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How to Deal with "LOTS" of Event Complaints

In 2021, a client raised the "a bunch of people are complaining" flag regarding an email marketing campaign.

When I asked for further details, the response was, "people didn't know there was a link in the email" The "complainers" suggested we put 'click here' next to the email link.

The client sends the next email with "click here" next to the link, and the results aren't that great.

Ironically enough, when tested, "click here" has made a noticeable difference in marketing campaign response. Primarily when used sparingly!

Am I suggesting you slap "click here" next to every link in an email or on your website? Negative.

It would be best to be careful using "click here" on your promotional emails. Because there is a chance (based on several combined factors), your email could be flagged as SPAM.

With the client example from above, there are a couple of shall we say, conveniently omitted details. If ever you receive a complaint, always dig deeper!

When pressed on complaints, use this initial question, "exactly how many people are complaining?"

Consider the following complainer's scenario:

Client: "A lot of people are complaining!"

Eugene: "Exactly how many people are complaining?"

Client: "A lot!"

Eugene: "What's a lot?"

(Client gets slightly annoyed and then finally answers.)

Client: "Two"

Eugene: "Two out of 30,000+ sent emails?!?!" (Yes, 30K emails sent and two complaints.)

Follow-up question: "Who is the person complaining?" (Are they a customer or event attendee?)

Here's the icing on the cake regarding the example above. The two complainers were client vendors who fancied themselves marketers.

In the next email, I recommended that the client remove "click here" from their email and write more persuasive copy. They accepted the advice and implemented the suggestions. The result was a 71% increase in email click-through-rate.

Yes, customer experience is paramount. But at the same time, focusing your limited time and resources on a wild goose chase is a waste.

Next time you receive complaints, find out exactly how many and if the people complaining are even your customers. You'll be surprised what you find!

Want to get more info on event customer service? Check out the articles below:

Posted at 14:41 in Event Planning, Outdoor Event Promotion and Marketing |

Overly Obvious Domain Registration Advice

Back in 2006, I only had a few event clients. During that time, most of my income resulted from working with small to medium businesses. There were numerous clients spread across multiple industries and many great lessons learned! Including what follows here.

When it came to new clients, almost every business needed to register a domain name and build a new website from scratch.

During a project, the business owner wanted me to register a couple of domain names. I asked the owner to email me which domains he wanted registered. After receiving the email, I copied and pasted the domain names into the domain registration search tool. Both domain names were available, so I proceeded to register the requested domains.

A few months went by before we started to build the client’s website. At that time, all websites were built on a dedicated development server. Once the client’s website was built and tested, we were ready to go live.

After we went live, the client had an issue accessing their site. In their own words, “I’m typing in my domain name, and the website is not coming up.”
Was the issue technical?

As I dug back through my project notes and emails, my heart skipped a beat and sunk into my stomach.

What happened?

The domain names were copied and pasted directly from the client’s email. And one of the domain names was misspelled.

Regardless of the unique spelling, the lesson learned was shame on me for not spell checking the domain name.

Since the domain registration lesson learned in 2006, every domain name that gets registered is triple checked for spelling. The process is straightforward.

If you’re going to register a new domain, break the domain name you want to be registered and spell-check each word.

superduperbeerfest.com … Super Duper Beer Fest (Spell check each word)

After your domain spelling checks out, then register you domain. Hopefully, it spares you the embarrassment and frustration above.

Additionally, if your domain name is difficult to spell, you might want to consider registering misspelled domains.

What seems like overly simplistic advice has saved my clients and myself multiple times since 2006.

Additional Resources:

Posted at 13:15 in Event Planning, Outdoor Event Promotion and Marketing |

Minimize the hoop jumping

Last week, my car needed maintenance. As result, I found myself in a small auto repair shop. "Calcio" loving Italians run this cozy auto repair shop. Serie A and Serie B, to be precise.

In the repair shop waiting room is a community board. There, you will find numerous business cards and a poster or two promoting local events.

During my visit, there was one event poster being displayed.

Side note: If it's not already a habit, make sure to take the time to review any event poster that you might see. There's always something to be discovered!

Most of the important information elements were well covered when it came to the event poster. Yet, there was one significant issue. And it’s something I’ve seen on a regular basis.

The event poster recommended visiting the ticketing company’s website to "Purchase Tickets".

Why is that an issue?

Because visiting a ticketing website makes a prospective ticket buyer jump through several hoops to purchase an event ticket.

Case and point. You must go to the ticketing website and click on a tiny "Find your next event" button. After you click the button, you need to enter a location. Then, you're presented with numerous events. As you scroll down through the events, more events populate.

Ultimately, after a bit of diligent searching, I never found where to purchase tickets for the event advertised on the poster. And my guess is that I’m not the only one.

A more straightforward solution to the above is to have your event website and sell tickets directly from your website.

As the direct response people say, "Make it easy for them to buy, right now!"

If you have your own ticket sales start, please share it in the comment section below.

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

Posted at 21:52 in Outdoor Event Promotion and Marketing |