Power of the RSVP

September 28, 2016 Frank 0 Comments

Unfortunately, the RSVP is one of the most loosely used tools for events. Curators and attendees alike seem to treat the RSVP like a step child compared to door entry. Door entry at first seems like the quickest option since both curator and attendee prefer paying cash upon entry but realistically is it the most beneficial? Find out below cadets.

Understand Your Attendees

An RSVP is way more than a notification showing that someone plans to attend, it’s essentially the source for understanding the outcome of your event before it happens. Closing a mandatory RSVP a few hours or even the day before an event would give you a precise idea on how many people plan to show up therefore allowing you to figure out how many supplies to purchase so you don’t waste any of the event budget.

Splashthat, a custom event website platform is our #1 pick for collecting RSVP’s. It’s visually appealing and user-friendly for the user and the editor. More importantly, it does an awesome job at providing you with solid analytics on who’s attending, where they come from and how they connected with your event. Below is an analytics charts from an event we hosted last year. Notice how it shows the timeline of when people viewed the page and RSVP’d.

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EMAILS, EMAILS, EMAILS

WAIT! Before you assume Open Space is ran by old folk who still communicate mainly through emails hear us out. The collection of emails you receive from events might be the most valuable thing you could gain from having an event believe it or not. Why? The only time someone doesn’t provide a throw away email (like that old Yahoo email you regret creating in high school) is when they actually have to find something, LIKE AN RSVP. So when you think you might be receiving email addresses that nobody uses, in actuality 90% of the time people are providing their PRIMARY EMAIL. This is important. With a collection of emails from people in your immediate radius you can send out future email blasts promoting your next event, a product or a promotional partnership and it will actually receive attention. Personally, we have a few thousand emails in our arsenal that we use to send out different updates, invites and news. The greatest part of all this is that people RARELY use email blast services like Mailchimp (check it out) to send out email campaigns like the companies do so when you do it then it won’t be saturated with other curators/creatives jumping in their inbox. Understand that this isn’t a general tip, this is a gem. In our experience, we see 75% of people completely ignore an RSVP page or not use one at all. Below is a screenshot of the performance of one of our recent email blasts, there’s also other information provided similar to how Splashthat does it.

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IN CONCLUSION

This write-up might seem like it’s a great tip but it’s really a simple tool we encourage all of you to use not just for your benefit but everyone’s! Our primary goal is to connect the curators and creatives. Make sure you connect the dots in every digital platform possible, even if it’s as old a tool as an email because someone’s fossil might be another’s tool.