Getting those who’ve registered to show up to an event is a challenge for any host. Fortunately, Meetup offers a wide array of resources to keep your audiences engaged and connected to your community. During this Meetup 101 installment, we’re delving into the secrets to turning an RSVP into a committed attendee.
Watch this recording of Colin-Pierre Larnerd, Customer Support & Operations Manager; Alex Marden, Customer Support Content Lead; along with Meetup Organizer Mentors Deborah Paiva and Ceil The Deal for a breakdown of the many ways you can hack and track attendance at your events. Learn insider tips for using the latest attendance features to increase your impact.
Timestamps:
Top Q&A Questions and Resources:
- How can I consistently get large turnouts at most of my events?
- Ceil: One of the things you might want to think about as a leader is being able to get volunteer co-organizers. It helps a lot when you have co-organizers who can also stay in touch with the members. When you actually have a co-organizer assigned to a specific number of members, then the members know who to turn to when they have a question or need help.
- Deborah: I think it’s crucial if you’re trying to plan events that are paid events or large events, to know that these events are what your members are looking for. You can do online meet & greet events or send out emails to ask what kinds of events they’re looking for. You can’t get a large group of people to an event unless you know the type of events your members really want to attend.
- What are the best ways to advertise an event?
- Ceil: You can advertise using your social media if you have other platforms that you use, word of mouth, and keep in mind the members that always attend your events are usually your best ambassadors. Having a really good relationship with your dedicated members, make them see that you’re not just treating them like a number that you’re treating them like a human being, and that they are valuable to you. Make sure they know they can invite their family and friends as well; add that to your invitations to be clear.
- Alex: If you haven’t hosted an event in a while and you want to encourage those ambassadors to bring their friends, there’s a pre-existing template called the Meet and Greet, which will auto-populate a lot of the event scheduler tool so you don’t have to worry about having a cover photo or an event description. You just have to select the date and time and location where you’re hosting the event. You can specify that those meet and greets are for the purpose of having your existing members bring a friend who isn’t already part of the group because they might become a permanent member of your group.
- How do we handle the situation when someone habitually RSVPs to an event and then cancels?
- Deborah: As organizers, we can click on their profile and see how many events they’ve already paid for, and how many events they’ve actually attended. Most of us as event organizers get used to those names and we start to notice repeats. I have sent personal messages to those people to let them know they canceled at the last minute and have done so a number of times. I ask them “Is there anything I can do to get you to an event?” You never know the real reasoning as to why they aren’t attending your events. If that doesn’t work and they say, “My plans just change a lot”. Well, maybe this isn’t the group for them, then we have that kind of conversation.
Resources:
- Join the Meetup Organizer Community on Discord
- Product Feature Request form
- Stay up to date on product updates
- Visit Meetup’s Help Center
- For further support from our team or to report a bug, submit a direct request to our team using this form
Last modified on January 17, 2023
