Social Media Strategies

I came across an interesting invitation to an event a few months back. The online invitation process was smooth until I got to the actual RSVP page. I wanted to see who was attending to decide whether or not to go, and to my surprise it said “Guest list will only be shown to people who accept the invitation”. Er?? Yes, but I want to know who’s coming so that I can decide whether or not to accept the invite. Didn’t that occur to the person designing this process?

Maybe it did, could it have been that the promoter of the event didn’t want me to see the guest list. Could it have been a ploy to create curiosity and if so shouldn’t the process have had a little more to it than a message simply stating “Guest list will only be shown to people who accept the invitation”.

I decided to take my chances and accepted the invitation, mostly out of curiosity to see who else was attending. Maybe the ploy was to get me to do so - in which case it had worked well. If I had seen a guest list full of notable people (invitees) after I accepted the invitation, I would have taken my hat off to the promoters for such a clean, simple and yet very effective strategy to entice me to commit.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. I accepted this blind invitation by letting my curiosity getting the better of me, only to see a guest list dramatically unfold that consisted of would-be attendees that I had never heard of and carrying the message:

“Thank you for accepting the invitation. we have reserved a seat for you. If you think that you will not be able to make it to the venue, please call us on this number ________..”.

Call? Firstly, if they managed to automate the RSVP process to sell the tickets, get confirmation and collect my money online why would they give me a number for calling in with all my regrets? If someone did call, how would they integrate that information with the RSVP system - doesn’t that kill the purpose of it being automated online?

The reason why I have shared this with you is because it is important to provide seamless and smooth experiences for your event’s attendees- or else everything else that you do, no matter how great, may go down the drain. People know it when they are made subject to clever strategies designed to influence their natural behavior towards taking an action. Whats more, they will respect it if that action results in a good experience. The simplest methodology to adhere to is to always ensure you build and maintain very high standards of quality for all your events - This applies to planning, marketing and execution. Thats one of the best ways to build customer loyalty.

Persuasion: Making event marketing work - Think about it: if on the junior VP’s invitation he sees that the CEO, CFO, VP of this and that, and he was invited, might junior be intrigued? “Hey, I’m invited to an event with the CEO”, he tells his wife. Perhaps at work he’ll ask …

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Today’s tip! One stop shopping for all your event marketing in social media needs you can’t go past my Events Listed networking and marketing platform. It’s invite only, here’s a backdoor pass on me.

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