How to reduce event registration form abandonment
From the event organiser’s perspective…
Let’s face it, for an event organiser, fewer things are more frustrating than getting a load of form abandonments especially if they could be avoided. It’s not a nice thing to have to report back in either.
According to Convertica, 27% of people abandon online forms because of their length, and 10% drop off because of unnecessary questions.
The biggest stat of all is that 70% sail off into the sunset and never return if they encounter an issue with the form.
What happens if your event is undersubscribed and one of the main reasons is a dodgy reg
From the attendee’s perspective…
“Too much hassle”, “I’ll do this later” or words to that effect are what goes through the mind of someone interested in registering but faced with a conference registration form full of tedious questions that make it as burdensome as Mariah Carey’s tour rider.
First impressions do count and if a long, irrelevant registration form is their first experience with the event then it’s not a good one.
A form with a technical issue should never get to the stage where it’s in front of the person registering. Testing avoids that or if there is some sort of technical issue, good messaging will help.
A possible solution?
Groundbreaking stuff is this! How about making the form short and sweet and only collecting the information you really need at the point of registration?
Then once they have registered and are “in” why don’t you go back to them with some follow-up questions that are relevant to them?
Another option is to create a registration form that only shows questions relevant to the person filling it out. They’ll never see the questions that aren’t relevant to them, so they’ll never have the opportunity to get frustrated by a long, dull, and irrelevant registration form.
You already know this, but it’s worth pointing out as time is normally a scarce resource for event organisers, make sure the whole registration process including the form is tested properly. That’s all permutations and all elements before you sign it off.
To conclude, take a step into the world of the person registering. Would you want to see a long form? What would you think if it was irrelevant in parts or didn’t work properly? We’ve all experienced this at some point and we all think we could probably do it better. Now’s your chance!