Event Registration Software

People are more comfortable than ever buying tickets and registering for events online ahead of time. So it’s more important than ever for event planners to familiarize themselves with online event registration software and tools that can help them meet their potential attendees where they’re at.

How do you handle event registration?

Websites, such as Ticketbud, provide easy-to-use event registration software for planners to manage and promote their events. The online tool allows event managers to create event pages and host registration and ticket sales for free, with a small fee passed along to ticket buyers for paid-events. Selling and sending electronic tickets has never been easier.

The online ticketing tool also allows event planners to customize every step of their event registration process – from creating different ticket types (GA vs. VIP) and automating their sales timelines, down to designing the look and layout of each ticket. Ticketbud even allows users to customize questions for ticket buyers to help planners gather and capture important information about their audience. Use this feature to create a custom event registration form.

What is registration software?

Event registration software provides an online platform where event planners can plan, create and manage paid or unpaid sign-ups to their events. Useful event registration platforms, like Ticketbud, consist of an online back-office for event planners to organize and promote registration, as well as a user interface for attendees to learn more about the event and purchase tickets.

How to choose the right event registration software

When considering which online event ticketing software to use, take stock of key features that can help ease processes before, during. and after the event.

With Ticketbud, event planners can create custom event webpages to share across online platforms. The platform’s ticket editor allows users to create and customize costs and sales timelines for multiple ticket types. And its promotional tools can help planners create and track special sales, referrals, or marketing campaigns.

Ticketbud also helps streamline event-day activities, such as arrival or check-in. For example, when attendees register through Ticketbud, they’re emailed a unique QR code that can be easily scanned on-site through a mobile app for secure check-in. It also provides communication tools that allow planners to email attendees ahead of the event with details they may need to know before they arrive, as well as follow-up with any post-event messaging.

But perhaps the most important feature to consider is cost. While many event registration softwares offer all the capabilities for successful event registration, it’s not all-inclusive in their base-level user’s cost. With Ticketbud, these features are free for all users.

What is a registration management system?

Ticketbud is a registration management system that streamlines the workflow for event planners and makes it easy for participants to sign-up for events. The online tool allows event managers to create a custom event page for their events and sell tickets or register individuals through an easy online process.

Registration management systems can vary in cost and features, but Ticketbud’s tools equip event planners with the tools they need to reach strategic sales goals. For example, the ticket editor allows users to create multiple price points for different ticket types or merchandise sales. Use it to automate specially timed sales promotions.

The online registration system also provides planners with communication and marketing tools. Event managers can email up-to-date information to participants directly through the site, or run targeted marketing campaigns through Ticketbud’s Ad Engine.

How do I create an online registration form for an event?

If using Ticketbud to host your event registration, you can easily create an online registration form using the “Custom Questions” options in your event dashboard.

When drafting your questions, you have the option to choose whether each requires a response and the type of response – be it text, dropdown, radio or multiple choice. And, if you’re selling multiple types of tickets, you can write specific questions for each ticket type, or assign questions to all ticket types.

As participants purchase their tickets, their responses will be recorded with their order. This way, when you run a report of the ticket sales, you can view individual responses to each prompt.

Custom questions are also a great way to gather other information from participants, such as suggestions for content, questions for speakers, or info on how they heard about your event.

Create Eye-Catching Event Marketing with Free Design Help from Canva

By Rachel White

Getting people to attend an event requires eye-catching, multi-channel marketing, but not all event planners have the time or resources to produce attractive promotional materials across their platforms.

Enter Canva, a free and widely used online graphic design service that provides users with a suite of tools to design engaging graphics and video for social media, email, posters, and more. Trusted by many, the online platform generates more than 3,000 designs a minute. And it’s easy to get started.

Sign up at canva.com

All you need is an email address, or other online account, and a password.

Once you verify your account through email, every tool and resource for both individuals and teams is easily accessible through the homepage, including design templates, educational resources, as well as your soon-to-be saved projects.

Once logged in, use Canva to create a banner for your Ticketbud event page that sets the tone for your entire event marketing strategy.

Click “Custom size” in the top right corner of the page below the “Create a design” button, and input the dimensions for the banner (1024 width x 512 px height).

Select “Create new design.”

Once in your design, you can use the design dashboard to search thousands of free and customizable templates, source free-use graphics and media, upload photos, and add text. When placed in the design, each element can be easily transformed and edited to reflect your event and brand.

Once finished, share or download your design by clicking “Share” in the top right corner of your screen. You can generate a share link for your team to access and edit, or download the file and upload your design as a photo onto your Ticketbud event page.

As you work, Canva automatically saves your progress. You can access previous and in-progress projects anytime through the “Projects” tab on your Canva homepage.

Modify your banner design to promote your event consistently across your channels.

On average, your audience will need to receive your message 5-7 times before making their purchase decision, so publishing graphics with a similar look and feel across email, social media, and other platforms will help build interest and recognition of your event.

Upgrading to Canva Pro, Teams, Education and Non-profit plans enables you to easily “copy & resize” designs. But with Canva’s free account, you can create new sizes for your design by simply starting a new design project from your homescreen..

Canva has thousands of pre-formatted designs for Facebook posts and covers; Instagram posts, stories and reels; printed invitations and posters; and more. Simply select your desired template from its menu of options to begin creating your next piece of content.

Once in your design, you can easily transfer all of the elements from your banner design to the new layout by selecting the design from your “Projects” folder in the design dashboard, then modifying to fit. Or, you can utilize the design tools to create a new design, borrowing similar fronts, colors and elements from the banner design to create a consistent look.

With Canva, you can directly post your designs to social media and messaging apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

By upgrading to a premium plan, event organizers can streamline their workflow by scheduling and auto-posting to social media with Canva’s Content Planner.

For more on how to use Canva to promote your event, check out Canva’s 20 tips on spreading the word on social media.

Canva is always free for every individual and team.
To unlock premium features, individuals can upgrade to Canva Pro to easily create professional designs and content for free for 30 days. More info here.

Social Media Marketing for Events

Promoting your event on social media significantly increases discoverability. Generating opportunities for your event to be searched and seen allows you to create awareness, sell more tickets and build loyalty for your brand or organization.

More than a quarter of traffic to ticketing and registration pages comes from social media. And according to Google’s internal research, 40% percent of 18 to 24 year olds are now using social media as their primary search engine, making your presence and engagement online pivotal to event success.

Social media promotion is a key part of your overall online marketing strategy. Below I will walk you through the seven tips you need to know to build a social media marketing strategy for your event:

1. Know your audience and where to find them

Social media can be exhaustive in time and resources and yield little success if you don’t understand who your followers are, which platform they are on, and how you can best reach them.

Establish who your designing your event for, and then evaluate how you might best reach them using key social platforms:

Facebook: With nearly 3 billion users, Facebook remains the largest social media platform. Though, people seem to be spending less time on it as younger users gravitate towards channels like Snapchat and TikTok. That being said, ad revenues continue to climb and could be a valuable and low-cost investment in your event. Plus – with Facebook event pages, you can easily communicate and spread event information that links directly to your Ticketbud registration page.
Instagram: The platform’s popularity has doubled in the last two years, with Gen Z and Millenials comprising two thirds of the platform’s user base. If you venture in this highly visual territory, come prepared with engaging videos, images and designs. 91% of users watch videos weekly.
Twitter: While Twitter is losing traction as a favored platform, it remains a top platform for communicating breaking news and events. It is powerful in generating buzz, engaging with internal and external audiences live, and creating a digital experience for your event.
LinkedIn: According to the platform’s internal research, LinkedIn is a top-rated social network for B2B marketing. It’s currently being dominated by a wave of millennials exploring career opportunities, but has useful tools to create event pages and lead discussions, especially concerning industry specific events.
TikTok: The platform’s current growth surpasses all other social media channels, and its young-user base is heavily influenced by the brands and products they’ve viewed in its videos. Like Instagram, videos are king. Consider creating content that conveys your event experience in compelling and engaging ways.
YouTube: The go-to streaming service is accessed by nearly two thirds of its user base every day. Whether you’re hosting live-streamed events or posting full videos and clips after your event to share with stakeholders, YouTube makes it easy to archive and share your event moments. Because YouTube is a search engine it means your content is easily found long after it’s shared. If you run annual events, people can view last year’s event experience videos on your channel before deciding to attend this year’s event. You can also use paid promotion to tease this year’s event with video and image from a previous event. When it comes to events, people love to see the experience visually.

Keep in mind that the average social media user engages on at least six different platforms. So, a multi-channel marketing strategy is pivotal to your event’s success.

2. Optimize your online presence

To help develop recognition across platforms, adhere to your organization’s brand guidelines and consistent messaging throughout event promotion. Optimize bio and about us sections across online channels with keywords and engaging descriptions about the organization and event, and provide links to all pages and profiles so users can easily navigate between platforms.

In spiring 2022, Instagram’s CEO revealed that hashtags were losing their luster in terms of helping posts gain traction and visibility. Instead, social media algorithms tend to favor searchable keywords and phrases. In fact, keyword-optimized captions were found to increase reach by 30% and double engagement.

To increase visibility of content, strategize to include text-based features like alt-text and captions that include phrases your target audience would use when conducting a Google search for your type of organization or event.

Create a landing page for your event that you can link to across your social media platforms. Check out this how-to article if you need help getting started creating your free event website with Ticketbud. Using plug-ins like Linktree on your Instagram, can help you easily direct people to your landing page, when hyperlinking is not available.

Ticketbud also offers tools to help you sell more tickets and boost promotion with paid ads. Ticketbud’s Ad Engine is designed for event organizers to get the best results from paid Facebook and Instagram Advertising. Ad Engine makes it easier to create targeted ads for the right audience, as well as help you manage your budget and provide a greater return on investment.

While Facebook Ads manager can tell you how many people clicked on your ad, it’s harder to track which ads are performing better in terms of converting sales. Ad Engine is designed to automatically optimize ads that sell the most tickets, by harnessing the influence of Facebook advertising to increase sales or registration on Ticketbud. Learn more about why Ad Engine is the cheat code to social advertising for busy event organizers.

4. Strategize to reach your goals

Determine your desired outcomes from your social media efforts and outline how you might plan for and reach them through your online marketing efforts. To do so, consider using the S.M.A.R.T. goal principle:

Specific: Be clear about how you define your event’s success and identify objectives.
Measurable: Assign metrics and KPIs to measure your progress, such as aiming for a total number of registrations or total amount garnered through ticket sales.
Attainable: Be realistic to maintain your and your team’s morale
Relevant: Align your event goals with your organization’s goals
Time-bound: Attach a timeline to certain objectives or goals

Remember to track your progress and evaluate your results. The insights you gain from this campaign will inform social media strategies for future events

5. Build anticipation with creative engaging content

Nearly just as many people post about an event leading up to it as they do at the event itself, according to Buffer. So, create a content calendar that gets people interested and talking about your event:

Share press releases
Tease and announce speaker line ups, special guests or attractive sessions with quotes and videos
Issue “save the dates” and “last calls” to communicate deadlines for early bird and general registrations. Check out Instagram’s Countdown Sticker as a great way to create urgency.
Administer ticket giveaways that require user engagement to help spread the word and generate interest in your event
Partner with influencers popular with your target market to help reach your audience through someone they already trust
Repurpose content and testimonials from similar past events to convey event experience

6. Inspire and encourage user-generated content (UGC)

Every social media algorithm favors engagement. Brainstorm ways to motivate your audience to do the heavy lifting and spread the word for you. Above, we suggested how hosting an online giveaway might inspire users to share and engage with posts, but what other opportunities can you create with your audiences leading up to, during and after your event?

Before the event, organizers can engage audiences by taking them behind-the-scenes on event preparations. Consider posing questions through posts and polls that ask audiences about speakers and sessions they’d like to see.

Also, it’s becoming more common for organizations to work with UGC creators to produce content that looks like organic UGC but actually derives from an independent contractor who specializes in promoting products and brands. If you don’t have the budget to contract that type of work, consider approaching past attendees or event partners who might help produce authentic content related to their experiences or their anticipation for your event.

Fun and easy ways to get people to post and share about your event live and on the scene include hosting photo-booths and LIVE tweeting and streaming features. Re-sharing the user-generated content on your channels or on display at the event itself can encourage more engagement.

These on-site endorsements stir up a healthy sense of FOMO, ensuring those who missed your event won’t want to make the mistake next time.

7. Gain insights through post event coverage

According to Buffer, nearly 1 out of every 5 social posts related to an event were posted after it. These types of posts are more reflective and can be used to garner feedback about the event.

Videos generate high engagement rates across platforms, so share clips from special moments at the event. Continually engage with and re-share user-generated content from the event and after it, to boost the post’s visibility. Connect with those who attended the event to get feedback and encourage them to stay in touch by following other social media channels.

When planned and executed well, the insights and content acquired post-event will inspire marketing strategies for future events.

5 Golden Tips for Managing Your Holiday Event

If planning your upcoming holiday event has you caught in the holiday rush, don’t get your tinsel in a tangle. Ticketbud’s free ticketing platform allows you to create an event website and open registration in less than 20 minutes. We also have great tools to help promote your event and communicate with your guests.

To get started, check out this 6-minute video, which walks you through how to sign-up for Ticketbud and create your first event.

Already a fan? Keep scrolling for five tips on how to utilize Ticketbud’s event tools to promote and manage your event:

STEP 1 – Create your event page with Ticketbud’s easy-to-use template, allowing you to plug in important event details (time, date, location, description), add a custom banner and supporting images to the page. Still ironing out details? No worries – these fields are editable even after your event is live.

STEP 2 – Add ticket types. You’ll need at least one type of ticket (GA) but can create as many ticket types as you’d like for your event. Think tiered pricing based on seating section or VIP, early bird registration, parking passes, etc.

STEP 3 – Connect payment processor. If you’re hosting a paid-ticket event, you will need to configure a payment processor, such as Stripe, PayPal, or WePay, to hold and process the money from your ticket sales. Don’t have an account? Don’t worry, Ticketbud helps you get an account organized.

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Once your event is set-up, Ticketbud makes managing and monitoring your event easy with built-in communication and reporting tools, offering unique promotional capabilities to help drive sales and attendance.

Here are five golden tips to using Ticketbud’s event toolkit to better plan, promote and manage your holiday event:

Tip 1 – Centralize Your Communication

Invite and communicate directly with attendees through the “Promotion” tab on Ticketbud’s event dashboard.

Share your event page with potential attendees through personal email invites or upload your entire guest list to spread the news of your event fast.

Ticketbud’s email tools allow event planners to streamline communication through scheduled reminders and mass email updates sent directly through the platform, with delivery reports included.

You can target communication to specific ticket types if customized messaging is needed. Event organizers can also customize the sender or ‘reply to’ address so responses to Ticketbud-sent emails come directly to your inbox.

Tip 2 – Get to Know Your Attendees

The ticket editor in the event dashboard allows organizers to create custom questions for attendees that may help plan for the upcoming event or for future promotions. Questions can be customized to appear only for specific ticket types or required for all attendees.

Consider utilizing this tool to identify dietary requirements or to collect background information that might be pertinent in shaping the event. The tool could also be used to prompt guests to submit questions in advance or gather information for future marketing efforts, such as asking if they’d like to be added to your organization’s mailing list.

You can watch a walkthrough tutorial for creating custom questions here.

Tip 3 – Customize the Tickets

Once registered, ticket holders will receive tickets via email from Ticketbud. The auto-generated, full-page ticket template contains a QR code for easy check-in along with event time and location details at the top of the page. There is plenty of white space to customize your ticket with additional event information, design, or branding opportunities.

For example, if you’re selling parking passes to your event, you may choose to create a specific layout for your parking ticket that includes a map and parking instructions. You could also choose to include an ad for future events on the current event ticket.

For more info on how to customize your ticket layouts, check out this video tutorial.

Tip 4 – Utilize Holiday Sales and Promotions

Harness the spirit of holiday savings by creating your own ticket discounts with Ticketbud’s promotional tools. Click here to learn how to generate custom promo codes for event discounts or exclusive sales opportunities.

The promotional tools also allow event planners to create special access codes that unlock hidden or VIP tickets so event planners can customize the event features for different audiences.

If you have an advertising budget, use Ticketbud’s Ad Engine, designed to make highly targeted social advertising easy and intuitive for event organizers. Ticketbud Ad Engine seamlessly integrates social media advertising with Ticketbud events to target the right audience for your event, so you can build ads that drive sales and maximize your ROI.

What are you waiting for?

Get started and create your first event.
If you need a little more information, get a custom demo walkthrough with a Ticketbud Team member.

Tis the Season to Save: Hosting Holiday Sales to Sell More Tickets to Your Events

This holiday season, people are hungry for savings, and Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Years offer timely opportunities for event planners to offer exclusive savings and drive ticket sales to any upcoming events.

A recent survey, commissioned by Wildfire, found that 90% of people are more interested than ever in getting discounts, using coupons and earning rewards when shopping online; and that businesses that offer incentives are more attractive to customers. In fact, the Department of Commerce reported a 1.3% growth in retail sales in October, driven largely by marketing efforts of retailers like Amazon, Target and Khol’s, which rolled out pre-season savings to boost shopper spending ahead of Thanksgiving.

“Economic pressures are driving the broad adoption of shopping rewards programs, which are ‘crossing the chasm’ from coupon clippers and early adopters to mainstream consumers seeking to cut costs any way they can,” writes Jordan Glazier, CEO of Wildfire, in a recent article published by Entrepreneur.

Below, learn how you can harness the spirit of holiday savings by creating your own ticket discounts with Ticketbud, and explore resources to develop a marketing campaign for your sale that taps deep into the psyche of buyer behavior.

According to the Wildfire survey, people also seek ease of use when accessing or redeeming rewards and discounts online. Ticketbud’s promotional tools are designed to help you offer discounts your customers can access without any detours or hurdles.

After creating an event in Ticketbud, follow these steps to create a unique promo code and discounted link to share with your customers for instant access to exclusive savings.

Step 1 – Event Dashboard
After creating your event page and setting-up ticket types in the Ticket Editor, you’ll be ready to create your first promotion.
To do so, navigate to the Promotion drop-down menu in your event dashboard, and select “Promotion Codes”

Step 2 – Promotion Codes
Here, you’ll have the option to add a discount code.

Step 3 – New Discount Code

Creating your promo code is simple with this short form.

First, pick a unique code, and remember that it is case-sensitive.

Then, choose if you’d like the savings to be in a percentage or dollar-amount (50% off vs. $50 off), and select the ticket types you’d like to make the promotion available for.

To make your deal even more exclusive and enticing, you may set quantity or time limits.

Step 4 – Promotion Codes
Once you’ve created your discount, it will be listed under Promotion Codes, with information on how many times it’s been used, as well as tools to edit and share.

The share button will generate a link that allows people to access the discount seamlessly, without having to type in the specific code at check-out. Share it on social media, or use it to offer exclusive savings to important stakeholders.

Promote Your Holiday Sale

Let your savings shine through a thoughtful marketing campaign that gets people excited about scoring discount tickets to your can’t-miss event.

The fear of missing out, FOMO, can influence people to commit to an event, as well as drive people to act impulsively when faced with a good deal. Shopping incentives trigger a buyer’s sense of scarcity, a fixation on the limit of time or quantity of something. Here’s how emphasizing both in your marketing campaign might help push people to check-out:

Time: The holiday sale and the event itself are limited by time. Use this to your advantage when planning and creating your content. Schedule announcements for flash sales and deadlines, promote limited-time savings and build anticipation for the event.
Quantity: Your ticket sales may be limited by the venue capacity or the number of discounts you’re willing to offer. Alert people when tickets are selling fast or running low, or consider limiting quantities to offer exclusive savings to key stakeholders as part of your strategy.

To spread the news of your sale fast and far, utilize social media and amplify your reach to the right audience with low-cost targeted ads. Ticketbud’s Ad Engine can be a great tool for this.

To build loyalty with current customers or stakeholders, pass along exclusive savings to your channel’s subscribers or mailing lists. Use Ticketbud’s promo code sharing options to create personalized email invitations that link directly to your discounts, or design printed materials with QR codes that link people directly to the savings, using this free online tool.

Design content across all your marketing channels with help from Canva, a free and easy to use design tool which offers a great range of holiday sale templates for various online and print channels.

Check out their free templates including these Black Friday Sale templates, Christmas Sale Templates and countless other resources for designing any online, video and print materials you might need for your next event:

Social media marketing is vital for today’s events. Event marketing needs a good social promotion strategy for both paid advertising and shared content. Ensure you know how to capitalize on the social media marketing strategies available for your event.