Eventbrite - selling tickets online made easy

I’ve been meaning to write a review of Eventbrite for a very long time, and I figured it was about time I just did it…

I’ve been using Eventbrite for a few years now.  It’s always been good, but it just gets keeps getting better and better.

Amongst other things, I run the official HypnoBirthing UK website (www.hypnobirthing.co.uk).  I put it together about 6 years ago, and although the content has been added to over the years, the design is still pretty much as it was i.e. very basic.  However, thanks to my search engine knowledge, it’s ranked #1 in Google (http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&&q=hypnobirthing) and receives thousands of unique visitors a month.

One of the things we promote are training courses for people interested in training as a HypnoBirthing practitioner.  With zero budget, and no advertising, we’ve sold north of £300,000 of training places, and all done almost entirely hands off, with nothing sent out in the post.  These are courses with places at £695 a place, 24 places on a course, we usually sell out well in advance, and I’ve sold courses out in as little as 24 hours.

Eventbrite handles the whole event sales and attendee management process, from start to finish.  You can set up an event very quickly and easily, and it makes selling tickets online incredibly simple – dare I say it, even fun!

Basically, you give your event a name, set the dates and times (and it can be a recurring event), set an event capacity, set up your ticket types and prices, fill in your Google Checkout and/or Paypal details, and publish your event.

Once you’ve done that, you can then send out invites to your event (you can import email addresses to send to) and then track who’s opened the email, who’s RSVP’d, who’s booked, who hasn’t.  You can send out reminders to those who haven’t booked, thank those who have, etc.

Eventbrite can publish all the event details to Facebook, and you can also embed the registration form on your own website, thereby displaying live availability (we do this and it hugely cuts down on all those “Are there any tickets left?” calls and emails you usually get).

If you want to, you can create affiliate programs for people to help promote your event and discount codes that people can use (we sell so well we don’t need to but it’s a useful feature).

You can set tickets to go on sale at a particular time, for example to create ‘early bird’ discounted tickets that expire on a particular date and then automatically get replaced with the full price ticket.

We use this for the ‘be-back’ refresher places, setting them to go on sale at a particular time, and notify everyone in advance, so everyone gets a fair shot at getting a ticket.  You know, like the big bands do, where there’s a mad scramble to get tickets to see U2, or whoever.

You can set an overall event capacity, and multiple ticket types, and Eventbrite automatically stops selling tickets when either the maximum number of a particular type of ticket, or the overall event capacity, is reached.

If you have to refund a ticket sale, you do that in Google Checkout or Paypal and it automatically cancels the ticket in Eventbrite and puts the ticket back on sale.

Eventbrite also allows you to create waitlists, so if a ticket becomes available, it automatically emails the people on the waitlist, in sequence, and you can set how long they get to book before it releases the ticket to the next person on the list.

You can create mini-surveys to ask for additional information when someone is booking e.g. where they heard about the event from, their professional background, things they want to cover in the event.  This can be asked once (for the ticket buyer) or for each attendee in the order.

When someone buys a ticket through Eventbrite, it automatically sends out a confirmation and a PDF ticket they can print out and bring with them.  This is barcoded and Eventbrite are planning on providing a webcam app for checking attendees in on the day.

In the meantime, there is already an iPhone app which can display your check in list and you just click on attendee names when they arrive and it automatically gets updated in your account.  You can even have multiple iPhones all updating the same list.

(We don’t use the online check-in functionality, but Eventbrite also allows easy printing of your attendee list to take you on the day).

You can run reports before and after the event, manually add attendees for bookings taken offline (giving you a single source of attendee data and making sure you don’t overbook), take cheque and invoice payment methods as well….the list of features goes on and on.

And if you’re not charging for your events, it’s totally free to use. If you’re charging, you can opt to either add the fee to the ticket price, or include the fee and then Eventbrite bill you monthly based on what you’ve sold.

Eventbrite is absolutely the biz, we couldn’t manage without it, and I’d thoroughly recommend you check it out.  Just go here and click on “Get Started” or “Learn More”: www.eventbrite.com

If you’ve got any questions about how to use it, our experience, or anything else, leave a comment or contact me.

The Office Dealer

Wow!

I am astonished at the absolutely appalling customer service I just got from The Office Dealer (the kicker is at the end). 

Here’s the story…

The order

As I do several times a year, I was ordering some A4 white ring-binders for Jenny’s HypnoBirthing practitioner training course, and searched around for the best deal. 

Thanks to Google Shopping, I found what seemed like a great deal at The Office Dealer - £3.88+ VAT and shipping, total £64.05 – and ordered them at (according to the order confirmation) 9:33am.

The cancellation

Then, just out of curiosity, I checked one of the other results from Google Shopping and realised they did free shipping and were actually slightly cheaper as well.  Being the economising type, I checked the terms and conditions of The Office Dealer website, which say here:

“4.1 If you wish to cancel your order:
(a) you can notify us by email to accounts@theofficedealer.co.uk before we have dispatched the goods to you;”

Great! 

So, for speed, I tried to ring them on the number listed here – and got a voicemail.  I left a message with the order reference and said I wanted to cancel. Not so great.  I also sent an email marked “Urgent cancellation of order”, at 9:51am (that’s just 18 minutes after the original order).

The response

At 1:13pm I got a voicemail saying the goods had been despatched and I could refuse the order but would still be liable for shipping.  Hmm.  Not good. 

Then I got an email at 2:19pm, that said:

Thanks for your message Gordon.

Your order has already been shipped, however you have my curiosity about finding the products cheaper.

Send me a link where you found the products cheaper and you can have the goods for nothing. We don’t claim to be the cheapest like everyone one else, when it comes to 5 STAR we are.

Please refuse the goods (Fedex).

You will still be charged the shipping charge, if the goods are signed for and we also have to uplift them we will also charge a 7.95 uplift fee.

I apologise for the charges, but that is how we keep prices low. Only the customer who makes the error has to pay.

Just send me the url where you found the products cheaper and I will do a full refund and the goods are yours Free of Charge, now that’s why we are called “The Office Dealer” can’t be any fairer than that.

Many Thanks
Bill Gray

Not a great response but a very kind offer.  I forwarded the order confirmation from the other company, and asked for confirmation that my printer (who would be receiving the binders) could accept them and pass them to me free of charge.

What happened next was what I found so appalling…

How The Office Dealer managed to totally destroy their customer service image

At 4:46pm I got a phone call from Bill.  Initially I thought it was good news (kinda) as he said he’d been able to put a stop on the order.

Seeing as he’d offered, in writing, to give me the products for free if I could prove I’d got them cheaper somewhere else, I was rather disappointed at this but was willing to accept it, as at least it meant I didn’t have to pay the shipping.

But it was his parting line that took my breath away. He said, and I quote:

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use us again – your email won’t get through.

And then he hung up!

Well, guess what, Bill Gray from The Office Dealer?  Not only will I not be using you again, I am now warning anyone else reading this not to use you either.

Summary

Was I being slightly cheeky ordering, and then cancelling because I found it cheaper somewhere else?  Perhaps, but their terms and conditions said I could cancel, and I think an 18 minute window is plenty quick enough (and I actually tried to call within about 10-15 minutes of ordering).

But if you’re going to offer to give someone products for free if they can prove it’s cheaper somewhere else, don’t then tell the customer to get lost and never come back when they do!

Rather like Millies Cookies Milton Keynes – FAIL!

Tell me what you think

So come on – give me your feedback.  Was I being unreasonable?  Or is this actually an appalling way to treat a customer?

Michael Knight is my mortgage adviser (noooo, not that Michael Knight ) and I gave him some advice on how to present and brand himself to stand out from the crowd a bit more.

Michael hasn’t (at the time of writing) been brave enough to implement all my suggestions, but he loved the advice I gave him:

Gordon started off as a mortgage client and has now moved to marketing guru status!! He has a no-nonsense approach to marketing and web design and has really encouraged me to be myself when promoting Barton Mortgage Services.

As he says, “Don’t talk like a lobotomised corporate drone – express your personality!”

From his constructive feedback, I think I’m getting on the right course at last.

I can thoroughly recommend Gordon to anyone who wants to shift their personal perceptions.

Michael Knight, mortgage advisor
www.MichaelKnightMortgages.com

I helped Steve Lucas (one of our therapists from The Nightingale Clinic) with how to write more compelling content for his blog (Counselling Central).  This is what Steve had to say:

If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level I unreservedly recommend talking to Gordon.

Having started my own counselling business some time ago I needed to optimise my marketing to reach a wider audience, and expand on the services I was currently offering. The meetings I had with Gordon were a turning point for me.

Gordon’s engaging, knowledgeable and professional approach gave me greater confidence to finally start making positive changes to my marketing!

He offered me quick win practical solutions for my website development as well as long-term suggestions to consider for my other marketing needs.

Thank you, Gordon!

Steven Lucas, counsellor
www.counsellingcentral.com

photo credit: boite-en-valise

After something of a hiatus in my updates to this website (and my work on Personality Marketing), I’m coming back with a slightly revised focus.

Essentially, I’m going to be talking about, and demonstrating, how to use your personality in your social media marketing.  In particular, I’ll be showing you how to use video and audio to enhance your website, and your online marketing efforts and profile.

But before I get into all that, check out the video below.  It’s been around a while, but it’s well worth watching if you have any doubt at all as to whether you should be getting involved with Facebook, Twitter, and all the other Web 2.0 stuff you keep hearing about.

Let me hear your comments – do you agree with this?  What experience have you had with social media marketing?  What’s your biggest challenge?

Let me know – I’d love to hear from you!

I’ve often bemoaned the lack of personality and imagination in most storefront / shop signage.  However, the following post from illustrates why you should always get a native speaker to double-check your signage:

24 Most Ridiculously Thought Out Storefront Signs

I came across a guy called Andy Wibbels today, author of GO Blog Wild, and think he articulates what I’m talking about in Personality Marketing very well (in fact, damn near word-for-word!).

To quote:

I mean what I say and I say what I mean. It is part of my ‘brand’ but also inherently me. If you don’t like it that is fine: I don’t want your business. I’ve worked for uptight people that hide behind jargon and it is tiring.

I couldn’t agree more!  Not everyone will like a New Year’s resolution kind of post entitled “Five Ways You’ll Fuck Up 2009” but if you do (and I do, for what it’s worth), then you know you’re going to like the guy behind the post.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting everyone start using the f-word all over the place (it gets really boring/annoying really quick) but, as Andy says, in some circumstances, only a really good shot of Anglo-Saxon gets the job done.

After all, last time you dropped something heavy on your foot, hammered your thumb or, for the third time in a week, cracked your head on the sharp corner of a cupboard in the utility room when standing up after putting stuff in the washing machine (can you guess which one applies to me? ), I’m willing to bet you probably didn’t say “Oh dearie me, that hurt a bit….”

But the more general point here is this – are you being authentic in your communications?  If someone reads what you’ve written, can they ‘hear’ your voice?  Or are you censoring yourself for fear of offending some faceless somebody somewhere?

One word – DON’T.  By all means, be polite and don’t be unnecessarily rude or offensive, but BE YOURSELF.

As one of the commenters on Andy’s post about Profanity in Business Blogging says:

“I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not”

Amen!

I came across a post today from Scott Ginsberg (aka That Guy With The Nametag), where he talks about 11 ways to inspire and influence people through imperfection and inadequacy.

Yes, counter-intuitive as it may seem, presenting yourself to the world, including your clients, warts and all, is actually one of the more effective ways to build rapport (as well as being a lot less effort than pretending to be perfect and know all the answers!)

Scott lists the 11 ways as:

1. Acknowledge and embrace all aspects of who you are. 
2. Probe your darkness. 
3. Recognize and visit your shadow.
4. Be willing to talk about that shadow. 
5. Acknowledge your slips. 
6. Lead with vulnerability.
7. Practice radical honesty. 
8. Practice self-deprecating humor. 
9. Practice self-disclosing weaknesses. 
10. Practice integrating your humanity into your leadership role. 
11. Reduce the distance.

I absolutely agree with him, and it’s a key component of Personality Marketing that I’ve talked about in the past.

People do business with people they know, like and trust, and if you’re not being true to who you are, and how you feel and operate, you’re going to come unstuck eventually.

Don’t try to be all things to all people – be yourself, and be comfortable with your clients being themselves too.

To read the rest of Scott’s excellent article, go to the HELLO! My Name Is Blog.

Today’s message: Don’t be afraid to tell the truth about who you are – vulnerability is strength.

I came across this quote just now, which I completely agree with:

“I can’t give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: Trying to please everybody.” ~Herbert B. Swope

As I’ve said before, trying to please everyone just means kissing your ass goodbye!

Brian Mullan, BAMCOM International Ltd

My Dad asked me for a quick website, as he is retiring from Inmarsat in May 2009, and setting up his own consultancy in maritime safety and security, particularly focussed on satellite communications and international regulatory issues.

You can find his site at Maritime Safety and Security Consultancy – BAMCOM International – Brian Mullan.

(And yeah, I know the link title is a bit long, but I’m trying to help him out with SEO).

Also, I have not yet given the site a ‘personality injection’ - that will come in due course.  The main thing was getting the framework right.