The simple email strategy that increased event ticket sales by 39.65%

You don’t need a massive list or a huge ad budget to fill your next event.

You just need the right message, sent to the right people, at the right time.

That’s what my client, a distributor in the construction industry, learned this year when they increased ticket sales by 39.65% and event attendance by 16.28% using just three simple emails.

My client has been running their annual in-person event successfully for several years.

Every year, they have been increasing their event ticket sales by ~20%, mostly via posting on social media.

But this year, the algorithms of both Instagram and LinkedIn (their primary marketing channels, with a couple of thousand followers) have been hiding their promotional posts.

With an email list of ~800 people, and half of it marked as “unengaged” by their Email Service Provider, our expectations were low. They thought we might be able to reach a 20% increase from the previous year, but even that wasn’t guaranteed.

A few weeks later, we managed to turn things around and achieve the highest ticket sales they’ve ever had, and the highest in-person attendance they’ve seen to date. 

Spotting our brand evangelists

When my client asked me to support them with event ticket sales, they had already sold about 200 tickets.

They also told me that they usually see the biggest uptick in their ticket sales in the 2 weeks leading to the event.

Fortunately, they used an online ticketing system that integrated with their Email Service Provider seamlessly. I went ahead and created a segment of ticket buyers and made sure that this segment would automatically get updated with the details of every new ticket buyer.

So I suggested that instead of sending those subscribers the usual “only X more sleeps until the event,” we will send 3 different emails to the people in this particular segment.

Recognizing a new level of intent

Unlike those who haven’t done so, people who purchased a ticket are more “invested” in the event already. In other words, their intent levels are much higher.

Which led me to believe that if we asked those people to help us spread the word about the event to their colleagues and friends, they would be more inclined to do so.

I also knew that this ask would be more successful if our ticket holders understood that their small effort (of forwarding the email to a couple of people) would have a high reward.

My client and I came up with an ethical incentive to get more engagement on those emails. 

I then worked with their team to write and implement emails that looked as if they were coming from the CEO’s personal inbox (which was a part of the strategy), and sent them in the 2 weeks leading to the event.

The results

• This simple strategy was so successful that my client sold +39.65% more tickets to their 2025 event, compared to their 2024 one - without spending a dime on paid ads.

• The in-person attendance was the highest they’ve ever seen since starting to run these events, and an increase of +16.28% compared to 2024.

• Aside from the record attendance, my client reported on the highest quality of attendees they’ve ever experienced.

• A by-product of this strategy was that their email list size has increased with high-intent and high-quality subscribers who have attended (or had the attention to attend) their event.

• The fact that they got more people to their event than ever before meant that they got in front of both a new audience and their existing audience (in either a new way, or a deeper, IRL one). 

The conversations and relationship-building activities throughout this event will have a long-lasting impact, and are important building blocks to what is likely to become future multiple 7-figure deals. 

Want your email list to help you fill up rooms with the right people, without spending thousands on ads?

Let’s have a no-obligation chat and see if it’s the right fit & time for us to work together.