The Year of the Event
This week we are excited to share our plans for some massive Event upgrades! These Event upgrades will be trickling in throughout the first few months of 2018, with the first being launched at the end of January. Come check them out and get as excited as we are!
2018 is going to be an exciting year for us over at the Membee Hive for more reasons than one. To get the New Year started right we are going to be releasing some MAJOR upgrades and enhancements to Membee’s Events!
Events, aside from membership, is the highest form of revenues for many organizations. Not only do Events increase the bottom line, they raise the value of the membership you are offering. The easier it is for your members to view, purchase, and attend events, the more likely that they will! But don’t worry, these upgrades aren’t just for your members, there are some major improvements coming to the way you can build and manage your organization’s events.
Below we are just going to go over the 11 major enhancements you can look forward too. Each of these major enhancements may be accompanied by 2 or more additional upgrades. Make sure to check out the Latest Buzz blog posts each week to make sure you don’t miss any information about these enhancements!
Eliminate Having to Enter Same Attendee Info Multiple Times for Multiple Event Items
Let’s say an event purchaser is buying three attendance related items. In Membee currently, whether they are purchasing for themselves or on behalf of another person, they need to enter the “attendee” info 3 times, once for each event item purchased. This can be quite time-consuming so Membee will now track and save an unlimited number of attendee information making signing up for Events a simple 5-minute job.
Additionally, you can allow the user to choose if the logged in person should be set to be the attendee by default. This is great for organizations who have a lot of families or children members, allowing parents to signup their kids, the entire family, or just themselves etc.
Item Price Levels
Introducing the “Item Price”:
- This means that instead of requiring the user to set up an event item for each “type” of registration we allow them to set up one event item and then multiple prices. This will make selling tickets to members, non-members, and early birds substantially less complex.
Users can now cancel event registrations
- This was the top voted for enhancement at the 2017 Users Group Meeting proving yet again why attending these meetings is so valuable! You talk we listen! #Membeeusersmeeting2018
Conditional Event Items
Conditional Event Items will now be displayed based on the selection of another Event Item.
- For example, only the attendees who chose the beef meal would get a second item of choices for sides, opposed to those who chose the pasta.
Item Price Bundles:
- Offering bundle packages to members is now much simpler as well as the option to create different event price levels for each level of membership.
Ability to display past events:
- Organization’s past events can be a major membership marketing tool. Essentially the ability for a potential member(s) to review past events for the content covered to help influences their membership decision.
Selling to Membership Subsets
This upgrade allows users to now sell certain events or items to certain members.
- For example, they can now sell 3 different packages for bronze, silver, and gold members. Members login and can see all options available, but can only select the item they are eligible for.
- This can be a great “upsell” strategy when those bronze members see what a silver or gold membership can get them.
- This will also eliminate administration work for users when members sign up to the wrong event, etc.
Sessions – Multi-Day Events With Concurrent Sessions
The way you organize your events can now be made simple, or you can make it as complex as you need.
- For example, you can have a one day one session type of event, or you can create a conference type event with multiple days and multiple sessions available. The details can be completely controlled by you: session name, start time, duration, attendance capacity etc. The skies the limit!
Your attendees are also now given the option to share the event on social media after they’ve checked out! Another great tool to get the word out about an event.
Faster On Site Check-In
You can now offer tickets to your event attendees to smooth the check-in process for those bigger events.
- One ticket per attendee, each with a barcode and/or QR Code that can be scanned at the registration desk.
Handling Event “Guests”
Your members will now be able to register a “guest” with more ease and less confusion inside of Membee. Now a guest can be registered with no attachment to an organization or employer necessary, simplifying the process. Users will no longer have to resolve or delete the relationship status after the event.
- For example, in the past Sally from ABC Inc.’s guest, her husband Bill, would have to be registered as a member of ABC, now he can be registered as an unattached “guest” attendee.
Repeating events
Being able to repeat the exact same event multiple times has become much simpler with the added capability to repeat every M T W T F S S beginning date and ending date.
- For example, run a Yoga class with an attendance capacity of 15 every Tuesday for 3 months.
Simple to set up and to use:
- User clicks the dates they want in each month and can move to the next month, choose more dates, etc.
- Registrants can sign up for a certain date and all future dates are checkboxes so they can register for multiple future repeating dates all at once.
Edit my registration
Users are now able to edit event registrations including financial implications; edit purchase, change dates, remove items, add attendees, or offer refunds.
Remind Overdue Members of Dues at Event Check-out:
Overdue members would now be prompted and reminded to renew while they’re online and attempting to register for something at a member rate. This is a great way to increase member retention by reminding members of price differences between member and non-member event prices.
Waiting List
If an event is at capacity you now have to ability to set up a waiting list guaranteeing attendance.
- If two seats become available a registration email will be sent to the first two people on the waiting list. Users also have the ability to set up registration deadlines for those on the waitlist. For example, If a person on the waitlist is sent the registration email and does not sign up within one week of receiving it, the offer will be passed on to the next person on the waitlist, and so on.
Buy a Membership While Purchasing An Event
Often many members become members to attend certain events and pay the member price opposed to the non-member price. So why not offer membership right at the event checkout? Making signing up as easy as possible can drive up membership rates. The value of a membership should always be obvious to find, for both new member revenue and retention.
Visible Event Goals
It’s now simple to make the goal of an event more visible to attendees with a new feed that can show:
- The goal of the event
- The current donations
- The goal exceeded
- Have a “Give” button
When Can We Expect These Upgrades?
The first installment of these exciting upgrades is all ready to go and will be launched in the second half of January. Keep your eyes peeled for a blog post covering the upgrade in more detail with links to the Help From the Hive documentation (login required).
The second installment is nearing completion and ready to head into testing, meaning it will not be far behind! An exciting way to start off 2018 if you ask us!
But That’s Not All…
For those Membee users who don’t get quite as excited about Events, don’t worry, we have many other exciting updates and upgrades across the board that we will be just as excited to share.
So hang tight we have a lot under our sleeves.
Questions?
If you have any questions regarding Membee software contact Membee support staff:
Email: support@membee.com
Chat feature on Membee’s Learning Resource page’s and on the Help from the Hive main page (Membee login required)
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I am very much looking forward to seeing these new event features! Thank you, Membee, for continuing to improve everything. I keep recommending you to other organisations.
Thank you Heike for your continuous support! We are quite excited about these updates and so glad you are as well.