Email is certainly among the most widely used ways of inviting people to corporate events. Sending event invitations by email is practical and quick, and it can rely on the fact that email reaches recipients precisely and on time, and is generally welcome when it is not actually expected.
But there is a catch: for all these advantages, sending invitations by email can, if not done with the proper care, turn out to be more of a problem than an opportunity — three problems, in fact. Among the main ones any event organiser can run into are:
- emails that never reach the recipient or end up in spam;
- emails that are never opened;
- emails that are never read, and so produce none of the results the sender was hoping for.
In many cases this happens because, in the rush that so often accompanies sending invitations by email, mistakes are made — or there is simply no time to pay attention to a few elements that are essential if every send is to have a proper chance of success.
That is why we wanted to give this subject some focused thought, concentrating in particular on three things:
1. Cold domains and warm domains: a question of reputation
A good domain has a good reputation and makes sure your emails actually reach the recipient’s inbox. That categorically rules out doing what we so often see done: taking a freshly created domain and immediately using it to send a large volume of email. Those messages will certainly leave, but they will probably never arrive, because the system that has to accept them finds itself facing material from an unknown, potentially dangerous sender. The usual result is that the emails are not delivered, or are labelled as spam and so stay out of the recipient’s sight.
That is why it is essential that the domains you use to send important email such as invitations to an event are considered trustworthy, or have at least been “warmed up” — that is, used to send a gradually increasing volume of email over the first days or weeks after they were created. That lets receiving email services get used to the new domain and assign it a positive reputation, and so let it in.
Then, since a domain’s reputation, like any other, is not acquired for eternity, it is important to monitor it constantly, keep the proportion of emails reported as spam low, and clean your lists, so that everything stays in order as far as it possibly can.
2. Timing and frequency: timing is everything
The second step in sending invitations well by email is planning. Paying attention to when you send email campaigns can significantly affect your open and read rates. That means doing two things above all: avoiding periods of heavy congestion — such as the early morning or a Monday, when inboxes are often overloaded — and monitoring the data, which can give valuable insight into when recipients are most likely to engage with your content. If the data shows that most recipients open email in the afternoon, scheduling your sends for then can raise the chances of a campaign succeeding.
Equally important is planning the timing of resends to those who have not opened after a certain interval. Even the most interesting content can get lost in the constant flow of email we all receive every day, so it can be worth sending again. Here too, though, the timing is crucial: if the send and the resend are too close together you risk irritating recipients and, in the worst case, having the message flagged as spam.
3. Getting noticed to get read: when the first glance makes all the difference
Once the emails have arrived, the challenge becomes getting recipients to open them so they can reach the content. An email that arrives but is never read is only less damaging (to the domain’s reputation and to later sends) than one that is never delivered — it is just as useless to the event.
So the first question to ask is: how do you build invitation emails that are interesting enough to recipients that they get opened? Two elements matter most here: the subject line and the preview text. These are the two things that can stand out from all the rest of the correspondence right there in the recipient’s inbox and catch their attention. Rather like using coloured envelopes in the post when everyone else uses white ones, or coming up with unusual formats to escape the pile. The subject line comes first: short, concise and appealing, it has to stand out and catch the eye, and be clear enough not to create doubt or confusion. The preview text can back it up, since it adds a little more and can prompt the click you are after. What matters is not to underestimate it or, worse, forget it, leaving it to chance (and to the technology) to decide on its own which part of the email body to show.
Then, of course, the body of the email has to be crafted down to the last detail so that it is clear, concise (nobody wants to overuse people’s attention and time) and provides all the information needed to get recipients to take the action you want — whether that is registering for the event, requesting information, visiting a site or sharing the content on their own channels to spread the word. So it is essential to know your audience and to be clear about what you want to say, how you want to say it and what result you are after, which also matters for measuring and assessing that result.
In short, using email well as a channel for inviting people to an event means being clear in your own mind (about what to say and how best to say it to your audience, so that it is clear and interesting), getting the timing right and being able to count on the right tools. Three essential resources that can make all the difference in the world at a stage as crucial to any event as first engaging your audiences through invitations. And one you absolutely cannot risk going wrong.