Automation Example: Pre- and Post-Event Comms Workflow

Details

Whether in-person or online, there's so much more to event marketing than just a "Register now" email.

By keeping your audience excited & active through multiple touchpoints in the lead-up to an event, you can ensure high attendee numbers, create a buzz around the event, and even help others engage with and promote your event on social media through the use of an event-specific hashtag.

Furthermore, with our events module, Eventbrite integration and our free event email templates, marketing an event to get registrations / RSVPs is much easier to master!

This automation example is designed for powerusers and only relates to those who have already registered for your event - it does not cover any registration emails or the actual event setup. Explore more about our Events module.

If you're just looking for simple pre- and post-event comms (without advanced contact filtering), you may prefer our automated event workflows; see Automatically Create an Event Reminder Series From an Event.

If you run a lot of events, build event automations or use the API to send event emails, you may be interested in our special wildcard event email template.

 

What This Example Will Cover

In this example, we won't cover the registration / RSVP processes; just the pre- and post-event workflow which affects those who have already registered for the event.

As you can see from the workflow diagram below, we have a pre-event email that sends a link to a dietary requirements form (for catering purposes), an attendance reminder SMS (which captures the contact's response), a final pre-event email, followed by on-the-day SMS messages after each speaker session and finally, a post-event wrap-up email.

 

Checklist of Assets Required

Before you start on this how-to guide, you'll need to have the following assets ready to go (or at least, empty shells of emails, SMS messages & various forms - which you can finish later on).

You may require more, or less, assets - depending on the complexity of your event marketing workflow, and you can also skip sections of our example automation workflow if you wish.

At the end of this article, we've provided screenshots of some of our email and SMS examples - in case you need some ideas or inspiration!

 

General Assets

• The date & start time of your event.
• The name of the list that contains your event registrations (contacts).
• Sufficient SMS credits for your event & the number of contacts you have attending.
• SMS replies configured to save into a list field, for the 'Can you still make it?' SMS response.
  View and Collect SMS Responses & Purchase SMS Credits.

Form Assets

If you don't want your contacts to have to log in when they open the form, you can disable the login for update profile forms when users click through from an email. This doesn't apply to SMS messages that link to forms.

• A form (attached to your event attendees contact list) to collect dietary / catering information.
• Forms (multiple) to act as a post-session feedback survey - one for each guest speaker. To save time, you can copy the first speaker's post-session survey form to create your remaining feedback forms - but don't forget to create additional fields for each session to save the feedback responses. If you re-use the exact same fields on all of your feedback forms, the recipient will overwrite their previous responses each time they complete a feedback form!
  Add a New Form to a List.

Message Assets

• An email message which includes a link to your event's dietary / catering requirements form.
• A SMS message to ask the contact if they can still make it (it should request a YES or NO response) - and a field on your list to save this SMS reply into - since our automation will use it for filtering.
• An email message to remind contacts of the event starting tomorrow, which includes location details, a map, parking information - or if an online event, connection details, phone numbers for audio connectivity, etc.
• SMS messages (multiple) to send after each speaker, containing the unique link to your various survey forms.
• An email message to send once the event is over, with an event wrap-up video and links to download various speaker presentations.

 

How-to Guide

Part 1: Request Dietary Information 10 Days Prior

1. Select Automation from the sidebar.
2. Select the Advanced Automation tab.
3. Optional: Create a new folder to save your automation into.
4. Click New Workflow.
5. Give your workflow a Name (eg. 'Event Comms').
6. Click Save.
7. Click New Step.
8. In the first section, set the action to be A trigger against the following list. Then select your event registrations / RSVPs list from the dropdown.
   
9. In the second section, select the trigger as Subscribe.
10. In the third section, set the action as Send the Contact the Message and select the email message which includes a link to your event dietary / catering form.
    
11. In the fourth section, set the timing to send At the following date and time, then configure the timing to be 10 days before your event (of course, you can adjust the timing if necessary).
    
12. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.

 

Part 2: Send Reminder & Final RSVP SMS 5 Days Prior

1. Click New Step.
2. In the first section, set the action to be A trigger against the following list. Then select your event registrations / RSVPs list from the dropdown.
3. In the second section, select the trigger as Subscribe.
4. In the third section, set the action as Send the Contact the Message and select the SMS message which asks the contact if they can still attend (which asks for a YES or NO response).
   
5. In the fourth section, set the timing to send At the following date and time, then configure the timing to be 5 days before your event (of course, you can adjust the timing if necessary).
6. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.

 

Part 3: Send Reminder & Venue Details Email 1 Day Prior

1. Click New Step.
2. In the first section, set the action to be A trigger against the following list. Then select your event registrations / RSVPs list from the dropdown.
3. In the second section, select the trigger as Subscribe.
4. Under the Filter your Contacts area, click Add/Edit. The filtering dialog will appear.
5. We want to filter out those who replied 'No' to our SMS about attending the event, so select your SMS reply field and the configure the search so that the field does not contain the word 'No' (or similar negative response). You can also expand upon this, as we have done in the example below. If adding more than one line of filtering criteria, be sure to set the matching set to ANY field. You could instead setup your filtering query to look for the word 'Yes' (or similar positive response), but we have elected to filter on the negative, so that we still send to those that did not reply (which will generally result in more contacts overall).
6. In the third section, set the action as Send the Contact the Message and select the email message which displays the event details & venue information.
   
7. In the fourth section, set the timing to send At the following date and time, then configure the timing to be 1 day before your event (of course, you can adjust the timing if necessary).
8. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.

 

Part 4: Send Speaker Feedback Surveys on the Day (After Each Speaker)

Don't forget that you'll need a separate SMS message, survey form, and survey fields, for each speaker.

1. Click New Step.
2. In the first section, set the action to be A trigger against the following list. Then select your event registrations / RSVPs list from the dropdown.
3. In the second section, select the trigger as Subscribe.
4. Under the Filter your Contacts area, click Add/Edit. The filtering dialog will appear.
5. Just like in the previous part, we'll want to again filter out those who replied 'No' to our SMS about attending the event, so select your SMS reply field and the configure the search so that the field does not contain the word 'No' (or similar negative response). If adding more than one line of filtering criteria, be sure to set the matching set to ANY field.  Again, you could instead setup your filtering query to look for the word 'Yes' (or similar positive response), but we have elected to filter on the negative, so that we still send to those that did not reply (which will generally result in more contacts overall).
6. In the third section, set the action as Send the Contact the Message and select the SMS message which links to the first speaker survey form. This SMS will need to contain a link to your survey form. You can find an example of the form and SMS at the end of this article.
7. In the fourth section, set the timing to send At the following date and time, then configure the timing to be just after the first speaker session concludes.
8. Click Save. You'll now be taken back to the main page for the automation.
9. Click the copy icon next to the automation step you just created, then click Yes, copy.
10. Scroll down to locate your duplicated automation step and click the pencil (edit) icon to the right hand side.
11. Repeat Steps 2 to 8 above - once for each guest speaker. Be sure to change the survey SMS for each one, and the timing for each one, to align with when the guest speaker is scheduled to conclude.

 

Part 5: Send the Post-Event Wrap-up Email X Days After

We wouldn't recommend 'pre-programming' this email with an automation, as there's always a chance the content (such as the event wrap-up video, or the speaker slide decks) won't be ready by the time the automation picks it up and sends it.

As such, we'd suggest just preparing a near-completed version of this email in advance, then slotting in the video & event photos once the event has concluded. You can then send it as a regular email send (instead of a scheduled send via an automation) once it's ready to go.

You may wish to send this to everyone who RSVP'd (instead of just those who attended) - since those who couldn't attend would probably still want to see what they missed out on!

 

Part 6: Activate Your Automation

1. Select Automation from the sidebar.
2. Select the Advanced Automation tab.
3. Finally, click the ellipsis (...) next to the automation and choose Activate.

 

Changes To Make If Using Our Eventbrite Integration

If you're using our Eventbrite Integration to run events, you're able to select a different trigger for your automations. Rather than choose the Subscribe trigger and set the automations to fire at a certain date and time, you can configure these to trigger off a Time Delay, and then fire before or after the Event Start Date field, as shown.

Ensure your event has a start time configured in Eventbrite. This will then transfer into our platform and become part of the Event Start Date field, thus allowing you to trigger the on-the-day speaker survey SMS messages to send X hours after the event start date (and time).

 

Ideas & Inspiration - Our Content Examples

Here are some screenshots of the various email message, SMS message and form designs we've used in the setup of this automation, while creating this guide. These are placed in the order by which they are used / sent within the automation.

 

Email design example:

This is our Dietary Requirements email, which links to the Dietary Requirements form.

Form design example:

This is our Dietary Requirements form (which we link to from the aforementioned email). This is an Update Profile form type, and we've enabled the checkbox to skip the login screen in the form settings.

SMS design example:

This is the SMS we're sending 5 days before the event to confirm the recipient's attendance. Our list has been setup to capture the user's SMS reply into a field, which we can then use for filtering in our automation setup.

Email design example:

This is our 1-day-out email, which confirms the user's attendance and includes a venue map.

SMS design example:

This is the SMS we're sending to contacts when the first speaker's session concludes. It contains a link to the form for the speaker #1 survey. As mentioned in the how-to guide, we'd need one of these for each speaker - configured (using the automation) to send just as each session concludes.

Form design example:

Here's the first part of the Speaker #1 survey form; the login screen. Because we're sending a link to the speaker survey by SMS (instead of by email), our system won't know which contact record to open & save the survey results against - so the recipient will need to 'login' first with their mobile number. As such, we've placed the mobile number field onto the login form part of the Update Profile form that we've created for the survey.
Although we haven't included them here in this screenshot gallery, you'll need to create separate survey fields, and a separate survey form, for each speaker.

Form design example:

Here's the second part of the Speaker #1 survey form - the actual survey form itself. Remember - you'll need to create separate survey fields, and a separate survey form, for each speaker.