Event Registration: An Ultimate Guide

If you’ve made it to this page, it’s likely you have a great event idea in mind for your business or industry. Which if that’s the case, how exciting! Putting together a successful event takes time, energy and large amounts of effort from all parties involved. For most planners, one of the first areas they choose to tackle is event registration. Event registration deals with the organization of attendees for a specific event and everything that both leads and proceeds the registration process. This includes skillfully marketing your event beforehand and ensuring that the people who signed up for the event follow through and actually attend the event. 

In this blog, we’ll break down not only how to go about the event registration process, but also some strategies to help ensure success (and revenue)! 

How to Start The Event Registration Process

The event registration process can seem like a big undertaking - but it doesn’t have to be! We can help you with everything from planning the format to finding the right software.  

Get Clear On Event Basics

Before you start getting into the nitty-gritty details of the event registration process, it’s important to make note of a few of the basic details of your event. These details will help set the foundation for many other registration needs and strategies. 

1. Virtual or In-Person? 

It may seem obvious, but the nature of the event should be your first piece of information to go off of to start planning. Will your event be held at a venue or digital? For virtual events, the event registration process will be the same virtual nature. For events that require an on-site registration, the process will be very different. Both are important to make note of as you go forward when planning your method of ticketing. 

2. Know Your Goals

The last thing you want to do when starting your event registration process is be unclear on your goals - think of a ship without a sail. Setting clear and attainable goals for the registration process will help you not only prioritize strategies for your team going forward, but also will increase your chances of hitting said goals. Do you have a specific number of attendees in your mind that you’d like to attend? Or, do you want to improve the layout of the landing page attendees will use and set a new ROI? There are various ways you can go about setting event registration goals, so discussing those options with your team can help the journey of planning event registration. 

3. Figure Out Ticket Tiers

Another aspect in the event registration process is figuring out your ticketing structure. Will you offer one level of ticketing, where everyone receives the same features and experiences everything on an even basis, or will you set up a tier of tickets? Typically with tiers, the public is offered one standard level ticket to access the main event (think general admission). One or two more ticket tiers are added, where purchasers can receive access to additional features not available to the standard ticket level holders, but at a certain uptick in price. The additional features could be anything from having a one-on-one conversation with important guest speakers to receiving a free demo of a product of service. The more exciting offers you provide with higher ticket levels, the more attendees will want to purchase them. This will lead to more revenue for your business!  

Find the Right Event Registration Software

Now that you have your event details set up, the next step in your event registration strategy is finding a great software that lines up with event objectives. Start out by following these steps: 

1. Figure Out Your Budget

Similar to the approach of other event planning processes, the first step to choosing an event registration software is no different: figure out your budget. Knowing the event budget will aid you in the research process by narrowing down your options by price point. Many software programs will offer different plans and packages with different features and add-ons at varying prices. Knowing what features, if any, along with the price you’ve budgeted for will help when choosing between different registration platforms. 

2. Do Your Research 

For this step, Google will become your best friend! Look up all the different registration platforms and see which ones catch your eye. Find out how much each one charges, then with the pre-planned budget in mind, narrow it down from there. Once the details mentioned above are set, the research won’t be as overwhelming. See what plans or packages each platform provides and whether they include features you can see both your business and attendees benefitting from. 

3. Decide On Features and Services

While each event registration software is different, many will include different features that can help simplify the process. Hubilo, for example, comes with all-in-one registering and ticketing, which lets you create various categories of tickets (free, paid, general or VIP), manage payments, and streamline event organization. Some may even include features such as analytics on attendee registration or automated landing pages, leaving less for you and your team to worry about. Once you’ve chosen a software that fits your budget and needs, you’re on your way to event registration success! 

Now that we’ve covered the fundamental steps to planning out your event registration, we’ll go over some strategies to help you increase how many registrations you receive, both in-person and virtual. 

9 Event Registration Strategies 

One of the key factors for increasing the number of attendees for any event is promotion. Think about it- if no one knows about your event, how will they want to sign up? As you start planning for your event, promotional efforts should be first and foremost. There are a couple of ways you can go about promoting your event. 

1. Promote it On Social Media

Social media is one of the best ways to promote any event. Some of the most popular platforms include Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. Create an exciting post talking about your event and include details such as the date, time and any sort of fun features that may excite your audience, like speakers or games. Make sure to include a link in each post to your event registration page or website where they can find additional details. With platforms like Facebook, you can create private groups based on an event, where attendees can post and chat before the event - which can buildup excitement. If you want to encourage more attendees, you can even pay to advertise the event on social media and lead people to the registration page. 

2. Create an Eye Catching Landing Page/ Website

A landing page or website that accurately depicts your event information as well as your company’s brand is one of the most important ways to increase event registration. Work with your team to create a page that reflects both your event branding and your company branding, with exciting graphics and colors to entice visitors to sign up! 

3. Leverage Your Speakers & Sponsors

Another great way to boost your event registration numbers is to include speakers and sponsors into your event. Advertise the special speakers and sponsors that will be at the event, and have them post about the event as well. Once potential attendees see that you have important people in the industry attending your event, they won’t want to miss on the valuable lessons they could be learning! 

4. Embed Clear CTAs

Whenever and wherever you post about your event, an important element to include is clear CTAs. Including call to actions that people can visibly see and access will make the registration process a smoother experience for everyone. Include it in social media posts, your website, emails, and any blogs that you publish.  

5. Communicate urgency 

A tip for getting guests to register for your event is to advertise the chance of getting tickets as urgent when you promote your event. Including things such as “last chance” or “24 hour sale” will encourage people to buy tickets before they’re sold out. 

6. Use Analytics 

As you go about event registration, a top priority should be reviewing any and all analytics. By reviewing how many users clicked your links and went through with the registration process, you can get a clear understanding of what strategies are working and what may not be working. 

7. Offer Early Bird Discounts & Coupons 

An early bird discount is a sale that’s offered for signing up far in advance for an event. Offering a big reward, like the big amount of money saved by signing up for an event, will motivate people even more to register. This will not only give registration numbers a boost, but it will also create excitement around your event! Make sure to visually emphasize the amount of money attendees will save as well.

8. Run A Raffle or Online Giveaway

Raffles or giveaways are fun ways to boost registration numbers while also getting attendees excited for the event to come. Offer free event entry or a fun VIP experience at your event if someone wins!

9. Add Event Description 

Making your event description as informative and appealing as possible is key to getting future attendees to register for the event! Include detailed and descriptive copy, any and all benefits of attending your event, and an urgent call to action.

Virtual & On-Site Registration Tips 

Virtual Registration Tips

A number of the strategy tips that are out there for virtual event registration are very different from the ones for on-site. To ensure you get plenty of virtual registrations for a hybrid or virtual event, follow some of our tips: 

1. Make it Mobile-Friendly

These days, a large amount of people do the majority, if not most, things on their phones. Check emails, write messages, and even take meeting calls from a mobile device. Registering for an event is no exception. Ensuring that your landing page/website and forms are mobile-friendly will allow anyone to register from almost anywhere on their phone. 

2. Create An Engaging Landing Page or Website 

Not only will making an engaging and easy to use landing page or website increase your chances of attendees signing up for your event, but it also has the possibility of making people excited to attend your event. Making it easy to use is another plus when it comes to a virtual registration site. Hubilo can assist you in creating an engaging landing page for an event and one that is SEO optimized as well! Promote your events with Hubilo’s modern and mobile-friendly landing pages to improve organic search rankings and increase registration conversions. Hubilo automatically creates an event website/landing page with details about your event when you create an event on the platform. This page lets your audiences understand more about the event and purchase tickets. 

3. Cater to International Attendees 

With the nature of your event registration being virtual, it makes the process of signing up much more convenient for people in other areas. If your event is one that’s enticing to people in different countries, it’s important that your registration platform has different languages available. Having a registration program that also converts any monetary fees into different currencies will be beneficial to all audience members. With Hubilo’s registration platform, global audiences can experience easy ticket purchasing by accepting multiple currencies. Not only will it make for an effortless registration process for you, but it will also be appealing to future attendees all over the world. 

4. Integrate It With Your Email Marketing 

Once attendees have registered for your event, make sure to use the emails they provided as an additional way to market your event! Just because they registered for the event doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep promoting it- include any additional details or behind the scenes content to keep attendees interested and excited! 

5. Make It Easy 

No one wants to get excited about registering for an event only to find out the registration process is long and time consuming. Better yet, make the process easy for attendees by using a platform that makes registering easy like Hubilo. 

6. Opt For Short Registration Forms

No one wants to spend their time filling out a registration form that’s multiple pages long. Not to mention, a good amount of people will be filling out their registration on their mobile phone. In this case, a quick and easy registration form is a must. This will ensure no one exits the page out of frustration and will keep them until the end! 

On-Site Event Registration Tips

Holding your event registration in-person at your event presents a different set of strategies that you can use to make the process seamless for both attendees and your teams. Some of these strategies include: 

1. Stock Up on Staff 

Holding your registration or sign-in process on-site and in person means that if something goes wrong, it may hold up others who are waiting to register. To prevent that from happening, having extra event staff ready to hop in and help out with the registration process can be a major help. Whether it's for technology assistance or an extra person to sit in at the registration booth, having extra support ready to help can make all the difference. 

2. Make Sure Tech Is Up to Date

Many events these days use technology during the registration process, even if it is on-site. Some events include technology like kiosks to keep the process up to speed; if this is the case for your registration, make sure that each one is working and running properly, and that you have a backup plan if one fails. If you’re using projectors to display video content and presentations, which many events do, ensure those are working as well.  

How to Measure Your Event Registration Success 

Once your event registration time frame has closed and your event happens, you can then see how your data measured up. Did you meet all the goals you had chosen for this event’s registration? What was the ratio of registrations and attendees that showed up? On platforms like Hubilo, there is event performance data that can be observed to track many actions and behaviors. Hubilo provides detailed event analytics on registrations, ticket sales, revenue, networking, engagement, speakers, sessions, virtual booths, rooms and more. Checking and making note of your event registration numbers will help you to improve future events! 

Go Forth and Conquer!

And there you have it! Follow these steps and tips, and you’re on your way to great event registration numbers and filling up your event with passionate and dedicated attendees! For all your event registration needs - from creating a registration form to promotion, you can trust Hubilo to set you up for success with our varying features and services.