How to Create an Event Landing Page That Converts

Putting on an event is a considerable expense. One that demands a significant amount of time, money, and energy. Which means you want an event registration page that effectively drives signups.

Unfortunately, not all event organizers and marketers understand how critical event landing pages are. After all, it’s such a small consideration when compared to all of the other moving parts associated with putting on a successful event.

Still, your landing pages play a more prominent role than you might think. Your event landing page is typically the first thing your prospective attendees see about your event. Here, we’ll look at some ways to ensure your landing pages are helping you capture registrations, instead of getting in the way.

What is an Event Landing Page?

To put it simply, an event landing page is a lot like any other landing page, its primary goal being to convert website visitors into attendees. That said, many events, particularly B2B conferences, can cost thousands of dollars at the high end, and that’s before you add in air travel and accommodations.

Event registration pages, therefore, require marketers to make a case for attending by showcasing speakers and sessions, highlighting the benefits of attending, and well, making it look like a good time.

Event Landing Pages: The Basics

An event landing page should work as an invitation to a party–albeit an expensive one. To convince people that your event is worth attending, you’ll need to include a few key details. Here’s the quick rundown:

• Who: Who is hosting? If you’re hosting the event, share a bit about your company and why you’re qualified to do so. The landing page should also feature speakers, sponsors, and notable participants to give visitors the sense that this is a “who’s who” of X industry.
• What: What is this event about? Is this a small, tightly-focused niche event with hands-on workshops or big, multi-track conference? Be clear about what attendees should expect from your event.
• Where and When: Where will the event take place? What are the dates? Early on, you can include just the city, allowing visitors to decide if the location works for them. Once you’ve locked down a venue, add the name and address to the page.
• Why: What benefits come from participating? The can’t-miss speakers? Networking opportunities? If you’re putting on a big B2B event, you’re likely asking for hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars, so the value needs to be communicated clearly on your landing page.
• CTA: Like all landing pages, your event registration page is nothing without a great CTA. If the event is a long way off, consider directing users to sign up for updates or to pre-register at a discount. Keep in mind; event landing pages can get pretty long and often pack in a lot of information. As a result, you may want to make sure that you include multiple CTAs throughout the page, making it easy for users to navigate to the registration page at any time.

Event Landing Pages Must Effectively Build Trust

SXSW EDU uses an “official trailer” to show attendees what they can expect from the event. We like that it uses video, as this helps give prospective attendees a sense of place–they can see what the speaker sessions, panels, workshops, and the expo floor look like in action.

Scroll further down the page, and you can read more about the event schedule, speakers, sessions, and more. While SXSW offers more than a traditional landing page, the amount of information provided is a strategy worth emulating, particularly if you’ve collected a good amount of footage from past events.

Put Your Value Prop Front and Center

From bulleted lists to concise summaries, event landing pages tend to work best when you stay focused on the core benefit of attending the event.

Moz does an excellent job of staying focused on the benefits of attending its MozCon event. As you can see in the landing page example, the brand doesn’t waste any time getting straight to the value proposition, placing the essential details at the top: speakers, content, and the opportunity to connect with a community of marketers.

Additionally, the headline and event description get really specific about what attendees can expect to learn at the event. They’ll get actionable SEO and content marketing tips and the chance to connect with industry leaders and like-minded marketers.

Another example is MoneyConf’s pre-registration page, which is particularly useful when it comes to communicating the value of an event, getting straight to the value proposition using a couple of sentences, and a testimonial from the BBC.

And while tickets aren’t available, the page still focuses on a clear call-to-action–pre-registration.

Relevance – Know Your Audience

Sure, relevance is well, relevant to any type of content or web copy there is. The same goes for your event registration page. Make sure you write your landing page copy in a way that speaks directly to your target audience.

While Adobe’s 2020 Summit caters to a broad range of advertisers, B2B marketers, and automation pros, it’s clear from the copy that this event is designed for “experience makers” (a term they use throughout the text) who want the latest industry trends, tech, and insights.

Grow.co’s MAU event offers a different approach as compared to other events. Where many event marketers aim to get as many registrants as possible, MAU prefers to keep things targeted to a relevant audience. See, you can’t just purchase tickets; you need to apply to attend.

The event website states you must be either an app marketer or a service provider to get in. When users click the “Apply to Attend” CTA, that means they’re likely part of the target audience, and it gives them a sense of what to expect post-click–a somewhat long registration form. While this approach won’t work for every event, this strategy helps event hosts control who gets to attend, which in turn, adds value to the community that makes the cut.

Make Checkout a Breeze

Long registration forms don’t do you any favors and prevents users from taking action. As you design your checkout forms, make sure you only collect the information you need.

You may also want to include the option for offline payments or allow attendees to pay later. Again, in the case of corporate events, events are a big-ticket purchase that may require prospective attendees to get permission from their boss and jump through a few hoops to get their company to pay for the event.

In this event landing page example from Zoomtopia, marketers anticipated pushback, offering a downloadable template that justifies the cost of attending to a prospective attendee’s employer.

Put Pages Up Early Enough to Promote Effectively

Even if your event is several months away, the landing page serves as a place that interested visitors can go to learn about updates, such as the speakers that have joined the agenda. Visitors are invited to sign up for updates and can scroll further down the page to see who participated last time the conference ran or look at pictures from last year.

Also consider the amount of time it takes for someone to be convinced to purchase tickets, arrange travel plans, etc. The earlier the better when promoting event landing pages.

Wrapping Up

In the end, there’s no one “right” way to set up an event landing page. Every event has a unique set of goals, though every landing page should be set up to drive conversions, be it pre-registering, signing up for updates, or registering for the big event.

Whether your event landing pages could use a few tweaks or your website, on the whole, isn’t capturing a whole lot of leads, it pays to get an outsider perspective. Book a free 30-minute assessment with a Drift marketing pro, and we’ll provide some actionable tips to help you increase conversions and close more deals.