Event Website Development by Startup Elite

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENTSTARTUP ELITE

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | BENEFITS

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Benefits of launching an event-specific website include:

- Enhanced branding opportunity with site-specific design- New non-interfering / non-crowding content mix opportunities- Increased value proposition to sponsors and exhibitors- Improved search engine optimization (SEO) performance- Ability to generate significantly more revenues

To launch a successful event-specific website requires having a strategic website development plan that covers in detail the key elements: 1) content 2) featuresand 3) connectivity.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | INFORMATIVE CONTENT


Event Agenda / ScheduleAttendees want to know what they are signing up for and what type of time commitment they will need to make. The bigger the event the more important this information becomes.

Special Guests / Speakers / AppearancesWho is attending this event that I want to meet, listen to and learn from? Include the bios so that people can get excited about attending the event.

Sponsor / Exhibitor Lists Sponsors can add a lot of credibility to an event and there is a tremendous value in providing detailed information about all of your exhibitors.

Team, Advisors and PartnersGive credit to your hard working team, advisors and strategic partners. Most importantly be transparent and show who is behind this event production.

INFORMATIVE CONTENT | EVENT AGENDA / SCHEDULE


Multi-Format Agenda / Schedule Provide a complete schedule on your website in text and downloadable PDF format. Provide graphics that market each individual workshop session and featured speaker. Make it easy for attendees to share the event information through social media or to invite colleagues via email.

Concurrently Running Workshops If your event has multiple workshops running concurrently it is important to provide the attendee with workshop descriptions, speaker bios and other documents that will help them make a better decision on which workshop will be most valuable to them. Categorizing the workshops with labels will improve the user experience.

Convenient InformationDo the homework for your attendees. Provide them with information on nearest hotels, airports, restaurants and maybe other city attractions that someone might want to see while they are in town. Going the extra mile for your attendees builds loyalty.

INFORMATIVE CONTENT | SPONSOR / EXHIBITOR LISTS


Sponsors don’t just add credibility to an event but they have paid the cost to be involved which means that they should be integrated into the website in multiple smart ways that allows your website visitors to make a real connection with these companies. This may require the integration of dedicated sponsor pages and links that direct to landing pages on the sponsor’s website.

A list of exhibitors is extremely valuable especially if there are a few hundred of them. Some event organizers even capitalize on this by selling their exhibitor lists to attendees. It is best practice to provide this information for free (with links and contact information) as well as working with exhibitors proactively to promote the event through their networks.

SPONSORS

EXHIBITORS

INFORMATIVE CONTENT | TEAM, ADVISORS AND PARTNERS


Unlike sponsors and exhibitors; team members, advisors and strategic partners don’t pay to have an affiliation with the event but giving them credit is not only the right thing to do but it raises the trustworthiness of the event. A lot of attendees will be reluctant to attend an event if they don’t know who is behind it.

Listing detailed information about advisors is a strategic tool to raise the credibility of the event. These people will not only attract sponsors but they may also be featured speakers for the event. Make it easy for website visitors to follow these advisors on their social media channels without completely redirecting them away from the website.

GIVING CREDIT

ADVISOR CREDIBILITY

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | MARKETING CONTENT


Strategically placed marketing copy that provides a clear call to action for a diverse target market:

AttendeesBuy: Encouraging potential attendees to buy their tickets (or RSVP) immediately and to entice them into any premium packages, special seating, fee-based workshop sessions etc.Share: Share the event via social media, email and through word of mouth with friends, family and other business professionals.

ExhibitorsGetting potential exhibitors excited about the quality and quantity of attendees as well as the opportunity to meet with fellow exhibitors and speakers.

SponsorsEnticing sponsors to become an official part of the event by providing them with detailed information about the event size, demographics and past event statistics.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | BLOG


A blog is a strategic marketing tool for any event website and it’s often easy to integrate. The critical success factor will be based on the company’s ability to produce ongoing content to feature on the blog.

Articles Writing and publishing industry-related articles has been the go-to content for business and event blogs. Proper execution will depend on the company’s ability to hire writers or recruit guest bloggers.

Interviews Interviews, especially email interviews, is one of the most effective ways to build content for your event blog. You can interview speakers, sponsors, exhibitors or even people that won’t be attending your event but play a major role in your industry.

The same content that drives people to read your blog and subscribe to it is the content that gets them motivated to buy their tickets for your event.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | FEATURES


Registration Process- The ability for attendees to quickly and effortlessly register and pay any fees that may apply.- Prominently display sign-up prompts on every page throughout the website.

Discount Features- Offering promotional discounts including early bird specials and group discounts for businesses

that want to send a team of people.- Comprehensive discount analytics that allow you to track discount code usage from strategic

partners.

Multiple Registration Paths- Implementation of multiple landing pages to target different types of attendees.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | CONNECTIVITY


Social Component: Get people activated to follow your social media channels, share the website and engage with content.- Prominently displaying one-click social media following options.- Creating and featuring practical content that’s likely to be shared and discussed.

E-mail Capture: Offering newsletters and insightful premium content to get the email address of non-attendees.- Newsletters that feature interesting content from the event blog.- Topic-relevant case studies for download via PDF.- Highly valuable database such as an exhibitor list and contact information.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | DESIGN


Navigation: Navigation can make or break a website especially for websites with many pages. Simplify navigation, make it intuitive and use a drop-down menu if necessary.

Branding: The branding throughout the website needs to be consistent. Inconsistent visual communication creates a negative association for your company.

Content: Content is king. While a good website has a lot of content you need to make sure that it is presented in small digestible formats written in a warm and welcoming tone.

Trust: A well placed video, featured attendee testimonials, and a lot of “More Information” links establishes the type of trust that gets people to take action and buy their tickets for your next event.

“A website with great features will drive traffic but without the modern and user-friendlydesign the conversion will significantly underperform.”

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | COMMON MISTAKES


Long Registration FormsNobody wants to spend their time filling out lengthy forms that ask pointless questions.

No Ongoing ContentThe website needs to have marketing objectives beyond driving attendance for a single event and that requires ongoing content strategy.

Unnecessary ContentEliminate the content that does not support your marketing objectives. All content needs to drive the visitor towards a defined action.

Over-OptimizedMany features have the ability to improve conversion but if they are thoughtlessly implemented they will negatively affect event attendance and brand reputation.

Too Many Ticket OptionsGiving too many options will complicate the ticket buyer’s decision making and cause inaction.

No AnalyticsWithout analytics you are missing a huge opportunity to fully evaluate your overall performance.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | LONG FORMS


Long Registration Forms will decrease conversions and that negatively effects your bottom line. Yet the information you can extract from the long forms is valuable to sponsors, exhibitors and other parties that you might want to share this information with.

To solve this problem you need to create Premium Content that people get free access to when they fill out the long forms. This way you don’t hurt your conversions yet you receive the valuable information that is so sought after.

People are willing to spend the time to fill out long forms if they will receive something that’s

valuable to them in return. There are a lot of Gamification opportunities when you use the right technology to create your long forms.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | CONTENT STRATEGY


STEP 1: GETTING STARTED - Content Mix Strategy - Content Production Strategy - Editorial Voice Guidelines - Editorial Calendar - Content Distribution Strategy - Hands-on Social Media Management - Performance Tracking Tools

STEP 2: AMPLIFICATION- Implementing top trends and staying on the cutting edge.- Developing unique co-branding opportunities.- Launching user-generated content campaigns.- Execute promotional campaigns for increased engagement.

You have to use strategy, creativity and savvy tools to engage with your audience to ensure your brand is relevant and part of the conversation.

Consistently creating and distributing content that’s informative, engaging and entertaining is a lot of work. With the right strategy and processes in place this work can become streamlined and help the organization achieve its event objectives without distracting too much from other operations.

EVENT WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT | ANALYTICS


Analytics is split into four key reporting areas; Audience (who is visiting your site), Acquisition (how they are getting to your site), Behavior (what they are doing on your site) and Conversions (have they completed what you wanted them to), each of which is useful for difference purposes.

An analytics tool such as Google Analytics is free, easy to implement and fairly simple to learn given all the available information on YouTube and other places online. It is a powerful tool that allows you to optimize your marketing campaigns, improve your website’s content and design, help you identify your target audience and ultimately assists in making the right budget allocations based on data that shows what works and what doesn’t.

Wouldn’t you like to know whether that Facebook Ad campaign directly contributed to an increase in ticket sales and provided an overall positive return on investment (ROI)?

NO MORE GUESSING. REAL DATA. REAL RESULTS.

STARTUP ELITEFOUNDED BY MARKUS BIEGEL


Startup Elite is a consulting firm specialized in early stage ventures. From strategy review and development to hands-on implementation, we help you achieve accelerated growth. We are your partner in getting your business to the next level.

STARTUP ELITE

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Event Website Development by Startup Elite