Everyone LOVES to save money or get a deal when making a purchase - and registering for an event is no different. Use pricing discounts to give your prospective registrants an opportunity to save on the registration fee. We're not saying everybody, every time - pricing discounts are typically based on timing, volume, or type of registrant.
Early-Birds Get the Discounts
You've seen it or at least heard about it, but are you using one of the most popular and successful discount hooks - the Early-Bird Special? An early deadline creates urgency to get the registration done quickly before the discount expires on the date you set. In our experience, over 80% of registrants take advantage of early-bird pricing if the discount is compelling. For example $89 versus $109 or $389 versus $449.
Be prepared though, inevitably the procrastinators will call after the deadline making their best plea to get the Early-Bird pricing. You'll need to determine ahead of time if you want to be flexible or toe the line when you get these calls. It's imperative, too, that you send your marketing materials at least one month in advance of the Early-Bird deadline to insure that you give people an adequate amount of lead time to register.
The More the Better
Volume discounts encourage people to promote your event to others. Offer a reduced fee - typically 10-15% off the full fee - for group registrations. Or, charge full price for the first three registrants and throw the fourth registration in for free.
Membership Has Its Privileges
Varying pricing by registrant type is another another popular form of discounting. Most common is a member and non-member rate where non-members pay a higher registration fee. This approach can also be extended to students, exhibitors or other groups at your event.
The Golden Rule: Keep it Simple
The easier a discount is to understand, the more likely people are to take action on them. So keep them simple.
The Meeting Planner's Online Advantage: The #1 Myth about Online Registration Systems
We hear it over and over again. It's the number one myth about online registration systems that keeps many meeting planners from making their lives easier and their events more successful.
The Meeting Planner's Online Advantage: 6 Ways to Reduce 55% of Your Daily Workload
Industry-expert Corbin Ball estimates that only 20% of meeting planners are using online registration to its real potential. Meeting planners that are managing registrations using paper, emails, basic web-forms, in-house systems or installed software are doing 80% more work than they really need to be doing.
The Meeting Planner's Online Advantage: The Trick that Doubles Client Satisfaction by Doing Less
We all know that communication is the most important component in any relationship; and that can be applied to business as well. The more timely the information provided to your clients, colleagues and suppliers; the smoother your event will run and the happier everyone involved in your event will be.
