While the Communication Center on the Dashboard gives admins the ability to communication with complete and incomplete registrants, the Invitation tool within the Event Builder allows admins the ability to market to registrants before they visit your event website.
We also provide advanced logging tools so you can be confident in your email invitation delivery rates.
INVITATION LIST
First, enter the Event Builder for your event. Then, click the INVITATIONS tab at the top right of your Event Builder top bar menu.
The top of the tool will display overall list metrics (i.e. number total invitees versus the number of those who were sent an invitation.
Below these metrics, you'll see an ADD/EXPORT INVITEES button. This is used to both add new invitees to the list as well as export an existing list.
Below this button, you'll see your active invitation list with a few filtering options to assist you in targeting the right group of people. You can filter your invitee list based on the following types of parameters:
- Response status
- Assigned profile
- Manual search
After filtering your list, you can highlight your subset of invitees for a message.
ADDING INVITEES
There are a few ways in which you can add new invitees to your list. To initiate the process, click the ADD/EXPORT INVITEES button. You'll have four options to adding to your invitation list:
1) ADD INDIVIDUALS: Add individuals one at a time. A small dialogue box appears, allowing you to submit your new entry:
2) COPY LIST FROM EVENT: import an invitation list you used on another event
- The imported list will NOT bring over profile assignments as these are event-specific
- The "source" and "sub-account limit" WILL be brought over with the imported list
- The imported list will be added to any names you currently have setup
- Duplicates are NOT added
3) LIST FROM ANOTHER EVENT: invite registrants from another event. This will import a list of completed registrations that were submitted under another event on your dashboard.
- The imported list will be added to any names you currently have setup (no duplicates)
- Profile assignments will NOT be brought over
- Source and Sub-Account Limit WILL be brought over
4) UPLOAD FROM SPREADSHEET: upload an Excel spreadsheet of invitees. When clicked, a dialogue box will appear with instructions for the upload. The first step is to create a spreadsheet with the following column labels in the first row of your spreadsheet:
Firstname
Lastname
ProfileName
SourceName
SubAccountLimit
At a MINIMUM, your spreadsheet needs to have data in the EMAIL, FIRSTNAME and LASTNAME columns. The others will depend on your event specifics.
ProfileName: include the Profile Name that the invitee will be registered under. Leaving this blank allows the invitee to choose a profile.
SourceName: this is your notation as to where the invitee name and email came from.
SubAccountLimit: this sets the limit of how many subaccounts the invitee will be able to register.
See below for more details.
INVITATION LIST FIELDS
The Invitation list has a few key functions that allow you to influence registration behavior before your attendees visit your event website.
PROFILE
You can pre-assign a registrant to one of your Custom Profiles. When you assign a registrant to a profile within the Invitation tool, the "register" button you include in the invite will link that attendee to the correct profile.
Furthermore, if the registrant has an existing Eventsquid account and is signed in when they visit the platform, Eventsquid will require that the registrant use their assigned profile to register.
Example:
Say you have an event with 2 profiles: Non-Member & Member. You need regular attendees to register using the Non-Member profile. Those with a membership are allowed to register under the Member profile. You chose to make the Member profile private and not viewable on the website.
Regular attendees can visit the website and easily register; however, you do not want the members to register under Non-Member, as they need a discounted rate for registration.
So you setup a Member invitee list. You upload your spreadsheet of members, assign them the Member profile and send out an invitation to all on the list. The registration button that is included in the invitation (you can rename) will link the registrant to the member profile.
A few additional considerations with regard to profile assignment in the Invitation tool:
- 1) IF the invitee does not currently have an account on Eventsquid.com, they will need to follow the link in the invitation to reach the correct profile. Thus, it's necessary that the user click the link provided to them in the invitation (the system won't know who they are if they land on the event page without an account to sign into).
- 2) IF the invitee has an account on Eventsquid.com AND the invitee is assigned a profile in the Invitation tool, then no matter what the invitee clicks on, they will be routed directly to their assigned registration profile.
- 3) GUIDELINES:
- Use the ACCEPT button field to enable the invitee to click through to registration
- Leave the invitee in the invitation tool, assigned to a profile, as long as you want them connected to that profile
- Instruct the invitee to use the link you provided them in the invitation to register
SOURCE FIELD
The SOURCE field is an open text field in which you can place any label you'd like. The upload utility does allow you to include data in the Source field. This field is searchable within the Invitation tool as well, using the search bar at the top of the invite list.
After entering a search term in the search bar at the top of the list, you can select the revealed subset of invitees that met your search criteria for an invitation.
Example:
Use the Source field to indicate the company each invitee belongs to. Then, use the search utility to find a specific company of invitees. Once searched, use the SELECT ALL checkbox in the upper left corner of the list to select this subset of invitees. Craft and send your message.
SUB-ACOUNT LIMIT
View THIS article to learn more about activating Sub-Account Registration and what this registration method entails.
The Sub-Account Limit field in the Invitation tool allows you to preset the number of sub-account registrations that any of your invitees are permitted to register. This setting is of course only applicable if your event is using the Sub-Account Registration method in the first place.
Here is an example of using the Sub-Account Limit field:
- Your event is using Sub-Account registration to collect guest (i.e. partner) registrations
- These sub-accounts can thus be registered underneath the primary registrants (your invitees)
- You would like to restrict your invitee to bringing up 2 total guests
- Set the Sub-Account Limit to 2
CREATE CUSTOM INVITATIONS
In order to build an invitation, you need to select at last one invitee. Once selected, the MAKE INVITATION button will activate (it is located at the top right corner of your list).
You may want to start creating your invitation templates before you have your list ready. In this case, go ahead and add a "test" invitee (i.e. yourself). This will let you activate the MAKE INVITATION function. So you can start building your invitations and templates.
BUILDING INVITES
The invitation editor allows a number of customization options that can be broken down into four key steps:
- FROM & REPLY TO: our tool allows you to designate a plain name which represents the party from which the invitation was sent from. You are also able to set an email address to which reply emails from the recipient will be delivered to
- MESSAGE CONTENT: Use our text editing tools to create your message body. Note the chain link icon that allows you to hyperlink text.
- RESPONSE BUTTONS: with the two button text boxes in this section, you can designate an "accept" button and a "decline" button. You can configure the accept button to link the user to either your event homepage or your event registration form directly. Clicking the decline button will mark the recipient as a "NO" in your invitation list. However, this won't prevent the registrant from registering at a later date if they change their mind.
- ADDITIONAL CONTENT OPTIONS: take a look at these options and become familiar. The checkboxes in this section allow you to expose or hide certain default elements of our invitations.
TEMPLATES
When creating an invitation, the first thing you'll notice at the top is the template loading utility. The LOAD TEMPLATE button allows you to load a previously-created template:
At the very bottom of the invitation editor, you can save new templates as well as update existing templates that you are currently editing.
Templates can be tremendously helpful in the invitation creation process, especially if you plan on resending the same invitation multiple times for greater conversion.
All invite settings / options / content elements are saved with the template EXCEPT for the "Plain From Name" and "Reply To" email address.
To pull an existing template into the invitation editor, click the CHOOSE TEMPLATE button at the top of the editing window, then select the template from your list:
If you've pulled an existing template into the editor and you'd like to modify the template (i.e. overwrite existing content), click the UPDATE TEMPLATE button at the bottom of the editor:
EXPORTING INVITEE LIST
For those invitees who have registered, you will have all of the information you collected during registration available on the reports for registrations.
You may download the invitee list to see of your invitees, which ones registered, which ones declined along with those who haven't responded.
Click the ADD/EXPORT INVITEES button and click the large blue button "EXPORT CURRENT LIST".