What is the greatest email marketing technique when your objective is to sell as many tickets to your event as possible?

A. Send out regular emails to your whole contact list with the subject “Buy tickets!”

B. Create a strategic mix of material that includes direct promotion, event details, and compelling supporting tales, and distribute it to the appropriate people at the right time.

C. Send an announcement email and then completely neglect to send anything else. You’re quite busy!

You can probably predict which strategy works best for the majority of event organizers. It’s B.

“Smart event marketers don’t simply blast out emails shouting, ‘Buy tickets!'” explains Lane Harbin, senior marketing manager at Emma. In fact, according to 41% of event marketers, less than a fifth of the emails they send are directly related to ticket sales.

Why is it critical to vary the sorts of emails you send? Because today’s email recipients are knowledgeable, skeptical, and easily bored. If they believe they are being oversold to, or if they are just tired of your repetitious email material, they will quickly click “unsubscribe.”

To find out how to achieve the sweet spot, Eventbrite and Emma polled almost 400 event producers of all sizes for the most up-to-date industry standards. Here’s what the data indicated about how to create an email calendar for your event.

Event marketers should send three sorts of emails.

Event organizers may create a variety of material, including:

1. Marketing emails

Greetings on International Women’s Day!

These include “Save the date” notices, ticket on-sale notices, early bird and last-chance notices.

This direct promotional material has piqued the interest of a certain part of your email list. That’s all it takes for some of them—they’ll purchase tickets right immediately.

However, most individuals are busy, and many are also uncommitted. In fact, 56% of individuals make event selections at the last minute. Your marketing strategies don’t merely inform consumers that your event is taking place. They must also recall and persuade them throughout the decision-making process.

This is where non-sales email content comes into play.

Emails with information

Harvest has some exciting news to share.

Important facts regarding your event are included in informational mailings to enhance anticipation and excitement: lineup announcements, speaker reveals, session schedules, parking information, and more.

3. Event-related material

Hello and welcome to The Giving Keys!

Artist videos, thought-leadership pieces, relevant news—anything that isn’t directly tied to the mechanics of your event but might be of interest to prospective guests.

The bulk of event organizers ensure that fewer than half of their communications are promotional in nature. More than half are educational or entertaining.

Improve your cadence to attract the attention of your audience.

When you’ve decided on a strategy for varied content, the next issue is when to send each kind. The Emma team suggests the following cadence:

When the date of your event is announced and tickets go on sale, it’s natural to send out plain advertising emails.

In the months and weeks leading up to your event, shift your attention to engaging sidebar content—the intriguing, necessary stuff.

As the event approaches, the sales emphasis should become more urgent. It’s now time for specifics and announcements.

Of all, this is simply a rough guideline for basic cadence. Personalization efforts come into play when you want to be particular about what you’re providing guests.

Having difficulties coming up with content for all of these emails? Begin with these email copy templates.

Personalize and automate the email calendar for your event.

While 59% of event organizers employ personalisation in their emails, it may be as simple as including the event creator’s first name in the subject line. A lower proportion (47%) uses segmentation methods to target emails to sub-groups based on data such as demographics, previous event attendance, and purchasing history.

Sub-groups enable event organizers to conduct targeted email campaigns with messages tailored to each audience. For example, you might compile a list of former attendees who have attended at least five of your events and then target them with an offer for “our greatest admirers.”

Another method of using sub-group targeting is known as “interest-based automation,” and it works as follows:

An email receiver clicks on a certain link in an event email that has multiple links to various sorts of information.

The event organizer use an email marketing platform (such as Emma) to assign recipients to various “tracks” of emails depending on the material they clicked on.

Following that, those songs will get follow-up emails tailored to that exact subject.

For example, if your event includes music, art, and food trucks, you might send an email emphasizing all three. When a receiver clicks on a food truck link, they are added to a “foodie” track and get emails anytime a new food truck vendor joins.

You may customise your email calendar for each possible attendee using automation embedded into your email marketing platform—without having to duplicate your efforts.