Capture your audience’s attention and drive registrations with these virtual event emails. These templates will help engage your attendees at every step.

The rise of digital experiences sparked a major influx in the number of events available to attendees. Every day, hundreds of companies are all vying for the attention of the same, or similar, audience and hoping to drive attendees to their virtual events. 

So how can you stand out from the crowd and both capture your audience’s attention and relay important information at the same time? By crafting interest-generating, impactful, and succinct emails. 

We’ve broken down the attendee journey into 4 main types of emails you can use to reach the right audience at the right time. Invitation emails are the first email touchpoint you have with your potential attendees, confirmation emails are the second, reminder emails help your event stay top of mind for your audience, and post-event emails provide you the chance to extend the life of your event and guide the attendees through their journey.

For these examples, we’ve pulled together some of our own email marketing that we used for our recent virtual event, Reimagine Experience. 

For even more resources and templates to help you plan your virtual events, check out our Virtual Event Production Kit.

Invitation Emails

Invitation emails are the first touchpoint you have with your potential attendees. It’s your chance to make an impression and sets the tone for your communication going forward.

To maximize registrations, we recommend sending at least two invitation emails – one invite to everyone and one to retarget those who opened your email but didn’t register (also called a follow-up invitation email)

First Invitation Email

SL: On March 18th, Reimagine Experience

You’re invited, Name.

Reimagine Experience is here. It’s THE event for thousands of marketing and event professionals to get inspired and reimagine the attendee experience. 

You get the first chance to register. Thursday, March 18th at 10am ET (mark your calendar).

Ready to discuss the biggest trends of 2021 and how to best design the event experience? What are you waiting for?

Save Your Seat (hyperlink)

Cheers,

The Bizzabo Team

The subject line alludes to the name of the event as well as the date, which helps to create urgency among your audience and makes it very clear when the event is taking place. 

The body of the email starts with personalization by including the recipient’s name and makes it clear that this is an invitation. It’s important to get the most important information front and center with a crowded medium like email. In this case, by the subject line and first sentence, we’ve already told our audience that there is an event coming up, when that event is, the name of the event, and that they are invited. And we’ve done that all in just 8 words.

Follow-up invitation email

SL: It’s not too late – Reimagine Experience registration is still open

There’s still time to register for Reimagine Experience, Name.

On Thursday March 18th, 10AM ET / 3PM GMT, join thousands of marketing and event leaders to discover 2021’s biggest event trends and reimagine how we design the attendee experience.

PLUS – we’ll be featuring a speaker from the NBA to share how COVID-19 changed their approach to attendee experience. You’ll also hear from speakers at American Express Global Business Travel, Financial Times, MC2, & more!

Don’t miss these exclusive sessions:

• Two NBA sessions where we’ll be talking about The Bubble
• Interactive thought huddles where attendees can volunteer to ask thought leaders their most pressing questions
• An inspiring keynote from Bizzabo’s CEO about the outcomes-based future of events

RSVP NOW (hyperlink)

Cheers,

The Bizzabo Team

This subject line instills urgency even more than the previous email since the purpose is to retarget those who did not register yet. We’ve still included the event name but instead of the date, we’re explaining that they still have time (implying they won’t have time if they wait much longer).

In this email, we’ve gone more into depth about the value of the event. If they opened the first email and didn’t register, perhaps they need more details to be convinced this event is worth their time or something they’ll find value in.

We’ve also done some name-dropping (an essential tactic in business) and included details about the sessions to provide an idea of what the event will look like to generate interest.

Confirmation emails

Some virtual event platforms will automatically send a confirmation email when a guest registers. In that case, you could build this email out in the backend and don’t have to worry about it after that.

The confirmation email is an important part of the attendee journey because it establishes trust with your audience and explains clearly to them where they are in their registration process as well as how to access the content on event day.

Sometimes, if you don’t have the next details ready, you can use a quick line like “more details will be coming your way!” or “stay tuned for another email with instructions” to let your attendees know that everything they need to know will be outlined for them and doesn’t leave them wondering what to do next or if they have to do anything else.

SL: RSVP Confirmation to Reimagine Experience

Hi Name,

Congratulations! Your registration to Reimagine Experience was successfully completed.

Now you may visit the Agenda to save your preferred Thought Huddle seat!

Cheers,

Bizzabo

WHAT ARE THOUGHT HUDDLES

Thought Huddles are inspired by Clubhouse and formatted in an AMA/town hall type session. We’ve invited industry influencers and senior event leaders as the speakers for each Thought Huddle. Attendees can step “on stage” one at a time to ask the speakers questions while peers can benefit from advice on shared experiences.

HOW TO SAVE YOUR SEAT

To save your seat within your desired Thought Huddle and simply click on the seat icon.

This example starts off with the first part of the subject line clearly explaining that this is just a confirmation email. It’s best to keep the subject lines of this type of email very clear.

We’ve then started off with one line that explains further that the purpose of this email is to confirm that the reader is successfully registered and that there are no extra steps required to save their spot.

For this particular email, we included some extra information for our attendees so they could prepare for the event, which consisted of signing up for the particular event session (in this case, what we referred to as a Thought Huddle) they wanted to join. 

Rather than sending a separate email, you can minimize a crowded inbox by including pre-event tasks in the confirmation email.

Lastly, we included a screenshot of exactly where they need to go to complete this step, which establishes empathy and trust and shows you are actively guiding your attendees through the virtual registration process.

Reminder emails

We recommend sending 4 reminder emails to reach your audience at the right time: 1 week out, 24 hours out, 1 hour out, and 5 minutes out.

Reminder emails have become more common in the virtual space for 3 reasons:

1. Our brains are as crowded as our inboxes, have you ever had 5 minutes until a meeting so you scroll through your phone and then realize you’re now 5 minutes late? (hence the 5-minute reminder email)
2. It’s easy to sign up for an event and forget as it gets closer (the 1 week and 24-hour emails solve for this)
3. As we mentioned earlier, there are so many event invitations all going to the same attendees, so it’s important to make sure yours is top of mind, especially if events are happening at the same time. (4 reminder emails = less of a chance they’ll forget about your event)

Here are a couple of examples below. We’ve included the same screenshots in each to make sure that at every touchpoint, we’re providing the information and not making our attendees go back to search any old emails. We’ve also included very specific subject lines to make it clear what this email is for. 

1 Week Reminder Email

SL: One Week Until Reimagine Experience Goes Live

Hi Name,

Reimagine Experience is just one week away! We’re very much looking forward to this inspirational, interactive event featuring the SVP of Business Operations and Global Events of the NBA, and many other industry leaders.

HOW TO SAVE YOUR SEAT

Click the Save Your Seat button above. Choose your desired Thought Huddle and simply click on the seat icon.

Sincerely,

The Bizzabo Team

24 Hours Reminder Email

SL: One Day Until Reimagine Experience Goes Live

Hi Name,

Reimagine Experience is just one day away! Don’t miss this inspirational, interactive event at 10am ET / 2pm GMT!

HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT

1. Click the Join Event button above at the specified time and date (10am ET / 2pm GMT)

Note: Please do not share this link with others—it’s unique to you!

2. You can also join the event directly from the agenda. Click the “Broadcast” button on the session. You may be asked to log in with the email address you used to register.

Sincerely,

The Bizzabo Team

Post-Event emails

The virtual space affords us the ability to extend the life of our events to make them more than a moment in time. If you created a slack community or network, encourage your attendees to continue the conversation. If you enabled on-demand functionality, encourage both those who did and didn’t attend to access the content whenever and wherever they want. If you have a post-event survey, this is a great time to ask your participants to fill that out. 

However you choose to keep the momentum going, the post-event emails are a great way to start. Think of them as another touchpoint in the journey, rather than the end of your event.

We send two emails to our audience, one for those who did attend (attendees) and one targeted specifically to people who registered but did not end up attending (registrants).

Registered and Attended

SL: Thank you for attending Reimagine Experience | Watch On-Demand 😄

Hi Name,

Thank you for attending our recent event, Reimagine Experience! We hope you enjoyed the conversation on how to creatively drive attendee experiences in 2021.

We would love to hear your feedback on this event. Take a quick 2-minute survey here.

Here are additional resources we promised to send your way:

• Please complete this survey to let us know how we can deliver more impactful and relevant discussions to you in the future
• Request a Demo to learn more about Bizzabo’s single platform for in-person and virtual events
• Continue the conversation and join the Bizzabo Events Slack Community
• We surveyed 700 attendees and almost 1,000 virtual events to provide actionable insights for improving the attendee experience. Check out the Virtual Attendee Experience Report.

Sincerely,

The Bizzabo Team

Registered But Did Not Attend

SL: We missed you!

Hi Name,

Thank you for registering for our recent event, Reimagine Experience, where we featured interactive thought huddles and keynotes from the NBA and discussed how to creatively drive attendee experiences in 2021.

Here are additional resources we promised to send your way:

• Please complete this survey to let us know how we can deliver more impactful and relevant discussions to you in the future
• Request a Demo to learn more about Bizzabo’s single platform for in-person and virtual events
• Continue the conversation and join the Bizzabo Events Slack Community
• We surveyed 700 attendees and almost 1,000 virtual events to provide actionable insights for improving the attendee experience. Check out the Virtual Attendee Experience Report.

Sincerely,

The Bizzabo Team

Key Takeaways:

• There are 4 main touchpoints in event email marketing
• Invitation Emails set the tone and are the first line of communication with your audience
• Confirmation emails are an important part of establishing trust and guiding the registration journey
• Reminder emails that keep your event at the top of your attendees’ inboxes
• Finally, post-event emails allow you to continue the conversation and send follow-up materials
• In virtual event email marketing, it’s a good idea to keep your subject lines clear and concise. Include dates and the name of the event for easy recognition and use your invitation emails to spark intrigue about the event

To see more email templates and access helpful resources, download the Virtual Event Production Kit.