Today I’m going to tell you about a breakthrough event planning technique that has thousands of top event planners breathing a big sigh of relief.

It’s so simple you’ll probably kick yourself for not doing it already. Yet this one reporting technique could eliminate two of your biggest reporting frustrations instantly.

See, if you’re like most event organizers you probably spend a lot of time updating people with event information.

You have to update your hotel with room requirements… or update your caterer on food preferences… or update your boss and your staff on attendance numbers.

It’s a big pain.

And to make matters worse, the minute you send an update your information is out of date.

Now there’s a better way to share information.

The technology is called a “Smart Link” report – and it allows you to share any piece of information in real time through a web link.

Here’s how it works…
Step 1: You create a report just like you create any other report
Step 2: The system provides a web link for that report
Step 3: You distribute that link to anyone who needs to see the report

It’s so easy.

• Every update is posted in real time
• Share anything from attendance numbers to payments to meal preferences
• You don’t have to lift a finger
• Sensitive information can be protected with a password

Using a smart link is easy. You simply send a link like this one to the people who need to see your information:

View the Sample Report

Imagine what it would feel like to never have to update anyone again.

Your boss would always know how many people are coming. Your hotel would know up-to-the-second rooming requirements. Your staff would know real-time payment information, preferences and more.

Every key report you need could be accessible to every person who needs to see it – at any time.

To try smart link technology for yourself, log into your account and follow these simple instructions:

Click here to learn how to launch a smart link report!

As always, if you have any questions, please call us at 1-888-351-9948, option 3.

Sincerely,
Eric Olson
Sr. Director
RegOnline

www.regonline.com

Canceled events. Slashed budgets. Lower attendance. These are the issues that event planners are facing as they look forward to 2009.

The economic problems are real, but there are solutions for meeting planners. We took some time this month to look around the industry to see what top event planners are doing to cope with the economic crunch, and what we found was surprisingly optimistic.

“It really comes down to keeping smart business practices and having great customer service,” said Carol Wilke, owner of Global Meeting Planners.

A survey from the Religious Management Association mirrors Wilke’s sentiments, showing that 58% of meeting planners are pumping up their marketing efforts to attract more attendees. Another 27% said they would downgrade their catering options. Meanwhile, only 32% said they are cutting events or programs.

Still, major corporations are canceling events. In fact, AIG recently announced that it was cutting hundreds of events in December. The events that are going on as planned are reporting up to 60% less attendance.

As a meeting planner, you’re faced with two challenges: Increasing attendance and reducing cost.

The question is where do you start?

We asked other event planners what they were doing, and here are the results…

Two Great Ways to Attract More Attendees.

Send Email: Many meeting planners are turning to email marketing to boost attendance at their events. If done right, email can perform better than direct mail – for a fraction of the cost. Most successful marketers send a series of emails leading up to an event. The frequency that you send emails should be based on the response of your audience, but in general, an email every week for four weeks is a good approach. Try to keep emails personal and relevant. One way to accomplish this is to send different emails to different segments of your audience. For example, you might want to send your members a different version than your non-members, tying the message into something they feel is personal to their member status.

Get Social: The best way to attract people to your events is through word-of-mouth. People are much more likely to respond to someone they know and trust than an advertisement. Plus, word-of-mouth advertising is free. If you want to spread the word for your events look into the event functions on social networking sites like Facebook.com or LinkedIn.com. These sites allow you to connect with thousands of people through networks of people you already know. You can even create a fan page for your event on Facebook to increase your exposure, and it’s all free.

Three Great Ways to Cut Costs

Meet Online: Many event organizers are taking internal meetings to the internet, using web conferencing software to bring people together for virtual events. Not only do web-based meetings save you time and money on things like travel, catering and room rentals, but these virtual events make life easier for your attendees as well. Most event technology companies tie in to virtual meeting providers like ReadyTalk and WebEx so you can register and manage your attendees the same way you do today while still holding your event online for a fraction of the cost.

Know What You Eat: Many event planners think cutting the catering budget means cutting quality. That’s not always true. Take a deeper look at your catering options. Sometimes things like bulk condiments and buffet food can save you important cash. While most event planners will quickly point out that going with “cheap” food is not a good option, they will tell you that there is wiggle room in every catering budget and small changes can yield big results.

Go Automatic: One of the biggest expenses in any event is the labor hours it takes to register, coordinate and communicate to your attendees. Most event planners spend too much time on things like collecting payments, sending event reminders and conducting registration updates. By fully utilizing an attendee management system, like RegOnline, you can reduce workload on these tasks by up to 75%. That reduced workload allows you to take on more projects with less people, dramatically improving performance while slashing a big cost center.

With the economy on the decline, event planners will continue to experience business challenges. That just means your role is more important than ever. Take the initiative now to do things that will make you look like a hero in 2009.

Feeling the economic crunch?

Tell us what you’re doing to react to the changing economy by sending us an email: jrussell@regonline.com

Meeting planners are increasing their event popularity by huge margins because of the power of integrated and automated email marketing. With an online system you can schedule and automate all of your correspondence with prospects and registrants in advance… increasing event attendance with more timely, more frequent, and easier-to-take-action-on communication.

Seven Ways to Increase Event Attendance by 27% RIGHT NOW with a Fully-automated System:

1. Send email invitations along with snail mail.
Due to the costs and hassles of mail, increasing invitation frequency is not economical. With broadcast email you can schedule perfectly timed invitations to go out in sequence. Giving you more opportunity to attract registrants. An automated system automatically emails your registrants whenever you want it to.

2. Receive commitments quickly.
No licking envelopes or searching for stamps is required by your potential registrants when you include a direct link to your registration form from your email invitation.

3. Automatically notify people who abandon registration.
Ever wonder how many people start their registration but don’t follow through? Well, with an automated system, you can not only be notified when this happens, but create an email that automatically gets sent to them when they abandon the process, recapturing 20-25% of these fence-sitters directly from the email.

4. Communicate with people who haven’t RSVP’d.
Some people need several prompts or reminders of an upcoming event before they finally register. Schedule subsequent invitations to go out automatically and on the days you select to those on your list that have not yet registered.

5. Automate confirmation emails to increase ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising.
Statistics show that you can increase your word-of-mouth registration by including a “Refer-a-Friend” link in your confirmation emails. You can even give them suggested verbiage to send on about your event right in the body of the email. RegOnline makes it easy to get referrals, giving you additional registrants.

6. Decrease no-shows with reminder emails.
We have heard of event planners that see a 90% attendance rate after sending a reminder email when their previous no show rate was as high as 35%. An automatically generated reminder email is a great place to send final event details to your attendees.

7. Keep registrants informed with automatic waitlist emails.
A waitlist without coordination headaches is possible in a system with automated waitlisting. When a spot opens up, an email is automatically sent to the next person on the waiting list. They can confirm and pay, or decline and the process will repeat - automatically - effortlessly keeping your event at capacity.

With a fully-integrated online registration system, you can get an easy to use broadcast email system that will increase your signups by 30% or more.

With hundreds of online registration systems on the market, researching and choosing a system could quickly become an overwhelming project. Fortunately for you, many meeting planners before you have done the work of comparing systems. They have found big differences between the systems available.

8 Features of Online Systems which Will Improve Your Events TODAY:

1. Automated
Many systems include over 15 standard email communications that can be customized, personalized and automated. Data is automatically collected in our database and at your fingertips for an unlimited number of reports; and downloadable in six different formats.

2. Integrated
Online events are easily integrated with ad hoc emails via built-in mail systems, online surveys, donations and membership and subscription management systems, creating a one-stop shop for all kinds of online services.

3. Flexible
Everything you create in an automated system can be customized to your company or organization’s look and feel for a streamlined, consistent image through the entire process. Plus, your data is accessible to you in any number of formats through our extensive custom and cross-event reporting functions.

4. Web-based
Why is this so important? Using a web-based system means that you, your co-workers, your vendors - anyone can be granted access to all or parts of your event information - instantly and in real-time - from any computer with Internet access. Essential for mobile professionals like you.

5. Easy-to-use
This may seem like a no brainer, but make sure you “test drive” any system prior to making a purchase. If possible, attend a live demonstration of any product you are considering, and/or open a trial account to test their service yourself.

6. Supported
The support team needs to be accessible, responsive and knowledgeable before, during and after your event. We just mentioned taking the system for a test drive. Along with that you have access to technical support to answer any questions you have as you try out the system.

7. Secure
Make sure your data is protected. Ask if the system is hacker-safe. If it complies with Visa security requirements. Have they ever had a security breach of any kind?. The company should exceed all “standard” security measures - even those mandated by government and university customers.

8. Fast & stable
A good registration system is hosted on state of the art equipment, which makes response times minimal. System down time is also important - don’t settle for anything less than 98% “up time” or better.

For an event professional, building a base of fans that trust you to provide a great experience at every event is crucial to being successful. One easy way to upset your regular attendees and lose their confidence is to violate their privacy. With the advent of internet technology that helps plan events and make their execution more efficient, many privacy concerns have arisen.

Topping the list of privacy concerns associated with doing business on the internet is payment information and personal information. Payment information is sensitive for obvious reasons: an unscrupulous person with access to credit card or banking information is quite dangerous.

But personal information (name, address, mother’s maiden name, etc.) can be equally as dangerous with identity theft being one of the top concerns. It is the fear of losing control of this information which has led many people to oppose various technologies that make life easier on the web, but that might not necessarily be good for personal security.

But what about tracking programs that use cookies?

There has been much discussion regarding what information website cookies reveal to the website owner about users. While most web users are not particularly concerned with the practice of using cookies to collect information, there is a group of users who are very suspicious of websites that use cookies.

However, improvements in event registration software are bringing analytics to the event professional and it is important to understand how your registrants’ privacy is impacted by the implementation of web analytics on your registration form.

First, it is very important to note that the point of web analytics is to study the behavior of web users in aggregate. This means that you won’t necessarily be singling out registrants to gather information.

Sometimes the intent of analytics isn’t enough to deter critics, and so you should also be aware of what information is collected by your system. To give you a few examples, Google Analytics protects users’ privacy by not logging individual IP addresses. RegOnline’s Analytics Reports do not allow the event planner to view any personal information about users unless they complete a registration.

To further insulate yourself against privacy complaints you should carefully evaluate the registration software you plan on using. Some things to look for include HackerSafe security checks, Payment Card International certification and a verified privacy policy.

By taking a little time up front to understand how analytics and cookies work you will be able to patiently explain to registrants that their data is being handled responsibly.