Planning an Event? Plan NOT to use Paper Invites

As a marketing communications professional, I receive a lot of invites to marketing events, conferences, forums, and sessions all over North America. Off the top of my head, I would have to say I get at least 3 invites per week via email or (gasp) hard copy. Why the gasp? I hate getting unnecessary, environmentally unfriendly junk mail delivered to my desk every day. What a waste, of paper, money and the receptionist’s time. It is more than likely that that conference invite will go right into the recycling with out me ever looking at it.

When the opportunity presented itself for me to review RegOnline, an event software package that includes conference payment software, I jumped at the chance. Finally, I can review something I know a little bit about!

I took a look at RegOnline’s Conference Payment Software and I was pretty impressed. I viewed two different invites with two different looks and feels based on the mood of the event. One invite was for a marketing conference and I briefly forgot I was supposed to be looking at the program and I instead started looking for more details about the event. Yep, I am ashamed to say that I immediately transitioned into the registration process! Does that mean the invite was a success? lol!

Anyway, the registration process was simple and seamless enough. The only possibly suggestions I could make are based on my personal preferences. For example, I like to have the conference price right on the home page and I like to see my progress at the bottom of every page. Once I complete the first page, a message on the bottom reads: You have finished step one of six. I like to have that just so I am not thinking to myself, “when is this going to end? I just want to go to a stupid conference already!” Again, that is just my personal preference.

All in all, I would have to say that this was a pretty cool conference payment software package. I am sure I am going to be getting many more examples in my inbox (of events I can actually sign up for).