I’ve got this strange friend; her name is Maria. Maria’s always been a little weird but now things have gotten unworldly altogether. You see, Maria’s an artist; she’s into sculpture in particular, of which she specializes in manipulation of Perspex with a blowtorch. Lately I haven’t seen too much of her as she’s hooked up Internet. Actually not many people at all have seen her recently; she says she’s working on a big project.

Now that she’s got Internet she reckons she can focus a lot more on her work without distractions. She doesn’t ‘waste’ time doing grocery shopping anymore. Now she orders all her food and household items. She says if she’s extremely busy, her weekly list is saved into computer, and she just clicks on ‘order’ and usual stuff is delivered to her door every week. No more driving, parking, searching for stuff, standing in line, dealing with bored and under slept cashiers. I’m starting to think it’s not such a bad idea. Maria is pretty proud. She’s now organizing for a local greengrocer to deliver her fruit and vegetables too.

With that in mind we’ve come up with a few tips on how to get event participants to use your online registration system.

Educate your customers: Your customers may be used to faxing and phoning-in registrations, or they may think it’s too complicated, or just wary of providing information over internet. Whichever it is, you should let them know why you are using online registration. Outline benefits for them and for you. At a minimum they need to know that your online payment option is secure, that form is easy to use and will make process of registration easier and more efficient for all involved, and lastly, that you have a solid privacy policy about use of information you collect on your registrants.