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One of the challenges in organizing any event, conference or seminar is finding ways to make it easy for interested parties to sign-up and make payment for their attendance. Online solutions are now available that allow companies and organizations to quickly and easily deploy a system for doing just that. After all, when planning your event, there are a lot of moving parts to orchestrate. By implementing a comprehensive online registration process, you’ll likely increase your event’s attendance and greatly decrease your administrative time and effort allowing you spend more time organizing the actual event. The following provides some helpful tips for selecting and implementing your online event registration process and for getting your participants to use it. When selecting a service for your event’s online registration, there are a few things that you should look for. First, you’ll want to make sure that the service allows you to customize fields to collect information that is specific to your event rather than simply providing you with standard fields that you cannot alter or add to. Secondly, you’ll want to ensure that the service allows you to seamlessly incorporate the sign-up or registration page into your existing website. The best features for this also enable you to “skin” the registration page or brand it to your organization’s overall look and feel. And, finally, you’ll want to ensure that the system includes a comprehensive and secure payment process that accepts multiple forms of payment including the acceptance of all major credit cards, and potentially, a pay-by-check and/or automatic account withdrawal option. Now that you’ve selected your online event registration service, you’ll obviously want to make sure that your potential attendees will use it. While there are many benefits to online registration, all are lost if your event participants do not use your online form. So, make the most out of your investment by using these tips for getting your event participants to register online. Educate your participants Traditionally, your event participants may have faxed, phoned-in or emailed their registration. Now that your new system is in place, they’ll need to be educated about it. You’ll want to ease any insecurity they may have about it being too complicated or any worries they may have about providing personal information over the Internet. You should let them know why you are using online registration and outline the benefits for them and for you. At a minimum they need to know that your online payment option is secure, that the form is easy-to-use and that it will make the process of registration easier and more efficient for all involved. Be sure to inform them or demonstrate on your event website that you have a solid privacy policy and a secure, PCI compliant payment solution that will protect the information you collect on your registrants. Make online registration the preferred or only option If you can, having online event registration as the only option is ideal. It saves you from having to do any manual data entry and from collecting and combining information from multiple sources. If that’s too big of a leap for you initially, you should at least make it clear in all your promotional materials and on your event website, that online registration is the preferred method. In the long run, it will make things much easier for both you and your event participants to fully adopt this new method of registration. Simplify the registration form Make sure your online event registration form is clear, concise and easy for everyone to use no matter what their level of skill or familiarity with the Internet may be. Keep text and graphics to a minimum and use colors and fonts that are easy to read. Promote it Make your online event registration form prominent and include the link to it in all your promotional materials and on the event website. If you send out invitations, ads or post materials, make sure your event participants can clearly see the information telling them where to register online. Feature your event registration link largely and prominently on your event website and consider including text to “Click here to register” boldly on the site or include a “Register Now” button. If you must provide phone and fax registration numbers, make them less prominent.
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