Creating A Smooth Registration

In this session we are going to be talking about a subject that may seem very administrative - registration. In actual fact, the conversation you have around this very issue actually determines a whole lot about your event and your attendees experience - so let’s jump in.

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The Pros and Cons of a Registration Wall

Determining whether your event should have a registration wall is one of the first practical considerations in building your event, as this will be the first thing that is built. It may be true that you can attract a bigger audience on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube in a short period of time for relatively little cost, and our advice is always that Facebook and YouTube should be a component of your overall strategy, but the challenge with this approach is that  Facebook and YouTube are the ones who reap the benefits of knowing and serving your audience rather than you.

The future of all media delivery is undoubtedly increased customization for the viewer and the real question you need to be asking right now is whether you want the social media platforms to be the ones getting to know and serve your audience or whether YOU want to be the one doing that.

Registration walls, whether they are paid or free, undoubtedly place a barrier of entry in front of any audience, and a barrier that undoubtedly reduces the amount of attendees. But on the flip side, it also significantly increases the attendees COMMITMENT to your event and to your cause. It communicates a level of exclusivity which is often desirable and it can significantly cover the costs of your event. 

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The question you need to ask is whether you want the social media platforms to be the ones getting to know and serve your audience or you want to be the one doing that

Your Own URL versus Social Media Channels

Social media strategy should certainly be a component of your overall marketing strategy. However, limiting your content delivery to a single platform decreases your ability to know and serve your audience effectively. One of the key strategies that we advise at Sardius is to host your event at your URL and thereby increase awareness of your website and your online community. (Sardius will typically host your event at a subdomain of your URL - e.g. https://watch.your-homepage.com). This integrates with your online home and cements this location as a place for you to serve and interact with your audience effectively.

We will often advise you to use your social media channels not only to engage your audience with your message and market your events, but also to add value through broadcasting introductory or free public-facing plenary or breakout sessions which ultimately point to the event URL address and/or clip out highlights throughout the event. If you do not have an extensive social media presence it may be advisable to utilize the channels of friends that do and in this way syndicate valuable content which can ultimately grow your audience. 

Paid, Donation or Free Registration

Once you have determined that you wish to create a registered event, another key component of this decision is whether the event will include a paywall or not and also what type of information you need to collect during this registration process.

Free Event Registration

Before we turn to paid events, one approach you may want to consider is a free registration. This could be as simple as collecting the email addresses of your attendees. Some clients even provide the main session broadcast for free with no registration, but then offer many of the features of interactivity, the breakouts and the post event video on demand as perks which come with registration.

Such free registration may be worth it to you in order for you to build your database (keep in mind that it is often advisable to connect the registration information collected here to your day-to-day client database so that you can make the most of this data) and also to understand how your audience has interacted with your event through the analytics which we will later address.

Should I Charge For My Event?

A paywall does not always mean that you have to “sell” tickets. An alternate option could be a voluntary suggested donation for the event, which technically works in much the same way as a ticket sale. Many event organizers will not cover the costs of the event simply through ticket sales, but with revenue sources coming from sponsors, donations and other ancillary revenue channels during the event (every event is different for one portion of high demand, high ticket price events paying the event bill is never the challenge. But for another portion of event producers, breaking even may be a high priority). As you would expect, the normal rules of supply and demand apply to your ticket sales.  More information required at registration and higher ticket prices will typically lead to fewer people making a commitment and going through with a purchase. Another consideration that is often relevant for non-profit events is that when you sell tickets, there is a requisite expectation created related to a certain level of quality in your deliverables (which includes high touch customer service) and therefore such organizations may choose the route of a suggested donation for a ticket instead. There is no right or wrong approach in answering these questions. However, they should be considered alongside your main event metrics as you build your registration.

Gathering the Right Information for You

‍With any type of ticketing you will need to determine the fields of information you wish to collect. These may include information necessary for registration and the smooth running of the event, information necessary to create a user profile in the event and any other marketing information that is helpful to you. Examples include:

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Should I be Concerned about Privacy Issues in Collecting Data? ‍

As more and more companies have profited from using the personally identifiable information (PII) of their constituents, privacy concerns have become an increasing concern for any online endeavor. In many jurisdictions around the world, legal frameworks have been created to protect citizens from the unscrupulous practices of certain online companies. Even if privacy concerns are something that you have never considered before, it is important if you have an online presence and you collect any kind of personally identifiable information that you give it some thought. If you have a web or app presence, now would be a good time to develop your own privacy policy, terms of service and perhaps cookie policy to communicate that you are not one of those unscrupulous organizations who are going to sell data to the highest bidder.  As you build the registration of your event, it is important to display these policies to your audience to communicate how you are using the audience’s information. We typically find that displaying these opt ins at the point of registration is the right place to communicate these policies. 

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Navigating GDPR, CCPA and Other Legal Requirements

If you have a significant audience in Europe, UK or in California, it is important that your online event is in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR EU & UK) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) respectively. You are responsible as a Data Controller of your constituents’ information and in a subsidiary manner Sardius Media is responsible as a Data Processor for your constituents’ PII. Other jurisdictions around the world have similar provisions to GDPR and CCPA and Sardius tries to keep up-to-date with many of these, but have placed an emphasis on compliance with both GDPR and CCPA as they have up to this point been the gold standard in relation to privacy compliance. Sardius will provide you with all the relative documentation (see Appendix 2) regarding how we use information to aid in the smooth running of an online event and will require you to give permission so that we can process your data.‍

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Should I Limit the Number of Devices Per Registration?‍

Privacy issues are nothing to be afraid of. While you should not be using PII for purposes for which you are not authorized, obtaining the consent of attendees to opt into your calls to actions is often exactly what both you and the attendee want. Business models moving forward will increasingly rely upon the organization’s ability to customize their service to their clients. It is both reassuring and convenient to walk into a local coffee shop where they know your name and have already prepared your coffee. One barrier to collecting this information however is when individuals share their usernames and passwords. When “Barry from accounting” tweets out his access codes and 1500 people use it, you have A LOT of useless information about “Barry” added to the fact that you may have missed out on selling many tickets. For these reasons we recommend that you limit the amount of devices per registration. When an individual buys a ticket or registers to a Sardius powered event, a unique token is created per registration that is used to create the individual event journeys. It is also possible to restrict the amount of devices that can access an event on that token. As you build the registration it is important to consider your goals and whether you wish to restrict each token to a number of devices.

Audience Journeys‍

You may choose to develop an event where every attendee is served the same content the same way. Alternatively, you may wish to create an event where the audience either chooses or is placed in a custom journey related to their audience segment. This may change what content that segment sees, which user interface they interact with and which other attendees they interact with. You may build an event where attendees get to choose what components of the event they wish to participate in (and when they want to participate in it) AFTER they have entered the event or these choices may be made by the audience during the registration process. Examples of the choices the audience might be faced with include: 

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Building Your Online Registration

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For online events, registering for an event with your organization may be the first point of contact that an attendee has with you. Therefore there are a number of elements to think through in addition to the fields of information that you are collecting - and these ultimately relate to assets that we typically ask clients to provide us with‍

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In the Design of Ticketing you need to be thinking about including your event branding‍

Confirmation Message Once Registered - this is the page that appears immediately after registration to indicate success in registration - we have some stock confirmation pages, but advise you to customize this message‍

Registration Confirmation Email Content - this is very similar to the confirmation message. We have some examples of what good confirmation emails look like - but again this is a message from you, so it is important to ensure you get the message and tone correct‍

Pre-Event Landing Page - Once an individual has registered, they will not experience the full event until the day that it begins. However, it is still possible to move the objectives of the event forward with an effective pre-event landing site. This is the location where registrants will be directed upon completing registration. It includes your basic branding elements with a written welcome message and usually a countdown to when the event will open. We also advise that in addition to any text you include a welcome video which can help orient your audience regarding what to expect at the event as well as creating excitement and pointing people to any specific calls to action that you may have in the pre-event period. This may be a temporary landing page until the event watch page is created.

Payment Processing‍

A number of ticketing services will handle the payment processing in an event for a significant fee, which will be taken off the top of the monies collected before the remainder reaches you. Sardius currently operates a different model with a “Bring your own Stripe Account” approach. This means that you will pay the transaction fee and then receive the income directly from your audience.

When Should I Open Registration?

‍Some organizations have established behaviors concerning when they open registration for their event and it would create confusion in their audience if they veered from this course. However, where no such general behaviour has been established, a common question that is often asked is when registration should be opened. While many aspects of a physical event and an online event are transferable, this is one area that must have different considerations:

An in person event will often require the audience to take time off work (or at least their day-to-day schedule if it is an internal organizational event). This often requires much more forward planning including travel and accommodation arrangements. For this reason it is often important to open event ticketing up to a year or more in advance. Added to this is the fact that an in-person event often has limited capacity at every level of the event which could add motivation to buy earlier.

An online event does not invade as much on the day-to-day schedule of the audience (a fact that must be considered when creating the event schedule if it is entirely online) and therefore opening up the registration closer to the event and building a clear communication plan from the start of the registration to the end of the event and beyond is something that should be considered. For hybrid events you may even consider opening the online portion of the registration later than the in person portion. While you can still utilize early bird pricing in online events, online events have no space limitations for the size of an audience. This does not mean that an event should have an unlimited registration. Unique limited experiences based on human limitations of breakout, watch party or VIP one-on-one consultations may create an exclusivity that is often a big selling point for events.

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