As the world recovers from the impact of the novel coronavirus, we've seen a slow resurgence of live events. For event organizers, this means it's time to get back on track and start reaching out to your stakeholders such as attendees, sponsors, speakers, vendors, and exhibitors.

Emails remain one of the most effective ways for your organization to engage with your audience given the low amount of hassle and investment they require. That's because once you have a mailing list set up, the only thing you have to worry about is creating email content that's attractive enough to engage your customers.

For many people, the novel coronavirus hasn't just been a health hazard—it has directly impacted them mentally, emotionally, and financially, so it's more important than ever to be empathetic in your communications with stakeholders. Though businesses are getting back in shape, this struggle remains, so your emails should sound positive, supportive, and confident about the current situation and the future. It's best to understand and be concerned about their well-being and not jump into talking business right away.  

To help with this, we've put together some email templates for you to use when you're ready to get in touch with your stakeholders and get your events back on track.

Vendors

With barely any in-person events happening around the world, event vendors have suffered great losses because of COVID-19. If their business has survived, getting back to work will definitely mean good news. Here's a sample template to demonstrate how to get in touch with them after the long break.

Hello,

We know things have been tough in recent months and that we've all been getting by one day at a time. But remember that we're all in this together, so we want to send you a virtual hug.

The good news is that things are getting back in shape, and a return to hybrid or in-person events is on the horizon. With the CDC guidelines in mind, we believe we'll soon be able to run our events in a safe manner. This includes reducing the number of in-person attendees and encouraging those who can't make it to connect using our virtual platforms.

We're planning to host the next event on dd/mm/yyyy, and we'd love to work together with you again. We hope this date works for you.

It'd be great if we could connect sometime this week to discuss the next steps and any concerns you might have. Let us know your availability.

Thank you,

Attendees

Your attendees are surely going to be excited to know that events are happening again. What's most important is to convey that you're taking measures for their safety and explain how. Below is a template that should help. Also, if you promised your attendees that they could reuse their canceled tickets in your next event, this is the time to explain how.

Hi <attendee-name>,

We hope you, your family, and your friends are staying safe. Remember that we're all in this together, and we'll get through these challenging circumstances one day at a time.

We've got some good news that will hopefully brighten up your day! We've carefully studied the CDC guidelines and have concluded we'll be able to run our event this year with all their precautionary measures in place.

Your safety and comfort are the most important things to us, so we're offering both virtual and in-person components for the event this time. This means you can sit back and enjoy the show right from the comfort of your home if you want.

We'll be opening up registrations on dd/mm/yyyy along with sharing more details about the event agenda. For those of you who have credits from our previous event, which was canceled, feel free to get in touch with us. [If you gave people any other options for reusing their canceled tickets—such as through event credits—you can mention it here.] We hope to see you soon.

Until then, stay safe and take care.

Thank you,

Subscribe to The Green Room

Sign up here and get all the most relevant MICE industry content delivered right to your inbox once a month.

 

Thank you for Signing Up

Please correct the marked field(s) below.

1,true,6,Contact Email,2 

 

 

By submitting this form, you agree to the processing of personal data according to our Privacy policy.

View email archive

Speakers

Though many speakers had already shifted to doing virtual sessions, become active on Instagram IGTV, or created a presence by hosting YouTube Live sessions even before COVID-19 hit, in-person events remained an important place for them to interact with and grow their audience as well. However, now one of the most important concerns for them is likely balancing the need to reach a larger audience with watching out for their own health and safety. The below email template focuses on them.

Hi <speaker-name> ,

We hope you, your family, and your friends are staying safe. We know things have been tough the last couple of months, but remember that we're all in this together. We want to send you a virtual hug during this time.

The good news is that things are getting better and the events industry is getting back into shape. After carefully assessing the CDC guidelines, we've concluded we'll be able to run our event with limited capacity while implementing all the safety guidelines.

This means our upcoming event can happen as scheduled. However, we're planning to run it both virtually and in-person so that we can reduce the number of people on the premises.

Would you be interested in speaking at the event? We would love to discuss the specifics in detail over a call soon.

Your safety is of the utmost importance to us, so please trust that we're taking all the necessary steps to ensure our venue maintains high hygiene and safety measures.

Let us know when would be a good time to chat.

Thank you,

Sponsors 

Sponsors are one of the most important stakeholders in your event since they're the major source of income for it. That's why it's necessary to keep them updated about the event's progress. Here is a sample template for getting in touch with your sponsors and letting them know if you're going to run your event live or in-person.

Hi <sponsor-name>,

We hope you, your family, and your friends are staying safe. We know things have been tough for all of us in the last couple of months, so we want to send you a virtual hug during these challenging times. 

The good news, however, is that things are getting better and the events industry is getting back into shape. We've studied the CDC guidelines and decided we'll be able to run our upcoming event as scheduled with limited capacity while following all the safety guidelines.

We're planning to run it both virtually and in-person so that we can reduce the number of people on the premises. The bright side of this is that we'll have more visibility and access to an even larger audience. We're expecting at least an xx% increase in participation over last year.

We believe this'll be a great opportunity for you to promote your brand and reach your audience. We've created sponsorship packages especially designed to suit your needs. We'd love to get on a call and discuss this soon. Let us know your thoughts.

Until then, stay safe and take care.

Thank you,

Exhibitors

Events are an important part of any organization's marketing strategy. While exhibitors definitely might have had their share of opportunity loss like everyone else because of the coronavirus, for most of them, events might not have been the only source of revenue. However, like attendees, exhibitors also contribute a large chunk of revenue for the event organizer. Here's a sample template to express your concern for their health and bring them back to exhibit at your next event.

Hi <exhibitor-name>,

We hope you, your family, and your friends are staying safe. We know things have been difficult for all of us, so we want to send you virtual hugs.

The good news is things are getting back into shape for our industry, and, after studying the CDC guidelines, we've decided we'll be able to host our upcoming events with enough protection and safety measures.

As you hopefully know, 85% of leadership believe in-person events are critical to their company’s success, so this is an opportunity to get back in the game and stay in touch with your future customers.

We're also excited to tell you that this year our events are going to be hybrid—we'll run them both in-person and virtually. This means access for you to a larger audience across the world. We expect our event to double in terms of reach and influence, and we want you to take complete advantage of this.

We've come up with some really interesting packages for you. Would you be free sometime this week to connect and discuss this further?

Let us know. Until then, stay safe and take care.

Thank you,

These templates are just an example of how to reach out to your stakeholders after the long struggle of dealing with COVID-19. To re-emphasize, we recommend that event organizers focus on being empathetic when emailing their stakeholders about starting events again.

If, like us, you're more of a social person, let's connect on Twitter (@ZohoBackstage) and we'll keep you up-to-date with all the latest event news.