One of the biggest challenges in organizing an event is getting people—people you like, people you know are reliable—to just stinkin’ RSVP!!!
Okay, we get it. People have busy lives. But this is a problem a lot of our event planners have faced, so we wanted to offer a few tips for getting people to move RSVPing to your event from the bottom of their list up to the top, without annoying anyone in the process.
- Put it on the invitation. Put it in plain sight, on the invitation—otherwise, how can you fault someone for not doing it? Go ahead, put that RSVP request in bold text.
- Be really specific. Make it easy for people to respond by letting them know how to do it (Email? Make the email address big and bold. Postal RSVP? Include a stamped envelope! Through Get Invited? Include a big obvious link!)
- Follow up politely. Hey, a bit of gentle follow-up never hurt anyone! A week or two before the deadline, if it’s a long lead time, or a few days before if it’s a more casual event, but either way send out a message letting people know you actually need them to respond for planning purposes.
- Lie. Okay, not about anything big. But create a buffer for planning by setting the deadline for RSVP responses a little bit earlier than you actually need people to respond, because there WILL be stragglers.
- Remind people indirectly. If you’re using Get Invited you can send out a quick reminder to all your attendees, maybe in the form of some other kind of notification, like asking if anyone has any special dietary recommendations, or giving people info on where to park. Then just add a reminder to RSVP onto the end of the message.
Have another idea? Give us a shout at @getinvited on Twitter!
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