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"Your 'magic emails' rescued our event. We went from 12 registrants to over 165 in just eight weeks — and it's all due to your powerful emails."

Mark Britton
Gartner Vision Events


View Karen's most recent ClickZ columns on B2B Email Marketing.

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"Magic" emails rescue a recent conference

I recently followed up with a client to find out how attendance numbers were going for a conference we were working on together. The event had gotten off to a late start and was lagging behind on its registrations.

He told me, "Thanks to your 'magic' emails, we're going to reach our goals."

I was floored for two reasons: 1) I had never heard my emails called 'magic' before and 2) when we started out promoting the event, there were only 12 registrations in the door — and the goal was 170 — with only 8 weeks to get there.

So I thought I'd share with you the magic behind these emails so that you can sprinkle a little of it on your next campaign. Here's the first email:

Gartner PPM Quiz Email

Subject Line: Is Your IT Portfolio at Risk? Take the Gartner PPM Quiz
60% Open Rate

First, I pulled out the best email tool in my email marketing kit — the quiz email. I know from experience that a quiz almost uniformly generates great results.

Then, I did a quick Google search on the conference topic and was lucky enough to find an article that describe a number of audience "pain points" — which I turned into questions for the quiz.

Finally, I turned the major audience motivator — the need to control risk — into an intriguing question for the subject line, "Is Your IT Portfolio at Risk? Take the Gartner PPM Quiz." Clearly, this question resonated with the audience — because it generated a 60% open rate.

Based on the success of this email, we did a similar quiz on a postcard. The final notice email highlighted the huge registration rush that happened as a result of the quiz — as IT executives identified their risk and signed on to the conference quickly to learn how to mitigate it. This email gave the reader a final opportunity to take this popular quiz and get on board for the event with their colleagues.

I learned something new from this experience. In the past, I had felt that the quiz email should be reserved for the middle of the campaign to generate excitement after the need for the event was established in the previous messaging.

Now I see that you can create excitement — and establish the need for the event — with a quiz at the start of the campaign. It's a great way to jump start registrations and create an upward registration curve right from the beginning.


Need help revving up your conference registrations? Contact Karen for event marketing training sessions, creative critiques, campaign planning, conference theme development, or copywriting.