Leveraging Your Sponsor's Digital Resources

• The Event Promotion System - Get Free Event Promotion & Marketing Video Training