Here's How to Get Members to Show Up to Live Events

Throwing a party and having no one show up can be pretty embarrassing. After spending time  decorating, planning fun games, and whipping up some tasty treats, not having anyone come to celebrate with you can feel like a giant waste of time and energy. 

The same thing goes for virtual events. When you put in effort to create an engaging agenda, invite interesting guest speakers, and hype up your event across multiple platforms, it can be a real bummer - not to mention waste of resources - if your event is under-attended. 

But what can you do to make sure people show up for your live online events? 

While there’s no golden ticket, there are a few things you can do ahead of time to boost attendance and make sure all your hard work planning your event doesn’t go to waste! 

How to get members to consistently show up to your online events:

1. Make them aware of upcoming events

While it seems like a no-brainer, making sure a list of upcoming events is easily accessible across multiple platforms does a ton to boost event attendance. A few options for this are:

• Sharing your upcoming events on a Community Calendar. Simply add your events to a Google Calendar and send the calendar share link to your community members. From there, they can choose to add that calendar to their own calendar so they don’t miss a thing. ‍
• Sending calendar invites. Want a more direct way to notify members of upcoming events? Send them a direct invite. That way you’ll be able to gauge true event interest, as members can RSVP to the events that interest them and decline the events that don’t. ‍
• Sending a Weekly Event Digest. Chances are both you and your members have a lot going on each week. Sending a weekly event digest is a great way to boost event awareness, since members see exactly what’s going on that week and choose which events pique their interest.

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Using Google Calendar alone isn’t always enough for managing live online events. Here’s why. 

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2. Make it easy to opt-in for events that they care about

Let’s be honest, most of us are already overwhelmed with emails and notifications every single day. After a while, it’s easy to zone out or flat out ignore them. Sadly, the same thing happens with notifications for live online events. 

Allowing members to opt-in for events they care about is a great way to ensure members receive notifications only for events they want to attend. It removes the noise of everything else going on and makes them more likely to pay attention to notifications that are right for them.

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3. Set reminders to give them a final nudge 

It’s easy to lose track of time while working on something, especially if we have a lot going on that day. Reminders give members an extra nudge to snap out of it and make sure they don’t miss events that are important to them. 

As a best practice, we recommend sending at least two reminders:

• 1 hour before reminder via email
• 10 minute before reminder via community platform (Slack, Circle, etc.) 

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4. Create easy to follow join instructions

By now, it’s likely that we’ve all had live online event join mishaps - can’t find the Zoom link, can’t find the password, got the time wrong, etc. 

Making sure members know exactly how to access an event is key. With easy to follow join instructions, members know where to go and what information they need well in advance which helps avoid any last-minute confusion. 

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Learn more about how to create engaging virtual experiences here. 

‍How Virtually can help…

Virtually lets you automate the hairy logistics of hosting live online events on Zoom. Virtually helps you boost attendance by allowing you to: 

• Make members aware of your upcoming events by creating a community calendar, sending direct invites to specific segments of your members, and sending a weekly event digest. 
• Create optional events where members can register to receive invites and reminders only for events that interest them. 
• Automate event reminders to email or Slack. 

The only thing members will need to get into your events is their email. Oh, and Virtually auto-tracks attendance and plays well with your chosen community platform too! 

Upcoming Webinar:

It’s not too late to register for our upcoming webinar: 3 Ways to Boost Engagement for Live Online Events. 

Join us on Tuesday, January 25th @ 1pm EST. Register here!

Read Next: How to Track Engagement for Live Online Events