4 Easy Ways to Engage with Attendees Post-Event

here, but now let's talk about something arguably just as important: engaging your customers post-show. Why is this so important? You made your money, they had their fun, everyone wins. However, any brand needs to consistently engage with their customers in order to win (and here's the kicker) repeat business. I'm paraphrasing the marketing maxim of "it costs more to acquire a customer than to retain one". So again, don't despair. Keeping in contact with your attendees should (and will be!) fun and result in your event being even bigger in subsequent years. Enough talk, let's dig in: Ways to Engage 1. Thank You Messages The most basic of post-event engagements is the humble "Thank You" message. Really all you need to do is craft an email thanking each attendee, which these days is incredibly easy with all of the integrations out there. Some ticketing companies should be able to give you access to all your attendee's emails, making it even easier and in many cases, a no-brainer. Simply write a message and be sure to add in a script that includes the attendee's name for additional personalization and send it out a day after the event is over so that it will still be fresh in their minds! 2. Social Media Photos/Vid Clips On each of your social media properties, curate photos taken at the event and create albums with those photos and post them. With access to user emails, you can even email them the "digital scrapbook" of photos taken at the event. It's enjoyable receiving photos from the event because it gives me an opportunity to try and find my friends and me somewhere in the audience! This is also an easy one to do and you or someone from your social media team can easily curate the content in the matter of an hour. That's not a lot of time to help create fantastic lasting memories for your guests, who will begin to look forward to next time! 3. Post-Event Surveys What did your attendees adore? What did they want fixed for next year? What acts or speakers would they like to see next year? Sending your attendees a post-event survey has a twofold benefit: firstly, it helps you improve your event for upcoming years and you're not stuck waiting to see a psychic. Secondly, it gives your attendees a real chance to help make the event truly theirs and it allows them to get involved. People like to feel that their opinion matters, and you can imagine the excitement when a hotly-requested band performs in the upcoming year! To encourage participation, raffle off some tickets for the next event, VIP service, or other event-specific goodies as a reward. 4. Create Relationships When people feel an emotional attachment to a brand or experience, they'll be much more likely to interact with it again. This means that you need to do your best to interact with your attendees on a basis after the event is over. This means continually posting new photos, responding to messages, giving reminders for next year (with discounts or free swag or drinks), and so on. Obviously this should not be very often to prevent attendees from being annoyed, but it's something that should be uncommon enough to give attendees something nice to remember throughout their day. So there you have it - four easy, cost-effective, and enjoyable ways to communicate with your event's attendees after everyone has gone home. To use one last cliche, we're social creatures! Take advantage of that little cliche and help create long-lasting memories in the process.]]]]> ]]>

Quick Tip: Getting The Most Out Of Pinterest

post about event marketing on social media platforms here, and what I said then is still true today: it's mostly female oriented and definitely geared for creative types. However, even if your current event doesn't fit these specs, you're likely going to be doing events that will fit this type of target market in the future, so keep reading! Once you've made your own board for the event you want to market/are planning for, here's some tips to get the most out of your time and the pins you've placed. #Hashtagsarethefuture What's that? Sick of hashtags? Sick of me making fun of hashtags? Well you'd better get #usedtoit, because Pinterest also utilizes a hashtag system. If you're doing an event based around gardening, then you'd add in hashtags like #greenthumb or #gardening. "Place" Pins Placing Pins is a very neat feature and allows you to mark locations of items in your Pinterest "pin" board. The great thing about this feature is that you can create your own boards, or edit other boards to place your items. It's a very powerful feature and can easily get a lot of people interested in a short amount of time. We've personally used this to great success during New Years' 2015, where we got more than 200 followers in the span of a couple days. You can see that board here. Good Pictures Required Think of Pinterest like Instagram: pictures are everything. This isn't Twitter or Facebook where pictures are nice, but these pictures need to do extremely well. If you want an idea of how to market your events on Pinterest, look at the McDonald's pinterest. And yes, they do have one. These days, if your marketing sticks out like a sore thumb and it's too sales-y, people immediately turn off. It's why online marketing is so tough these days, but always remember that the best marketing has always been what doesn't even look like marketing! Traditional Advertising You'll recall in my social media event marketing post about the different social media platforms that Pinterest was still working on advertising features for marketers. Unfortunately this is still something that's in limbo. You can join a waitlist, however, by signing up here. The feature is going to be called "promoted pins", and looks to be extremely similar to Facebook's "promoted posts". As always, remember that Pinterest needs you to be creative first so while you can certainly use some of the same tactics as on Facebook, remember that each niche's social network is going to have its own power plays and strategies. Business Accounts Pinterest has options for business accounts that allow you to see things like analytics, popular pins, and other features that will help you to gauge the success of your Pinterest campaigns. I highly recommend this feature, and Ticketbud has used this to great effect to double up on to more successful campaigns and to pivot from ones that may not be working as well.]]]]> ]]>

Ticketbud Widget Showcase II

Ticketbud event site to get a link from, and the main benefit of this is Search Engine related. One of the tell-tale signs that your site is good is if it has links from reputable sites, and Ticketbud is one of them! So you get the search engine potential of having your event listed on Ticketbud, but you also get to sell event tickets online with your own website. Talk about a double-whammy! With marketing and advertising, having a Widget on your site allows you to easily track conversions. Ticketbud of course allows you to utilize a Google Analytics code and track conversions, but you can also do the same on your own site. You also have the added benefit of your site being even more customizable than the Ticketbud event page, which is a pretty big deal. The widget is a great boon for event marketers and event planners alike! Anyway, let's look at three more websites that caught our eye. Budbreak Wine and Craft Beer Festival While this event has already passed, the Budbreak Wine and Craft Beer Festival was one of my favorites for its beautiful simplicity and color scheme. In the gallery you'll be able to see what the Festival's tickets looked like during the course of its sale. The page also gives more information about the ticket sales, such as receiving a free bottle of wine! Overall, the page is really cool and gave the organizer a lot of power to get customers their way. Fazio's Catering Murder Mystery Did you know that we ticket Murder Mystery Italian Buffets? I didn't either until I saw this pop up on my notifications. Fazio's Catering (to paraphrase a chef: If your Italian restaurant isn't someone's last name what are you even doing?) has done a great job with this page. Sure, there's only one ticket type, but what more could you want in one ticket? 3 course meal, dessert, coffee, drinks, and a show for under $50 is pretty great value. The "Die-Nasty in Dallas" event is well represented here. Cannabis Classic Alright, alright, let's get the Ticket"bud" jokes out of our system before we go any further! The Cannabis Classic obviously is designed to celebrate everything cannabis related. Regardless of your own personal beliefs on cannabis, it's pretty obvious that there's a huge market for it and the Classic is a competition and first mover in its industry. Thanks to the innovative and swift widget, they're able to do four entirely separate ticket types with ease, all displaying the extremely small fee next to them. Just another reason to use the Bud! (Okay I'll stop now). You can see the full page in the gallery, and it's fantastic. [gallery ids="22598,22599,22601"] P.S.- Does this look cool to you? Use Squarespace with our widget to fulfill your event ticketing needs! Learn how here. ]]]]> ]]>

Basic Google AdWords for Event Planners

You'll notice, of course, right off the bat, that the first two results past the pictures are ads, and then there after all this are the "organic" (this means unpaid) results. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Ads are extremely powerful in this scenario, as people are statistically much more likely to click on the first 1-3 results and then much more sparingly after that. So now that you know this, let's look into utilizing Google Adwords for your event!

Also, before we go any further, I should note that Adwords is not right for everyone, especially depending on your ticket price and your location. I only recommend you use Adwords if you are located in an urban center or area with a large population, and if your ticket prices are at least $10-15.

For New Users
In this section, I'm going to walk you through the account creation and first ad creation. It's quite simple, however there are always things to watch out for! The first thing you'll need to do before anything is create an Adwords account if you haven't already. Simply go to https://www.google.com/adwords/ and click the blue "Start Now" button. If you already have an Adwords account/have used Adwords before, you can skip this portion and head down to "Optimizing Your Ads".

First, you'll need to create a Google account if you haven't already. If you have, you can sign into it and you'll use that account for you Adwords
Setting your location: Ignore the default location settings and click on the little pencil icon to the right. Then, go to "Let me choose..." and enter in the city you're in. For my example, I'm trying to market "concerts in Austin" so I'd obviously want to add in Austin, TX. I'd also add in cities that are nearby Austin because I'm sure people will want to go them during the weekends! Use your judgment here.
Search Networks: Next, you'll see the area that says Networks. Click on the Pencil to edit, and uncheck "Display". Display ads aren't very popular and I've never seen good results with them. Now onto the meat!
Keywords: Keywords are things that people search for in search engines. They can range from "where to buy coffee" to "what is that one song that goes i'm blue da ba dee da ba die". This part can be difficult to determine- you'll need to think about what people could be searching for that would make them want to go to your event. If you're doing an event for home decorators, you could choose keywords like "home decorator tips" or "home decoration". The nice thing about adwords is it will tell you how popular those search terms are, as well as giving you other ideas.
Bids: Bids are a little tricky, and this is one portion where I recommend setting your own bid to start off with. Doing $1.00 is good enough to start with, but you'll need to think about ticket prices. Don't go bidding $1.00 if your tickets are only $3.00! Go into the bidding process thinking that you'll need at least 2-3 clicks before someone buys. You can always edit your bid later. After you've decided on your bid, now you can go back to your budget and set it. Don't worry if your clicks or impressions are lower.
Writing a Text Ad: If you've never done a Google Ad before, here's a few things to keep in mind. First off all, you have Character limits. Your headline has a limit of 25 characters, and then you have two lines of ad text, each of which are 35 characters each. My most basic recommendation is this: Have a clear connection between your keyword choices and the headline for maximum interest. Then, in your first line of ad text, have a benefit. Why do they want to come to your concert? The second line of ad text should have a call to action, such as "buy your tickets now!" or "5 early bird tickets left, save $5!". These are always the most effective ads.

After all that, you're all set! Be sure your landing page is the actual website for people to see your event, and set that green URL as your website as well. Click "Save", then go to Billing and Review. You're finished!
Note: We are not affiliated with empireatx, but they are pretty cool so I wanted to use them as my example.

Optimizing Your Ads
Here's a few tips for optimizing your ads for not only the highest CTR (click through rate, which is calculated as Clicks/Impressions) but also for saving your money.

SPLIT TEST!!!: Although it's incredibly basic, you'd be surprised at how many people fail to do it. Split testing involves creating two (not 3, not 4, not 1) ads for each group of keywords, and then seeing which one has a higher CTR. The higher the CTR, the better! After a couple weeks or at your discretion, look at your campaign manager and see which of your two ads has a better CTR. Delete the loser, and create a new ad based off your "winner" and see if you can boost it even higher. Over time, your CTR will increase even higher. The higher the CTR, the lower your costs are going to be since Google wants people to click on your ads. I recommend rotating out the loser every 1000 impressions.
+Modified +Broad +Match +Rules: Remember when you picked keywords? Choose an ad group, such as "concerts in Austin", and then take all keywords that you want to look similar. For example, you'd want to add a + in front of Austin and also +concerts. This means that your ad will only ever show up if someone types both "concerts" and "Austin" into the search bar. This will help increase your CTR dramatically. It's really the best of all types of keyword matching.
dn't misspell wrds: Character limits suck, but you can't get around them. Acronyms are one thing (like ATX), but you need to be using the full word. Google judges the quality of your ad, and that affects where it's placed.
Bid Slightly Higher: Very rarely will you pay exactly what you bid. This means that you should try to bid a little bit higher than what you'd want to pay, as this will get you higher spots. Higher spots means more people click, which means higher CTR, which means that your costs can go down...seems counterintuitive but that's the way the bidding software works.
Use -Negative Keywords: Are you doing a Baroque concert in Austin but it seems that everyone is searching for "neopsychelectro funk concerts in Austin"? Help raise your CTR by using negative keywords. In your campaign manager, you can choose to put in negative keywords. This means that if someone searches for "neopsychelectro funk", your ad won't show up for that keyword.

Conclusion
There you have it- you now have all the basic knowledge to run a successful Google Ad campaign! As always, be willing to learn new information and you'll also want to stay up to date on new happenings in the ad space to make the most out of your budget. You'll find that this takes very little of your time but can have drastic results. I'll be writing more about Search Engine Marketing for Event Marketers and Planners, so stay tuned and thanks again for reading!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mobile Friendly

knowing something and truly understanding something. Even in a world of essentially limitless information at our fingertips, it's so easy to hear something but not to take stock in it. This is one of those things you'll want to take stock in. From the horse's mouth: "today’s the day we begin globally rolling out our mobile-friendly update. We’re boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. Now searchers can more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming,...and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling." You can read more about the update here, but I wanted to talk just a little bit more about impact. So, while the sky isn't falling, it's certainly a wakeup call for your event website and pages. If they aren't mobile friendly, you're not going to rank as well - but only in mobile search results. While that might not sound bad, keep in mind that mobile traffic is almost 50% of all traffic. We at Ticketbud have noticed a stark increase in mobile purchases, so much so that we've added SMS ticket options for users to receive their tickets by text. The mobile update rolled out yesterday, which Business Insider called "Mobilegeddon". Personally, I think they're too Chicken Little and laid the fearmongering too thick. Here's the good news: Even if your webpages take hits right now, you can always fix them later and bounce right back. And if your site was made recently (i.e. in the last 3-4 years), it's likely already responsive so the need to freak out is even less. So ignore the talk and clickbait. Here's the other good news: If you use Ticketbud as your event website to sell tickets online, you're already mobile friendly. That's right! Let's walk you through a typical path. [caption id="attachment_22576" align="alignnone" width="185"] Ticketbud's event website pages are already mobile-friendly![/caption] You'll notice that Google calls out our site as being Mobile-friendly. Pretty neat, huh? Well you'll see why here: [caption id="attachment_22577" align="alignnone" width="285"] Would you look at that- it's just like it says on the tin.[/caption] You'll notice this is in landscape, but it also works in portrait perfectly well. We've been well prepared for this eventuality of heavy mobile traffic and changed to a mobile friendly site even before we knew of the algorithm change. In reality, we did it to make things easier for event organizers to sell tickets online on mobile devices. So, if you're an event organizer, make sure that your event site is mobile-friendly. The word you'll want to look for is "responsive". Responsive essentially means that the site's dimensions change based on the type of screen so that tablets, mobile, and desktop can all use the site with equal ease. Ticketbud has been designed responsively so again, if you already use Ticketbud, there's absolutely nothing to worry about - we got you covered! This won't be the last of the mobile friendly updates, but it definitely is a signal of things to come. A maxim of the Stoics in Rome was "the obstacle is the way". Don't worry about your site being penalized, start thinking of how your site can actually take advantage of the new mobile algorithm. Think like this and you'll begin to see a world of opportunity.]]]]> ]]>

Ticketbud Widget Showcase

Play It Foreward Play It Foreward is a charity golf outing designed to help educate children in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Detroit, while simultaneously helping fund pediatric cancer. They're awesome because of this, but they're also an awesome example of a Squarespace site using the Ticketbud widget. Squarespace is a custom website builder and we've noticed more and more event sites utilizing it. This is a particularly beautiful example of using the Ticketbud Squarespace widget. We have a simple, quick step-by-step guide for integrating the Ticketbud widget with Squarespace here. Alterconf From their website: "AlterConf Sessions are local events that provide safe opportunities for marginalized people in the tech and gaming industries to learn from and support one another. By highlighting the powerful voices and positive initiatives of local community members, we build hope and strengthen the community’s resolve to create safer, healthier spaces for everyone." Alterconf is a great example of a website using the Ticketbud widget to sell tickets to their events. Not only are they hosting a Session in Austin on April 25, but they're hosting four other ones all using the widget as well! Conbravo! The "Annual Festival of Everything Geek", Conbravo! boasts that "We’re one of the first conventions to embrace electronic media in all its online goodness. We’re Canada’s largest gathering of gaming and indie video producers, developers, and fans. In short, we’re three jam-packed days of fun, with concerts, games, panels, live game shows, vendors, artists, and so much more." Embracing of electronic media in all its online goodness apparently also means embracing Ticketbud's event widget software! And we aren't complaining (we just wish we'd been invited!). [gallery link="file" ids="22557,22564,22565"] ]]]]> ]]>

Finding Your Event's Marketing Niche

These days, it can seem like the term "social media marketing" is as ambiguous of a description as saying that you do "business". There are so many social media sites out there that it can get overwhelming if you don't narrow down your target market. It can also start to get expensive if you fire blindly in the dark by not narrowing down your targeting options.

In fact, I'm going to say something controversial: your event is not right for every single social media platform out there. If you disagree with this, think back to past social media marketing that you've done. I'll wager that your ROI (return on investment) is never the same across all platforms. Even in events we've run at Ticketbud, we've noticed a high ROI in platforms we were at first skeptical of. Adversely, platforms that we dumped a lot of money into resulted in a lower ROI than expected.. So as a side note, please experiment with the plethora of social media sites today - you could find a vein of gold amidst the wasteland. But don't feel bad if not all of them work out; Thomas Edison would be proud of you for trying!

The first step is to think of your target market. Where do they live? Where do they like to talk about the hobbies that interest them? For example, if your event is arts and crafts oriented with a high female turnout, Pinterest is the obvious choice. Events are even more varied than the social media sites out there, so what about events that may not be as obviously rooted in one media platform?

Facebook:

The nice thing about Facebook is that nearly everyone uses it. And for marketing purposes, it's one of the best. If you're an event organizer and you've done previous events, then take the email lists that you have and look into Facebook's custom audiences advertising option, found here. This is a powerful feature that allows you to input a list of emails and cross-reference them with Facebook users. If the emails were used to create their Facebook accounts, you will get a custom audience for your ad that is like the people who previously attended your event. Although you may find this contradictory, I recommend looking into Facebook for a solid portion of your social media advertising dollars due to the fact that nearly everyone has one. One last tip that will seem counterintuitive at first: if you set your bids for ads higher, you're more likely to receive more clicks and thus Facebook will reduce your cost per click. This equates to a significant cost savings.

Twitter:

Twitter has been pushing its advertising feature for a couple months now and I've personally used to it to great effect. You'll want to use Twitter for your platform if your event is more tech, comedy, or concert oriented since Twitter users tend to enjoy experiences along those lines. Twitter's userbase also tends to skew male. If you want to advertise to a certain group, you can target people who follow companies and people who are like the people you want at your event. Twitter is also a great before-and-after platform provided you encourage your eventgoers to live tweet. If you want more information on how to leverage this powerful platform, check this article out.

Instagram:

Instagram's advertisement feature is still in its formative stages. At the time of this writing, Instagram advertising isn't widely available. It helps to know that Instagram is used less by adults and more by teens. What Instagram is better for is using it for during-and-after event photos: encourage eventgoers with rewards to take photos and post them with your personal hashtag.

Pinterest:

Although it's also in a nascent period, Pinterest's promoted pins tool has a lot of potential-with more than a few caveats. First off, it's common knowledge that Pinterest is made up almost entirely of women, but there are also men who are interested. So if you're trying to promote a monster-truck rally, you'll probably want to pass since the target market is too small. As long as your event is more specific to women, you can't lose by trying out the promoted pins.

LinkedIn:

If your event is tailored towards professionals or more for adults aged 30-50, LinkedIn can be extremely useful when it comes to advertising. You can search by Job title and by location to create a highly targeted and highly converting campaign which will bring the right people to your event. LinkedIn's audience is much more educated than any other social network.

Conclusion

I should note that while these are all paid opportunities, there are tons of unpaid opportunities for each of these channels as well. This article was designed purely to look at paid options. Unpaid opportunities are extremely varied, and we will be looking at them in future posts. Thanks for reading and be sure to let me know if there's any other networks out there you've found success in!

]]]]> ]]>

Reduce Your No-Shows By 52%

Reduce Your No-Shows Drastically You've spent weeks, maybe even months, organizing your next big event. There's going to be a fantastic lineup, the bar is fully stocked, and you just recently secured a contract with a great local catering company. But on the day of the event, you only see a fraction of the people who had "committed" to going! No event organizer wants their time to go to waste, and it's hard to call an event a success if only 50% of the expected number of guests show up. And even if you have paid tickets, you still have to consider the fact that these people, had they shown up, would have purchased food and drinks. If there were bands, they would purchase merch and if they were speakers they would purchase DVDs or other paraphernalia. Regardless of the kind of event that you're throwing, a ticket purchase is really just a small part of the entire experience. People are social (it's cliche but you'd be surprised at how easily some forget), and events with empty seats or half-full venues look bad to everybody. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="291"] From Wikipedia, Take That Wembley Concert How you want your event to look[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="284"] Empty What your event could look like[/caption] So, how do you avoid the dreaded no-show?Well, here's some ideas that we've found have reduced No-Shows by a drastic amount. 1. Charge For Tickets Even if it's only $4.00, people are going to be more likely to show up to your event if they have to pay. From our own experience, free events are considered "possibilities" by those who RSVP. If they don't go, so what? They didn't lose any money. We've seen that statistically, free events have a no-show rate of up to 45%. That's right, 45%. Meanwhile, paid events have a no-show rate that's a fraction of that. However, if you would like your event to be "free" for some reason, there is an alternative... [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="404"] Ticketbud Helps Reduce No-Shows To Your Events Free events ain't free; They cost organizers like you and me; And if attendees don't chip in; We'll never pay the bill (With many apologies to Team America and Matt&Trey)[/caption] 2. Require A Deposit Deposits work great for events that are essentially free, but drastically reduce no-shows. How it works is that, before the event, the attendee "pays" a nominal fee- I've seen events that have deposits anywhere from $10 to $60. When the attendee shows up to the event, they're refunded the money. If they don't show up, then that's their problem - the event keeps the money as a nice souvenir. I highly recommend that any free event does this. 3. Keep In Constant Contact Even if attendees do pay for the event or have a deposit, it's possible that they'll forget about the event or just plain lose interest. You need to keep buzz levels high for the event if you want the highest amount of people to show up! Ticketbud in particular makes this extremely easy. Thanks to its partnership with Zapier, you can import your email list of ticket purchasers or RSVPs to Mailchimp, and you can send out messages to them telling them about contests, drink specials or coupons (guaranteed to attract people!) and other information. We recommend sending one email per week, and then ramp up in intensity with an email two days before the event, and then one a day before the event! 4. Act Like An Airline We all know how airlines work - they expect no-shows. That's why they purposefully overbook their flights so that when the time of reckoning comes, they have a full flight. Now, I should mention that this method could potentially be a little dangerous and it requires some past knowledge of your event in order to really work well for you. For this reason, I don't recommend this method for first-time events. Veterans should feel free to use this method. Basically, sell more tickets than there are spots. Worst case scenario, upgrade additional event goers to VIP status or use some other method to ensure that, in the event you do go over capacity, you still have some way to ensure that attendees can see the show they paid to see! 5. Accept Purchases At the Door Having some way to process tickets at the door is perfect for reducing the sting of no-shows. Always do everything in your power to fill your event to capacity, even if they didn't go the normal route of purchasing a ticket beforehand. Money is still money, and I guarantee that you'd rather have more people in your event than less just due to some reservations. Ticketbud's Point of Sale system is perfect for this, by the way. You can process credit/debit cards at the door with a swiper attached to a tablet or phone. And cash, of course, is always acceptable! Overall, there is a lot of ways to reduce No-Shows for you events. And luckily, they're all pretty easy to implement, especially with Ticketbud's event management and registration software, along with its event mobile app and Point of Sale system. ]]]]> ]]>

Let's Talk The "Leaked" Google Event App

here. I'll give you a Cliff notes version of the article but more importantly I'd like to talk about the potential this app has not only for Google but the effect it could have on the event industry. Cliff Notes of the App

2 days ago, Google "accidentally" releases its Event App
The app allows you to sync with Google Calendar and can notify you of upcoming events
The app provides other granted functionalities such as QR code scanning, details about the event, the time it starts, et al.
The description of the app reads: "“The Google Events App will allow guests, attending events run by Google, to interact with speakers on stage, take notes, participate in Q&A, connect to social media, and request further follow up information. The app is not available at events not organized by Google.”

The app is not available at events not organized by Google, emphasis mine. Now this wouldn't be the first time that Google would have standalone apps, such as their I/O 2014 app. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="237"] Google Play Store App Picture

Syncing with Google Calendar and Notify Me? Yes please![/caption] Consequence and Innovation Personally, I was excited to read about the app and already see potential for our ticket scanning app in the upcoming year. The ability to sync with Google Calendar is amazing, and notifying the user of upcoming events is just downright simple. If there's one thing that Google is awesome at, it's integrating their products with each other. Try telling me with a straight face that you'd drop your Gmail account when it's already synced to calendars, spreadsheets, Chrome, and your Youtube account. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="229"] Google Interactive Events App Photo

With that many sessions, we're gonna need more than one coffee break. And where's second breakfast?[/caption] Now, that being said, I can't see Google moving into the event registration industry wholesale. But if it does- how could it innovate? No more database for events like there is on Ticketbud or any other event registration site. Instead, you'll use the knowledge graph to search for "concerts in Austin, TX" and you'll get a laundry list of upcoming events geolocated to your location. This list would also take into account previous searches, Youtube listens/subscribes, and Google music downloads amongst other factors. Hopefully I didn't just kill the event industry in one fell swoop, but there you go! The event registration and ticketing industry would do very well to pay attention to what Google does with this event app, and at the same time be propelled to innovate more than ever before. That's the real consequence, which really isn't a consequence at all - event organizers and eventgoers win in the end when we innovate, and that's the important thing. Note: All images are owned by Google and taken from the Google Play Store]]]]> ]]>

Make Your Event Check In App Work For You

Scanning a ticket with an event check in app[/caption] Fast and Efficient Ticketing App Guide You have access to all of the latest event registration software, and you're using the most cutting edge event check in app. But at the end of the day, none of this is going to matter if you're not ensuring that everyone is properly trained and aware of how to best use the event check in software for your event! Read on to find out how to best use your phones and tablets to check in guests and avoid misfortunes! Wifi: Seems simple, doesn't it? Unfortunately, we've seen events that have everything set up amazingly with the exception of a solid Wifi connection. All guest check in apps (including the Ticketbud event check in app) require a Wifi connection in order to work properly and to sync with other tablets. For best results, we recommend using a closed network so that just your tablets and phones can use it to check in. For example, when there's 10,000 people coming to your event, a closed network moves from something ideal to something required. The last thing you want is your Wifi network getting overwhelmed! As a side note, if you want to read about an encounter with poor Wifi that Ticketbud experienced, read it here. On-Site Team: You need to ensure that you have a proper ratio of staff to guest ratio for the quickest possible check ins. Although there's no tried and true number here due to how varied events are, look at past events you've thrown with analytics derived from your ticket scanning apps to see if there were any bottlenecks and how quickly eventgoers were checked in. Also, in order to keep track of all tablets, we recommend having some sort of collateral to make sure that none of them go missing. Little Things: Sometimes, the little things can add up to become very big things. Here's some things that you should make sure that you've checked with all your tablets and phones:

Password Protected: We recommend you turn this off just for efficiency reasons, but if the tablet/phone is password protected, make sure it's simple and that the staff members know it
Auto Lock: For the same reason as above, we recommend that this is turned off for efficiency.
Most recent version of the ticket scanning/ guest check in app is loaded: This is very important for ensuring perfect sync across all devices.
Proper Brightness: If it's too bright out or too dark, ticket scanning apps will have issues in registering QR codes from guests. This one is killer if you don't prepare for it. We recommend testing the area that guests will enter. On an unrelated note, check that all phones and tablets have a proper brightness so that your staff can read properly!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="304"] Ticketbud's ticket scanning app is the perfect free guest check in app

Checking in guests on a phone is easy - as long as your staff are able to access the app![/caption] Use The Ticketbud App: If you want the fastest and most efficient guest check in app out there, look no further than the Ticketbud app. It's completely free to use, and works on almost all Android and iOS devices. It's one of the best guest list apps that allows you to check in guests manually or via a QR code, and you also have access to back-end analytics! These analytics can tell you how long each check in took, the amount of people currently at the event, and even more. Learn more about the app here! And if you already have the app, here's a training guide for you staff.]]]]> ]]>

Manage Your Yoga & Pilates Classes

Namaste, everyone! I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems like signing up for a yoga class at my favorite place is more complex than a Sirsa Padasana pose. And it doesn’t have to be that way- yoga is an activity that I, and many others, enjoy doing to clear the mind after a long day. Making it frustrating and counterintuitive to sign up for tickets doesn’t truly fit in with the peaceful, meditative nature that yoga grants us. Luckily, it’s become a lot easier with a lot of the event registration softwares out there. Ticketbud in particular has been used a lot by yoga studios in order to not only easily sell spots in classes, but also to advertise their studios on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Why Use Ticketbud For Yoga and Pilates Classes?

Making sure that classes are advertised and intuitive to purchase is important to make sure that studios are filled with clients. More importantly, you'll be able to support yourself and the studio. Ticketbud makes it very easy to turn that into a reality.

Multiple Classes:

Ticketbud supports multiple ticket types, discount codes, and promotional codes. It also can enforce a quantity and a maximum purchase for different tickets, thus ensuring that you get a diverse group in your studio. Furthermore, you can choose to charge for the classes or keep them as free depending on what you’re looking to do. If it’s a private class you can set it to invite only, or you can choose to send out RSVPs. If you have multiple types of classes, you can create different ticket types for them. And if the same class happens multiple times a week or month or year, you can set the recurring event type. [caption id="attachment_22380" align="alignnone" width="450"]

Yoga retreat using Ticketbud's event management software for its classes

Example of a Yoga Retreat using Ticketbud's online event software to handle multiple ticket types[/caption]

Ticketbud Widget:

This is the best option for most yoga and pilates studios out there: you can import a ticket-buying widget onto your website so that anyone coming to your website can easily and quickly purchase tickets to your class. There is also a calendar option which I wish more yoga studios would take care of. Many of them may post a week’s classes, but things change and I like to have a schedule planned out for a month in advance. [caption id="attachment_22361" align="alignnone" width="450"]

Setting up a yoga page with Ticketbud's ticket widget

An excellent example of a yoga retreat using Ticketbud's event registration software widget[/caption]

Backend:

You’ll get access to your client’s information on the backend of Ticketbud, and you’ll also be able to promote your tickets on social media and your own website. Getting access to client information will allow you to think about the type of clients you attract the most and market towards other potential clients of the same type! Another cool feature is that you'll be able to send emails to previous purchasers to alert them of upcoming discounts and cool events you're running!

Conclusion:

When it comes to making sure your yoga or pilates classes are filled and your clients are well informed, Ticketbud and its ticket widget are the perfect choices for any instructor. If you'd like more information or a demo on how to set up Ticketbud to increase your client base, please click here to sign up!]]]]> ]]>

How to Use Blogs to Sell Tickets

Blogs: many of us have one for personal use and use them as a diary or to talk about a certain hobby that we enjoy. However, there's a big opportunity in creating a blog to help increase the amount of views your event gets, which can help increase your ticket sales. Best of all, you don’t have to devote much time to it - just a couple of short posts a week will do it to increase sales. First, let’s look into why blogs are so useful for you, and then we’ll give you some potential ideas as well as actionable tactics help increase ticket sales.

Why a Blog for Your Event Is Awesome:

At their very base level, blogs are your personal soap box. You write about what you’re passionate about and, over time, people with the same passions as you will follow your blog, repost your content, and even collaborate with you! As mentioned earlier, blogging is cost effective because all that is required is your time. Personally, I recommend setting aside about 30 minutes every few days to type up a post. So you can post stuff about your event for free, which is useful because you’re also spending your money on other advertising platforms and your budget isn’t infinite (if it is, please contact us as we’ve got some killer ideas!). Another reason why blogs are awesome is because they are indexed by search engines- this means that people could find your blog if they search for something that is related to your event. Bottom line: if it’s online, people can and will find it. That’s great news for you!

Actionables Checklist:

Here’s some things your blog needs to have if you want it to be successful and drive free traffic to your event, resulting in increased visibility and ticket sales.

Engaging Content:

If you're going to spend your precious time crafting content to attract attention to your business, you want to do better than hunches and hoping.” Jessica Stillman, Inc.

It’s ironic that this is a long blog post because many of the best blog posts are short (but bear with me, this is worth it). And by short I mean about 300-600 words. Keep it engaging and people will keep coming back. For example, if you organize a concert series: Concerts are super easy. Write about the band, get interviews, write about where you’re going to be playing, show work in process shots of the stages being built, talk about the venue and its history.

Images:

People love pictures and a blog without any pictures is like a house without windows, it just won’t feel right. The Internet has rightly become more and more image centric and that’s because people like visuals. Take some high quality photos in the weeks leading up to your event of things like the grounds, the building of stages, the catering. You got it, take a picture of it! Everyone loves to see works in progress.

Social Sharing:

Just like people love pictures, people like to share things that matter to social media sites. Be sure that your blog not only has the options for social sharing on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but that the content itself is something someone would share. Run contests for free swag,share crazy things that happened with the pyrotechnics, the possibilities are truly endless.

Think of Search Queries:

If you want your tattoo convention to be the first result on Google or Yahoo! when someone searches “tattoo convention los angeles”, then you need to be writing with these keywords in mind. Search engines don’t place as much importance on keywords as they used to but you still need to have the keywords in the first place if you want to rank for those terms. tattoo

At the end of the day, you need the mindset of “if a person searched for _____ and my blog post was the first result, would they be satisfied, excited, or want to share it with someone they know?”. This means you don’t need the keyword in every single line (search engines hate that and so do people), you just need to fulfill the user’s needs.

Think Mobile:

Okay, okay, you get it. Everyone’s on their phone nowadays. So why is it that so many websites still aren’t optimized for a mobile experience? Don’t get lazy and think you can get away with it because you can’t. If you have a web developer for your site, talk with him/her and ensure that your site is “responsive”. We hope that this helped you get some thoughts rolling in your head, and we also enjoy hearing your feedback on our own blog! If you start a blog, send it our way and we'll be happy to provide input into yours as well.]]]]> ]]>