Back in 2013, Paula Balzer—COO of TBA Global—shared a Q&A with TIME magazine regarding the evolution of corporate events. In the interview, Paula explained how the expectations of the audience have changed over recent years, largely due to the improved sophistication of technology. Retaining an audience’s attention is more difficult than ever, and you need to do everything in your power to both host a successful event, and make sure you fill it to the rafters. Company events are ideal methods for generating a buzz around your business. An opportunity to meet with likeminded individuals, company events—whether for a product launch, fundraising or networking—offer numerous benefits:
- An effective means for communication at both the internal and external level
- Enable and foster interpersonal relationships
- Improve team motivation and work ethic
- Reward achievements and recognize success
- Promote business and brand recognition
- Build a community around your company
Getting as many people as possible to attend these events should therefore be a top priority as a Microsoft Partner. And how can you do that? Well, much like technology has changed audience expectations, it can be used to improve the number of people you can get to attend. This is where Typeform can help you create an event registration form that’s interesting and engaging.
Create an event registration form using Typeform
Most often, getting site visitors to fill out forms (like registering for your company events) is a difficult task – especially when they are bland and uninspiring. Typeform provides an interactive alternative that can offer your customers a richer, more engaging way to fill out event registration forms. Offering more natural progression like a real ‘human’ conversation, Typeform can help your forms stand out and achieve better completion rates.
In the rest of this post, I’ll explore how to create an event registration form using Typeform. I’ll take you through the process from building your event registration form to analyzing it for future reference and insight.
Build
This is where the magic happens… on the left are your question options, ranging from simple Q&As to more complex payment stripes and legal terms and conditions. I’ll explore some of the most common and useful question types you can use to get the most from your form-fillers.
Typeform is all about conversational forms, so you shouldn’t be afraid to use colloquial or chatty language. Spark rapport with your audience early – get them engaged so they’re more likely to fill out the entire event registration form.
Having personality come through in your forms is important, and the best way to do that is to make things personal. “Piping” feeds information from one question into the text of another. When a user tells you their name, you can then refer to them throughout the rest of the form.
This is a great way to gather information about those filling out your forms. It’s always useful to know who’s coming to your event. You can make certain answers required – although it’s best not to do so for every question as that can deter people. Make sure you allow people to choose multiple fields for questions such as these if appropriate.
This is a great way to gather information about those filling out your forms. It’s always useful to know who’s coming to your event. You can make certain answers required – although it’s best not to do so for every question as that can deter people. Make sure you allow people to choose multiple fields for questions such as these if appropriate.
Our attention spans are shorter than ever – break up questions with statements that can encourage or persuade the user to keep going. Embed videos from sites like YouTube to break up the flow and inject a little fun. It’s all about keeping your audience engaged, and statements are a great way to do that – it’s like you’re having direct conversation with them.
Our attention spans are shorter than ever – break up questions with statements that can encourage or persuade the user to keep going. Embed videos from sites like YouTube to break up the flow and inject a little fun. It’s all about keeping your audience engaged, and statements are a great way to do that – it’s like you’re having direct conversation with them.
Design
There are currently over 500 services integrated with Typeform, allowing you to connect other applications for a more seamless experience. MailChimp integration, for example, allows you to create new MailChimp subscriber lists based on Typeform entries. Some of the most notable integrations include:
- Email and SMS notifications
- MailChimp
- Trello
- Salesforce
- Slack
- MySQL Database
Metrics and results let you keep track of recipients’ answers, offering you valuable insights into what areas of your form worked well, and which struggled. This is also where you can get an overview of your audience: the most common ages, gender, roles… and the more questions you ask, the more accurate your representation of your audience will be. This will prove incredibly useful when it comes to events, as you can gauge your audience and cater for them ahead of the event. See two individuals that share similar interests and may hit it off? Make sure to introduce them to one another at your event.
You can also add a Google Analytics tracking code to your Typeforms to further track visitor behavior and demographics.
Typeforms are easy to share, and can be done so across all major social media platforms and via email. Better yet, you can embed your Typeform into your website for users to fill out within the same window. If users naturally navigate to your form, rather than clicking a button and opening an external window, you can expect the number that fill it out will increase.
You can still create a button or link to launch in an external window if you would prefer, or if there’s not enough space on the page.