In this webinar, password: Efclient40, we demonstrate a few key techniques that could help you to improve the way you work with Eventsforce and improve the experience of your attendees.
We have chosen these particular “secrets” based on the most common questions that were raised with our support team over the last 12 months. These are how to:
Design attractive and effective event emails
Make your event websites look fabulous
Quickly add questions in bulk to your registration pages
Pre-populate fields to speed up the registration process
Improve the efficiency of your testing
Use Eventsforce to help with your GDPR requirements
Secret #1: Design attractive and effective event emails
Creating visually engaging email content is important for driving traffic through to your website.
Add a background color or an image to your email templates
First, upload an image to a hidden page. This allows you to host your image in your event so that it is always available to you and your team.
Go to Website > Content > Website Pages
Click "Add Page"
Enter a name for the page
Click "OK" and then, importantly, click "Cancel" to create a page that is hidden (clicking "OK" will automatically add the page to your menu bar, making it accessible)
Hover over "Add Here" and select "Text Block"
Using the "Insert/edit image" button, upload an image
Before clicking "OK", copy all the text in 'Source' field and paste it somewhere safe (for example: NotePad or TextEdit)
Click "OK"
Go to an email template (Communications > Automatic OR Ad Hoc)
Insert a 1 cell table using the 'Insert table' icon
Click Table > Cell > Cell properties within the editor
Click "Advanced"
***In the 'Style' field enter “background-image:url(the path to your image)”. It should look like this: background-image:url ("/EXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/media/uploaded/EVEXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/event_42/20160903_130509_GD.jpg")***
Click "OK"
In 'Table properties' enter a value in the 'Cell padding' field (for example: 40px)
Insert a new table and format it as required
If you do not want to see the image through the second table go to 'Cell properties', click "Advanced" and select or enter color code in "Background color".
Click "OK"
Test the email thoroughly
Secret #2: Make your event websites look fabulous
Brand consistency is hugely important to keep your message focused, so once you’ve grabbed someone’s attention with a good-looking email when they click through to the website and registration path, the look and feel should be consistent.
Adding a background color to your website
Go to Website > Design > Template to make sure that the "Responsive Standard Design" template is selected
Go to Website > Design > Appearance (if you are using a custom template this will not be possible)
Scroll down to the "Use custom CSS" and select the check box to activate
Copy the code below and paste it into the custom CSS field
body {background-color: #666666;}5. Click "Preview"
6. Click "OK"
Adding a background image to your website
Follow steps 1 - 3 above
Copy the code below and paste it into the custom CSS field
body {
background-image: url("/EXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/media/uploaded/EVEXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/event_42/20160903_130509_GD.jpg");
background-repeat: tile;
background-position: center top;
background-color: #4A828E;
} 3. Click "Save "
4. Go to Website > Content > Website Pages
5. Select your hidden page from the drop-down list
6. Edit the image
7. Select the image and click the Insert/edit image icon
8. Copy the source
9. Go back to Website > Design > Appearance
10. In the CSS code replace "/EXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/media/uploaded/EVEXAMPLEACCOUNTNAME/event_42/20160903_130509_GD.jpg" with your image source.
11. Click "Save"
Secret #3: Quickly add questions in bulk to your registration pages
Collections allow you to group database items together that can be saved to a library and added to your registration pages whenever required. This means that if you have a group of questions that you use intermittently, they can be retrieved from the library and added to your events following the format you have set which will help to keep your database clean.
To create a collection:
Go to System Settings > Database > Collections
Click Add
In Description: enter a name for your collection
In Header Text Block: enter a name for the group of questions. This name will appear on the page.
The list of available database items will only include items where the question is available across all events, as this is an account level option, however, the answers can be specific to an event.
Select the database item you wish to add to the collection. You can search for database items and then use shift or cmd/Ctrl to select them.
Click Add to include them in them in the collection. The questions can be re-ordered using the arrows.
Click Save
Adding a Collection to a Registration Page
Go to Website > Content > Registration Pages
Click Edit for the relevant page
Hover over Add Here and select “Reg Prompt Collections"
From the Collection Name drop-down, select the collection you want to add to the page. If the question already exists on the page they will be marked with a red cross and will not be added
Click Save
All questions will be added to the page along with the heading. The questions will then behave like any other question.
The collection is saved to a library and is ready to be applied to any event.
You can also add database items to any collection when you edit a question by clicking the Collections button on the Registration Question Details page or the Booking Item Details page.
Secret #4: Pre-populate fields to speed up the registration process
You can achieve this with personal links which pre-populates fields for invitees but what can you do for invitees as well as those who haven't been invited?
If you know that most of your registrants are probably going to provide the same answer to a question, but you also know there will be exceptions, for instance, you might know that geographically the majority of people will be from the UK or the US, you can, therefore, provide a default answer
Adding a default answer
Go to Website > Content > Registration Pages
Click Edit
Enter or select an answer in the Default answer: field
Search-as-you-type
If you have a long list of alternatives in a drop-down field, you can make the drop-down list a search-as-you-type field so they do not have to scroll all the way to the bottom.
Go to Website > Content > Registration Pages
Click Edit or hover over Add Here to add a registration question or bookable item to the page
Next to the Type field select the Search-as-you-type checkbox
Click Save, click Back
Secret #5: Improve the efficiency of your testing
Use the Preview button at the bottom of any registration page to quickly view and test the functionality of questions.
Use private browsing. This allows you to keep testing your event website without the browser switching to edit mode.
In Chrome private browsing is called Incognito, in Firefox, New Private Window and in Internet Explorer, InPrivate. Make your event Live and copy and paste your event web address into the private browsing address bar. This will allow you to test your event as if you were an attendee.
Secret #6: Use Eventsforce to help with your GDPR requirements
Our GDPR tools are available in your sandbox and/or test accounts. You can, therefore, try the tools before applying them to your production accounts.
If you need more info on how to use them, feel free to contact us for more information or go to our knowledge base to read our guide: “Managing your data retention policy in Eventsforce”.
You can view the 6 secrets in our webinar using password: Efclient40.