We’ve all been there: Halfway through signing up for a conference and you notice those dreaded page numbers indicating you’re nowhere near done.
The busiest event marketers fill countless forms each year, yet only a few stand out for being painless and efficient.
Why does this matter?
“In our busy world, simplicity is invaluable,” said Jackie Leo Hershfeld, events director for Baltimore magazine.
When you’re tackling emails at an airport bar one second and packing your iPhone charger into your carry-on the next, the last thing you need is a clunky questionnaire that stops you in your tracks for the better part of an hour.
Your registration form is one of the first peeks at how your event will be managed. You’ll know yours is good “when the attendee is able to complete it in less than a minute or two and doesn’t feel frustration,” Hershfeld said.
“If the form is over five questions, is multiple pages or if it takes so long that I have to ‘save’ midway through the form, it increases the likelihood that I won’t complete it.”
That means take it easy up front. Basics like name, location, company and job title are understandable, but specifics like “what are you looking to get out of the conference” can wait until later.
“I want it to be simple for someone to say yes, so I like to consider what is the most pertinent information, and if I need additional insights, where else can I ask that after my attendees are registered?” Hershfeld added.
Rachel Russell, assistant director of brand, marketing and communications at accounting firm EY, says too many questions denote a lack of preparation.
“Does the event organizer really need to know my company’s industry, website, revenue range, or number of employees? If that information is important to them for targeting and business development, I hope the event organizer will spend their own time researching,” she said.
Consider the user experience (UX) of your guests. Is your form designed in a way that respects them and their time? Does it recognize them as a valuable person, one who should be helped along the way as much as possible? If not, find little ways to telegraph that your guests are important to you.
“I also like when my name and email automatically populate on the registration site if I click the unique invite link from my email,” Russell added, suggesting another way technology can make it easy for marketers to sign up and move on with their day.
Sometimes your event simply calls for more information. Say, for example, you’re looking to use software to match your attendees with potential meeting partners at the hotel, or you’re hoping to send them some pre-conference “swag.” In those cases, the least you could do is be clear about what the information is for.
“If they plan to mail a gift to attendees, I would put my home address since I often work from home. Alternatively, if the event organizer has business development representatives tied to regions, I would put my company’s address for their records,” Russell said.
The registration form is only the beginning of your guest’s conference experience, so unveiling a clear path forward is of the utmost importance. Once your attendee is done entering their information, consider a screen with a short list of action points to help them get conference-ready.
“Following completion of the form, a video from the event organizer that says ‘thank you for registering’ and outlines what to expect, and simple, straightforward next steps would be something I would love to see more of,” Hershfeld said. “Providing captions and a brief summary in text, as well as emailing that out, supports a variety of learning and comprehension styles as well.”
