What would increasing your virtual campus event registrations and attendance do for your college?

How would it impact your enrollment numbers, your budget, and the ability to keep staff or hire more?

Wouldn’t it be worth more than $200? More than $20,000?

Last week we promised you some specifics on how to implement the following:

Increase Virtual Campus Event Registrations:

1. Create curiosity.
2. Be specific.
3. Create urgency & scarcity.

Increase Virtual Campus Event Attendance:

1. Help them remember.
2. Build hype.
3. Provide incentives to show up.

The strategies shared are geared towards hosting a large, one-time virtual event but can be used for individual events too!

2-Step Process to Creating Curiosity and The Desire To Register:

1. Use images that create curiosity and cause clicks to learn more.

Images should be related to your event & college but cause the student to ask questions, such as:

• What is that person doing?
• Where is he?

For example:

Have a picture of a student with a marker in front of a white board with the words:

The ONE THING you can do in as little as 3 hours to save $8,346 in college.

2. Create intriguing bullet points that specifically explain the benefits of attending the event (like these three examples):

• How to make your first 5 college decisions BEFORE starting college to save yourself $32,754.
• The single most important question you need to ask colleges that NO ONE is asking and colleges DON’T want to answer.
• If student loans scare you, learn the 3 step, 10-minute process to eliminate the fear of student loans from your life forever.

Compare this to:

• How to make college decisions that will save you a lot of money.
• The most important question you should ask a college.
• How to eliminate the fear of student loans from your life.

See the difference?

Would you agree that the first set of bullet points are more tangible and will create more desire to register?

Create Urgency & Scarcity:

We all have a fear of missing out. Especially when it is something exclusive & valuable.

So do these two things:

1. Have a countdown timer on your registration page.
2. List the maximum number of registrations (i.e. Only 500 spots available!)

Simple but effective!

Increase Attendance with Attractive Incentives

When students show up for an in person campus visit, what do they typically get?

• A T-Shirt, Tumbler, Water Bottle, Drawstring Tote?
• A free meal in the cafeteria?
• A free drink from the cafe?

So why not offer some of your college swag to virtual event registrants THAT ATTEND YOUR EVENT!?

(You could also offer a chance to win a scholarship to your college!)

Here’s how we suggest you do this:

1. Only mention the free gift AFTER they register.
   • You want people registering for the explained benefits not the free gift.
   • The gift’s role is to drive attendance
2. Provide a link or keyword at the end of the event to claim the free gift.
   • This encourages people to stay.
   • It proves they attended without running any extra reports.
   • If the event has multiple sessions, you can have each last slide provide one word of a password phrase.
3. Send gifts to everyone that claims it.
4. Draw one person out of a hat and offer a scholarship!

You can even drive more traffic to your social media platforms by:

1. Announcing the scholarship winner on social media platforms.
2. Have a picture contest with everyone who received the free gift on social media.

Campus experiences are such an important part of the college decision process.

So make sure you do everything you can to match the experience in a virtual setting.

One way to do this is by providing their gift in a decorated box like this:

Many different sizes are available.
Receive 25% off the box when you spend $10 inside the box!

Help Them Remember and Build Hype:

Every event needs to have a follow-up email sequence post registration.

Provide reminder emails AND emails that build excitement and anticipation.

Note: Make sure your subject lines cause students to open the email. To ensure people see reminders you can collect phone numbers and text too!

Next Steps:

1. Save this email or print it to help you market your next (or first!) virtual campus event.
2. Email us the last word of this blog to earn your chance to win $200!

$200 Prize:

When you email us the last word of this blog before 3:00 p.m. EST today (08/05/2020) you will be entered to win $200 off a $1,000+ order with JDM Custom Impressions*.

The winner will be announced on Instagram at 4:00 p.m. EST today (08/05/2020)!

*This offer cannot be combined with any other offer.