How to send the perfect email invitation?

Elements of a perfect Email invitation

In 2019, over 295.6 billion emails were sent and received. That makes it difficult for invitation senders trying to compete for attention in recipients’ cluttered inboxes.

There are many email marketing strategies you can use to stand out in recipients’ inboxes. Here’s what you need to know to stand out with your event invitation email.

The 3 most important elements of an effective event invitation email

These four elements have the biggest influence on whether or not your email gets opened and read.

Element #1: Sender name

To avoid getting your email trashed before it’s opened or sent straight to spam, let your reader know you’re a trusted source at a glance. As you’re preparing to send your invitation, don’t neglect the name recipients see in their inbox. It’s a smart idea to send your emails from a recognizable source, like your brand or company name, especially if it’s the first time you’re reaching out to a recipient.

You get best results if the recipient knows the Sender name personally. To manage this for long lists a "tagging system" can be very helpful. On the EventKingdom Recipient list you can tag each recipient and filter your list by each tag before sending. You can then use the best Sender name when sending to a specific tag in your list. 

Element #2: Subject line

You want your event invitation subject line to be descriptive and provide the reader with a reason to open your message. You want to be specific, but brief.

Best to gain confidence or personalize it with the recipient’s name or other personal info (“Dear [Name2], join us with [info1} at our summer party”).

We do not recommend using Capital letters and too many exclamation marks etc.

Element #3: Headline and body copy

In general, keep event promotion emails short. Place essential information about your event — like a link to the invitation, a Call to action button (CTA), date, location at the top of the email. The less your reader has to scroll to find need-to-know information, the better.

Don’t repeat subject lines as headlines, use them as a segue to get attendees excited about attending, and the benefits of your event. Headline and body copy should be complementary and to-the-point.

EventKingdom has specialized in sending emails for invitations or marketing for many years. You can be sure to benefit from the proved email setup with large CTA (virtual envelope or card).

5 types of event invitation emails

Now that you have all the elements to send a proper email, here are a few examples of event emails in action.

Event email example #1: Inviting new recipients

Your first invite to an event should be as impressive as possible and provide the basic logistical information about your event. Send it from a trusted source, best one known personally to the recipient. Create a trustworthy subject line, and include the date and time well visible in your email to help readers make a decision quickly. For those who do need more convincing before replying or buying tickets, include more information on additional cards or on extra Reply Page pages in your online invitation.

Event email example #2: Inviting recurring recipients

Your returning attendees want to feel special and appreciated, especially ones who have been attending for years. If possible highlight discounted prices or specials for returning attendees to show them you value them in this email.

Another useful technique to target previous attendees? Segmentation — when you divide your email list into relevant target groups (demographics, status or geography, for example). This allows you to create subject lines that resonate with different audiences, increasing your open rate. On EventKingdom you can easily tag each recipient and later filter your list by this tag. This allows you to send emails to filtered lists and setup your email appropriately with perfect Sender name, subject line etc.

Event email example #3: Reply Reminder email

The Recipient List in your EventKingdom event shows you who has viewed your invitation, who has replied (accepted or declined) and who has yet to view to your invitation. These stats are very helpful when planning your event and your RSVPs. 

We recommend re-sending your invitations to the marked "white" recipients after roughly 5-7 days. (If a recipient stays "white" after the 2nd sending - then we recommend using the "send to yourself" option and send personal invitations to yourself first and then forward them via your own computer/network.) Re-sending invitations is Free.

Each recipient can set his/her own RSVP Reminder on his/her reply page of your invitation.

We additionally recommend sending a reply reminder to all marked "yellow" recipients (viewed, but have yet to reply) at least once. The best timing depends on your event of course.

These reminders will enable you to get a very high reply rate.

Sending a REPLY Reminder Message is free (after the initial invitation sending)

Event email example #4: Event Reminder email

The Recipient List of your event shows you who has accepted (green) and who has declined (red) your invitation.

We recommend sending an Event Reminder Email a couple of days before your event.

The Event Reminder Email also includes all important event data like "QR code", "PDF Ticket" or "Wallet pass" for your recipients / guests to attend your event.

If you are interested in our Check In Tool please click here!

Sending an EVENT Reminder Message is free (after the initial invitation sending)

Event email example #5: Post-event follow up and thank you

After your event, it’s important to communicate with your guests and e.g. thank them for attending.

A beautiful and personal Thank you card or message also allows you to ask your guests for some feedback and offer them a survey. Our experience shows us - the nicer the Thank you card the better the survey results!

You have various options to send a thank you email to your guests / attendees.

1. Message from the Recipients List of your existing event

Sending a message to your "green" recipients is Free.

2. Sharing Photos with a Thank you message.

You can go to the REPLY Page tab of your event and add the Photo page.

Here you can upload photos and share these photos with all recipients or only the "green" ones.

You can add a thank you message to the photo notification email or to the Photo page.

3. Copying your event and the "green" recipients into a new event.

This allows you to design a new card, e.g. a Thank you card which is much nicer than a message of course. A fresh event also offers you Monitoring and Tracking so you can see who has received your Thank you card. A photo page as described above can also be added to your Thank you card sending.

4. Create new event and add invitation list from previous lists

You can also create a fresh event by starting with choosing a Thank you card.

Once you reach the tab RECIPIENTS of this new event you can go to ADD RECIPIENTS and choose the PREVIOUS LISTS option. Here you can import the recipients of your invitation event. Please note here that only the whole list can be imported. If you are only interested in sending a Thank you card to the attended "green" recipients - then please see 3. above.

Enterprise Plan optimizations for Corporate Events

Our system is optimized for sending using EventKingdom.com and linking email invitations to an EventKingdom.com Event URL.

Our system has an excellent reputation and using the Standard and Professional Plans with Eventkingdom.com works very well.

The Enterprise Plan allows you to use your own URL for sending emails and setting up your Event URL, e.g. info@yourdomain.com and events.yourdomain.com.

Using your own domain can be beneficial when sending email invitations. Your company domain of course has a great reputation and your standard recipients have already received emails from your domain in the past.

If you wish to learn more about our Enterprise Plan, please click here.

 

We hope this article was helpful.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Best, Your EK Team

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