Since the dawn of using the Internet for signing up for events online, collecting information and processing transaction $dollars have been the core requirement. Over the past several years, Websites and Email that are POWERED by Event data have become the new requirements.
The primary mechanisms events use to connect and communicate with their customers is via their website and their email platform. In the past it was OK to have these as separate pieces provided by speciality applications like WordPress and Wix or Mailchimp and Constant Contact. However, there are two things that are driving events away from specialty applications and more towards event technology companies like us.
First, event technology companies have caught up to the speciality website and email providers in terms of most functionality. Second, by powering their websites and email with event specific data and triggers, events are connecting much more closely with their customers.
RunSignup has seen this trend since we have had first generation free website and email capabilities for over a decade. We decided to invest the past 3 years and $Millions of dollars on development, infrastructure and ongoing costs to release our Website V2 and Email V2 products across RunSignup, TicketSignup and GiveSignup.
We see the 30,000 events per year on our website with 11 Million registrations and tickets in 2024 having over 1 Billion Pageviews and sending over 700 Million Emails. We know events generate 17% of their sales from our email system. These systems are the most important features for our event customers to manage and grow their events.
Event Powered Websites and EMail help to provide more information, more accurately and more timely to customers. This helps improve event connection with customers, giving buyers more confidence in signing up for the event, lowering management costs, improving loyalty and generating revenue.
Free Websites and Email
As an employee owned company, we know our success is driven by our customer’s success. We know our event customers will have more signups if we take any shackles off of limits on their websites or their email. Event customers NEED to control their own content and communications and we provide unlimited website content that is simple to make look great and also update, with free hosting and free SSL certificates for their domains. We also provide unlimited contacts and send for their email absolutely free.
Modern Event Powered Website and EMail System
We seem to be ahead of many other registration and ticket vendors in rolling out our Website V2 and Email V2 capabilities. There are several key features of this new generation that make them competitive with the features of WordPress and Mailchimp:
- Point and Click Visual Website Builder and Email Builder
- Content Component Library for features like text, images, video, cards, multi-column layout, slideshows, etc.
- Event Driven Component Library for features like Event Tiles with dynamic pricing (and fee transparency), countdown clocks, donation goal thermometer, fundraiser leaderboards, top teams, sponsor lists, Strava maps, Contact Us forms, event location with maps, etc.
- Event Driven Data and Pages for features like Participant Lookup, Results, and Photos.
- Automated Fee Transparency Pricing ensures events comply with new State regulations.
- Image Gallery with pre-populated images over dozens of event types, as well as the ability to upload and reuse your own images across websites AND email as well as across events.
- Advanced Visual Control with banners, logos, favicons, footers, padding, rounded corners, borders, spacers, etc.
- Bring Your Own Domain.
- Automated Email capability triggered by price increases, signup, schedule, and drip.
- Full control of content that is easy to make a very good looking email and website.
- Scalable, fast, secure websites.
- High deliverability rates for email.
- Integrated Analytics easier to understand than Google Analytics, with ability to do source tracking, and measure ROI of referrals, specific ad campaigns and emails.
All In One Place
Having a single website with ALL of your content and ALL of your event data is the new approach. This makes it simple for event customers to get the information they need – helping people on whether and when to signup to getting information pre event to reliving the experience post event.
Many of the features listed above that are event specific are simply not available in WordPress and Mailchimp. Old approaches like widgets on websites or redirects to a separate registration/ticket site are increasingly viewed as hacks.
And ticket systems like Eventbrite who require redirects to Eventbrie branded pages (often displaying ads from competitive events). As we showed in this case study on a brewery, Harpoon Brewery’s brand and website drive sales, not Eventbrite.
Summary
We continue to invest in advancing the state of the art in Event Powered Websites and EMail. In the first quarter of 2025, we will be releases TXT Marketing capabilities for only a penny per TXT to cover our costs to extend these capabilities to mobile.
Content Drill Down
- Webinar Slides
- Introducing Websites V2
- Style Options for Websites V2
- Structuring Your Website: Creating Menus and Pages
- Creating Custom Content Pages
- Design Help: Using Canva For My Website
- Using AI for Your Race Website
- Websites V2 FAQ
- Websites V2 Product Roadmap