It’s becoming increasingly less useful to promote your events, classes, or conferences using offline methods, such as print or local television ads. In this day in age, even online methods of advertising, such as Google Ads and Facebook Marketing, are becoming less effective. It’s hard to cut through all of the noise when we get constantly bombarded with messaging about new products, services, and 21st-century gimmicks. Sometimes I wish we could go back to a time like when we were young.
Using Social Media Marketing to Boost Event Awareness
Whether you plan events year round, or once a year, promoting your event is essential to it’s success. The advances in social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) alone have changed the structure of event planning and promotion in unimaginable ways over the last decade. In 2016 there were some 195.7 million social network users in the U.S., the equivalent of about three quarters of the country’s population. According to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached 1.96 billion and is expected to grow to some 2.5 billion by 2018. On average, global internet users spend around 118 minutes per day surfing social networks.
2016 Social Media Stats
Call for Sponsors: EE4 Promotional Codes & Discounts
EE4 Promotional Codes & Discounts Possible Features
Incentives are important to selling-out an event within a certain timeline, or helping encourage people to attend that are more price-sensitive. You can leverage promotion and discount codes add-on to incentivize people to register now or make your events more affordable for others.
Help us fund our next major feature! Please head over to our Indiegogo campaign page and make a donation.
For now we are starting with “Phase I” features and will move on to “Phase II” ideas/features once we release the first phase of the add-on.
Phase I Features
These controls are managed on an event-by-event basis via Promotions Overview, and Promotions Details pages.
- Discount text (code)
- Discount name
- Discount amount
- Discount is percentage (if not then dollar amount)
- Discount scope: event
- Discount description
- # Uses (the number of times a discount can be used per scope item)
- Start/End dates (based on certain dates/times)
- Custom promo code applied/denied messages
- Integration into the Order Confirmation
- Integration into the transaction/accounting details system
Phase II Ideas (NOT COVERED IN THIS ROUND OF FUNDING)
- Discount scope: cart, ticket, username/email, event category, author, datetime, venue
- # Global Uses (the TOTAL number of times a discount can be used)
- Global codes (meaning that a discount code will apply to all events by default without having to select it in the event editor for each event)
- Apply before/after discount/surcharge calculation based on price hierarchy
How can you help?
Well, the time has come to start bringing in some heavy hitting features like Promotional Codes & Discounts, Multiple Event Registration, and WordPress User Integration…And now we want to see if our community will embrace an opportunity to contribute to powerful event registration and ticketing features.
Quite a few of you have mentioned that you would consider donating to the development of certain EE4 features. We are experimenting with crowd sourcing as a way for ALL of you to participate in sponsored development.
This is where you come. We want to test the waters of “crowdbuilding” or “crowdfunding” a few add-ons and features in EE4. We want to hear from you, and create the tools you need for your businesses. Your donations will help us and other users to create the features the Event Espresso community needs.
We are only asking for $10,000 to fund this development, so please head over to our Indiegogo campaign page and make a donation.
How does this help with prioritization of features?
Here’s the deal. Our development team has been hard at work for over a year making sure EE4 core is stable and as bug free as possible. Now, two of them have already started planning and building some aspects of the Promotional Codes & Discounts add-on, however, we have many more hours of rigorous development and testing left to do. Our current process for development of features relies on picking and choosing the most requested features. By crowdfunding Event Espresso features, we are letting YOU decide what we work on next.
Sponsors help us (EE) prioritize development that may not otherwise be accomplished within the same time frame. For example, new payment gateway sponsorships are moved to the front of the development queue, while other features are set on the back burner until we have more time and/or dedicated sponsors. This experiment will help us understand if users want to help prioritize the development of features they want by sponsoring via crowdfunding. We are actively looking for ways that benefit our users most, while still allowing us to sustain the business and growth of Event Espresso.
Why sponsor the Promotional Codes & Discounts add-on for Event Espresso 4?
The idea behind this to try helping each other, and everyone else in the Event Espresso community by keeping the prices low for this and future add-ons. In addition to keeping an add-ons prices lower, sponsors help us (EE) prioritize development that may not otherwise be accomplished within the same time frame. For example, new payment gateway sponsorships are moved to the front of the development queue, while major feature get pushed back until we have to work on them.
Please consider sponsoring the EE4 Promotional Codes and Discounts add-on. If you would like to know more, or requests other features, please fill out the Sponsor a Feature form and check out our Crowd Funding Development page.
Amplify Exposure for your Events with the Events Social Sharing Add-on
Our Events Social Sharing add-on for Event Espresso 4 will allow your registrants/attendees to tell friends about their registration by sharing a message on social networks like Google +, Twitter, and Facebook. This is a great way to add some social proof and get the word out about your events.
Our add-on will add social sharing buttons for Twitter, Google +, and Facebook on the thank you page which appears at the end of registration checkout. Here is an example:
The Events Social Sharing add-on is a WordPress plugin and can be installed through your dashboard. You can purchase it today from our store.
Here is some additional information about the add-on that you may find helpful:
What version of Event Espresso is this add-on compatible with?
The add-on is compatible with Event Espresso 4.4.4 and up.
How can I change the heading?
Yes, this can be done using a WordPress filter and an example is available on our documentation page for the Events Social Sharing add-on.
Can I customize the tweet message for Twitter?
Yes, this can also be customized by using a gettext filter and an example is also available on our documentation page for the Events Social Sharing add-on.
Will other social networks be available?
The initial release of the add-on supports Twitter, Google +, and Facebook. We will introduce other social networks in a future release of the add-on.
Have a question about the add-on or need help with Event Espresso? Create a support post in our support forums and we’ll be happy to help you.
Need to Buy a Support License for the Events Social Sharing Add-on?
https://eventespresso.com/product/eea-events-social-sharing/
https://eventespresso.com/product/eea-events-social-sharing/
Event Espresso 4 Integration with Infusionsoft now Available
At Event Espresso we’re all about making our customers’ lives easier. We know that your time is precious. That’s why we are excited to announce the stable release of our Infusionsoft Integration add-on for Event Espresso 4.
Now, with Event Espresso 4 running on your website, you can push valuable customer data from event registrations on your website straight to your Infusionsoft database. No more copying and pasting data. Did I mention the process is automated?
More details and purchase on our sales page!
Here is how the integration works:
1. A customer registers for an event on your website and the data is transferred to Infusionsoft.
2. The customer pays for the event using either a built-in Event Espresso payment gateway.
3. The customer is shown a payment confirmation directly on your website.
4. Once the customer has made a successful payment, the payment record is updated within the Infusionsoft app.
Infusionsoft’s all-in-one sales and marketing software is built to meet the specific needs of small business. With the Event Espresso 4 Infusionsoft integration add-on, you can completely automate your customer relations and email marketing campaigns.
Already have the EE3 version? No problem! Existing license holders can take advantage of this tool today, at no extra charge!
Expand your possibilities today with the Infusionsoft integration for Event Espresso.
MailChimp Integration Now Available for Event Espresso 4
The MailChimp Integration add-on for EE4 is now available. This integration makes it quick and easy to add subscribers (your attendees/registrants) to any LIST or GROUP from any of your events.
The integration between EE4 and MailChimp is unique, in that you can select which fields you want to transfer from Event Espresso to MailChimp. For example, if you provide events for children, instead of asking for and transferring (merging) the child’s email address, you can ask for the parent’s email address in a custom question field and transfer (merge) that custom question field answer to the MailChimp list or group.
We’re proud of this MailChimp add-on for EE4 and hope you like it too.
Customers who have access to the MailChimp Integration for Event Espresso 3 also have access to the MailChimp Integration for Event Espresso 4. If you have questions about this please contact the sales team.
See the MailChimp Integration documentation.
Event Espresso Brings Official Integration with Infusionsoft
At Event Espresso we’re all about making our customers’ lives easier. We know that your time is precious. That’s why we are excited to announce the stable release of our Infusionsoft integration add-on.
Infusionsoft is touted as, “The only all-in-one sales and marketing software built for small business”. Just check out their latest press releases. With Infusionsoft, you can attract customers, automate marketing, close sales, and even sell online. Infusionsoft is designed to meet the needs of small businesses with less than 25 employees. They combine customer relationship management (CRM), marketing, and e-commerce into one, web-based system.
Now, with Event Espresso running along side your Infusionsoft account, you can push valuable customer data from event registrations on your website straight to your Infusionsoft database. No more copying and pasting data. Did I mention the process is automated?
Here is how the integration works:
1. A customer registers for an event on your website and the data is transferred to InfusionSoft.
2. The customer pays for the event using either a built-in Event Espresso payment gateway or your Infusionsoft Merchant account.
3. The customer is shown a payment confirmation back on your website.
4. Once the customer has made a successful payment, the payment record is updated within the Infusionsoft app.
The add-on is included in the Developer License Package, so our Developer License holders can take advantage of this tool today, at no extra charge! The add-on can also be purchased separately and used with any of the other license packages.
Get it here!
Expand your possibilities today with the Infusionsoft integration for Event Espresso.
Nonprofits Using Social Media
Yesterday, the radio program, Marketplace by American Public Media published an article on their website and ran a story on the radio about how charities and nonprofit organizations are using social media to raise funds. It is becoming ever more important for organizations, especially nonprofit groups, to take advantage (in a good way) of the opportunities they have. Social media allows organizations to make personal connections with many more people who are interested in their mission or cause than is available via other forms of media.
When I heard this story, it became very apparent that nonprofit organizations need to be on the cutting-edge of technology and use it to its full potential. We hope you will take advantage of the great features and capabilities of Event Espresso. You can do more than just manage your events, you can even use it as a volunteer management system on WordPresCreate events as assignments and allow your volunteers to signup for the assignments you create. This will help keep your volunteers engaged and advocates for you and your cause. We want to be sure you have the tools you need to be successful and Event Espresso has great social media integration for facebook and a Group on add-on. Event Espresso and these tools will help you take advantage of the social media’s potential.
There should be very little doubt in your mind about the power of social media. You should be very confident that your organization should be engaging in social media and be prepared with the tools to make the interactions you have a positive experience.