An accidental event marketing mistake, with dire consequences
Your event just finished up. And after weeks, months, or years of hard work … you and your team deserve a well-earned break!
After a little time off, there's a crucial question you should ask, "Is there anything that needs to be updated on our event website?"
Many event organizers put up a thank you message on their home page and leave it at that.
In other cases, you might want to consider what the future holds for your event. Even if it's not an annual event. If built correctly, your event website can be a massive marketing resource even in "the off-season."
Last year, a client finished up their outdoor event. Thanks to their team, it was a tremendous success!
During their spool down process, unbeknownst to me, they backed up and deleted their online email marketing database for their event.
It made perfect sense. When the client doesn't have an event, they use their email service provider to email updates to their members. The client's email list size is a couple of thousand entries. The client's email service provider charges them based on their total email database size. There were over 10,000 database entries specifically for their event. By deleting emails, they could significantly reduce their monthly service fees.
So, they backed up and removed all those event emails. At the same time, the client also accidentally deleted the email contact list in their email service provider account. That contact list is a critical cog in their email marketing process. Without it, there is no way of knowing if the lead was from the organization's website or their event website.
Currently, the client is emailing all the people in their email marketing database. Including those who signed up for event information without being assigned to a specific contact list.
Have you ever received an email and wondered, "why am I getting this email?!?! I didn't sign up for it!"
What happens when you get an email you didn't sign up for? You're probably going to mark it as SPAM!
On their last email, the client above exceeded their SPAM threshold set by their email service provider. Because of the high number of SPAM complaints, there is the possibility of the client losing the ability to send emails in the future to anyone. All from a seemingly tiny and accidental mistake.
One accidental mistake could me you lose the ability to get potential event attendees messages in the future. And as a prestigious European event organizer recently told me, "Eugene, we generate 90% of our ticket sales using email."
Would losing the ability to use the marketing channel that generated 90% of your ticket sales be a dire consequence?
After your event, make sure to check your marketing processes and tech. It might even be worth it to pay an IT expert to help you.
Additional advice: