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Posted by Garth on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
Organize Events and Volunteers with Event Espresso
You’ll notice that not-for-profit organizations often have a following of people who are interested in their cause and who are eager to be involved, but what you will also notice is that those organizations do very little with that small army of volunteers. If you’ve ever participated in the same community service project or an event for a non-profit organization more than once, you’ll see a lot of new faces that weren’t at the first event you attended. It is becoming increasingly important for non-profit organizations to be active in their mission and communities to keep their membership/advocates active and to continue to recruit other volunteers/advocates. Non-profit success is becoming more instantaneous and driven by how much help they can get from their participants. Event Espresso helps non-profits, or any organization for that matter, organize these people who care about their cause and want to get involved. We do have a list of a few of the non-profit organizations who are using Event Espresso and you can see how it has helped them organize their events, manage their volunteers, and collect revenue to support their mission and operations.
But you don’t have to just organize people into a formal event. To augment your formal events and keep your volunteers involved, you can also use Event Espresso to organize people into group and assignments. Here is an example of how Event Espresso can go beyond managing your formal events to managing your non-profit volunteer’s efforts.
Example scenario:
Let’s imagine we have a not-for-profit organization with the mission to improve the literacy rate among children in foster care.
We plan to achieve this mission by accomplishing three main objectives: 1) increasing the access to books for children in foster care, 2) increasing the frequency and length that foster parents read to/with their foster children, 3) recruiting an advocate in each public school facility that will champion this effort in their school and in their area.
- To increase the access that foster children have to books, we’ve decided to do a community book drive to collect books for the school and local libraries. With this activity you will need people to volunteer to spread the word either by going door-to-door or by taking fliers into the community, blogging about the book drive, and even get people to collect the books and deliver them to the library. You can use Event Espresso by creating events for each of these activities and asking people to sign up for them. You can set limits on the events/assignments to make sure that everyone is assigned to where you need them and that your efforts aren’t overlapped. You’ll also have people organized into groups that you can send subsequent communication.
- To increase the frequency/length that foster parents and children read together we are planning a read-in, where parents and children will go to the local library to 1) obtain library cards, 2) check out three books, and 3) read at least one book together while at the library. The read-in will also include a reading competition that people can register for on your website, with recognition for the highest achievers. With people pre-registering for the read-in, Event Espresso can help you gauge the volume of participation even before the read-in event, market to those who sign up and remind them to work toward their goals, and even evaluate how much of an impact you might have in the community with this event.
- To recruit an advocate in each public school we are going to speak with the attendees to our read-in event and try to recruit participants. With the easy sign-up form or even manual registration features of Event Espresso, each of your advocates at the library can register on your site for another event and thereby organize people into another group. You can then communicate directly with this group and create future events/assignments for them to commit to do.
This is just a simple example of all the great ways you can use Event Espresso to manage your events on WordPress. Non-profit organizations can use Event Espresso to bring in revenue from their golf tournaments, service projects, etc. but they can use it to organize their volunteers and staff. Create an event/assignment that people can sign up for and let this great software do the heavy work of managing your volunteer efforts.
Are these ideas new to you, or have you started to harness the complete power of Event Espresso? What novel ways have you found to use Event Espresso? I hope I’ve inspired you.
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In addition to supporting their mission Event Espresso also offers a discount to non-profit organizations. If you are a non-profit organization and would like to use Event Espresso to manage your events, please complete the Non-profit Discount form. If you’re a non-profit organization and you’re already using Event Espresso, we’d love to hear what it has done for you. If you don’t have a website or if it’s not built on WordPress (a content management system), let us know and we can help you understand the process to having an inexpensive website with these capabilities.
6 Comments
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
This is our 3rd WordCamp sponsorship in the past year! I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. So I am truly honored to be a part of WordCamp Phoenix.
In 2011, WordCamp Phoenix will be a multi-day event held all over Greater Phoenix, including free workshops, a full-day conference with four tracks, a day just for WordPress developers and networking opportunities for all.
WordCamp is organized and run by unpaid volunteers, underwritten by sponsors, and profit free. Remaining funds are donated to local charities. Since I am coming a little to the game, our sponsorship funds are going directly to one of the local charities.
Follow all the happenings of WordCamp Phoenix on Twitter via the #wcph hash tag. We’ll see you there…and follow us on Twitter to watch for discount to WordCamp Phoenix attendees.
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Posted by Seth Shoultes on Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Premium Membership Only $5 a Month for a Limited Time!
- Get access to cutting edge updates, before anyone else
- Hands on tutorials and sample code
- Access to videos (in December)
- Event Espresso Members can now get access to live support and Q&A (when available) in the forums
2 Comments
Posted by Garth on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
Events on Autopilot with the Recurring Events Manager Plugin for WordPress
Modern technology can make a plane takeoff, fly and even land all by itself, but yet some event managers and web masters are manually managing their events! In the early 1900’s, inventors and engineers figured out the autopilot system. Now, in the early 2000’s, the inventors and engineers of Event Espresso have designed a system to make events open and close registration all by itself – setting them to autopilot.
The new Recurring Events Manager add-on for Event Espresso and WordPress gives webmasters, authors, publishers and event managers the freedom to schedule their events on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly schedule and to step away from the wheel. With Event Espresso, all you have to do is add the event details once, and then schedule the event to happen again when you’d like it to. The events will automatically show up on your site when registration opens and registration will close automatically when you’ve scheduled it to close.
In a future release of this incredible add-on, you’ll be able to create a custom recurring schedule that is not based on a predictable schedule. Instead you could create an event to happen at on a Tuesday, then a Wednesday, then a Sunday or one week later or 3 days later or 38 days later, etc. and the system will take care of the rest. Bring your event technology into the 21st century with the Event Espresso Recurring Events Manager Add-on for WordPress.
There is no reason you should spend so much time managing your events. If you spend more than one hour even worrying about opening and closing the registration for your events, then you’re wasting your time and money. The cost of this add-on is an investment to make you more productive by saving you time and money. Saving you time and earning you more money, that’s the power of Event Espresso and the new Recurring Events Manager plugin for WordPress.
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Posted by Seth Shoultes on Friday, October 22nd, 2010
The last month has been insanely busy. I have been adding new features, fixing bugs, and working late every night to bring the best of WordPress to Event Espresso.
This is probably going to be the most exciting version of Event Espresso to date.gfg Version 3.0.17 will bring us custom post types for events and the very much anticipated Recurring Events Manager.
Event Development Framework
Event Development Framework
A very new and exciting feature in WordPress 3.0 is the ability to create custom post type, that is maintained in the WordPress posts table. This can help developers to build a theme that relies less on custom fields and makes it easier for clients.
The custom post type integration in Event Espresso will bring all kind of customization possibilities to your events. Allowing website owners and event professionals to harness the full power of WordPress and Event Espresso by using the premiere Event Development Framework for WordPress.
Our comprehensive Event Development Framework takes full advantage of WordPress using custom fields, post meta data, categories, tags, and taxonomies. You can even create pages or posts for each event that can be integrated into any theme within minutes.
Recurring Events Manager
This is probably one of the most anticipated addons of Event Espresso. For months I have received at least three emails a day inquiring about recurring events.
Well it is finally here! The Recurring Events Manager addon will bring the possibility to put your event registration system on auto-pilot.
This is going to be a huge benefit to anyone that has many of the same events throughout the year. Start by creating an event, then just tell the system how many days, weeks, or months you want the event to extend into the future. Events created using the Recurring Events Manager will auto-post on the registration start date and close when the registration date has passed or the event has been filled. That way you can continue to spend more time enjoying life.
Overview
For an up to date overview of all the recent changes to Event Espresso, be sure to view the change log.
View all of the available shortcodes and variables that will be available in version 3.0.17.
4 Comments
Posted by Garth on Thursday, October 7th, 2010
The last five years of event management has brought about a lot of interesting discussions. One of the most frequent and heated topics has always been about how much information do you give potential customers and how many steps do they need to complete in order to finish the event registration process? My argument has always been that it will depend on the type of website you have and the potential customers you are marketing to. There are two polar schools of thought that are analogous to the experience of going to a golf course verses going to an amusement park.
Focused Registration – Like Going to a Golf Course
Focused Registration
The golf course customer, or golfer, has specific intentions for coming to the golf course. The golfer can look through products at the pro shop and make a purchase, work on his swing mechanics by hitting a bucket of balls, do some putting on the practice green or play a round of golf. As a customer, the golfer is always catered to and the sales pitches are never unrelated. The pro shop is helpful and directive, but never pushy. In general, the golf course tries to establish a relationship that will be lucrative over a lifetime.The putting greens are available to anyone who comes to the course, even if you’re not a paying customer. You can even hire a caddy to give you personalized attention throughout your round of golf to watch your swing and suggest strategies for playing the course.
Managing your events and registration process similar to a golf course is done by making it as simple and specific as possible. The event description should be rather simplistic and easy to understand but offer enough information for your customers to understand the event and become comfortable with registering. The event process should be as few steps as possible and as few pages as possible. This does not mean that you have to avoid any up-selling , after all don’t they offer a cart with your round of golf? The important thing is to consider who your potential customers are and what will serve them best. What kind of event registration process will meet their expectations and what will keep them coming back? If you have customers that are busy, but are familiar with your website and products, and that will pay extra for convenience, then make the event registration process really easy. Don’t be afraid to give them one up-selling opportunity but the option must be really easily understood and easily accepted or rejected so they can make a quick decision and move on.
Add-On Registration – Like Going to an Amusement Park
Add-On Registration
Think back to the last time you went to an amusement park, did you have a specific plan for the entire day or did you more or less wander throughout the park? You probably planned what time of day you wanted to go on the rides that get you wet and the ones you wanted to go on with and without kids, etc. You were probably drawn in by a barker to toss a few baseballs or shoot a few targets to win someone special a giant teddy bear. You may have even gotten lost in the amusement park and had to ask for directions to get out! After you pushed your fun equilibrium to the limit and emptied your wallet, you swear you’ll never go back.
This is a perfect example of an add-on registration strategy that presents multiple add-on opportunities to potential customers, encouraging them to increase the final transaction amount. This strategy works best for browsing customers who are aware of your products and services but are compelled to purchase because of a promotional opportunity. If you’ve ever searched for a job on one of the major job websites then you know what I mean. Just about every other step is an offer for an online class or degree. This approach can be very damaging to a relationship and can even discourage purchases (immediate and future), but the interaction value may be maximized.
Register It
Depending on how your website is designed, who your customers are and their intentions (focused or browsers) you should consider the event registration process you are taking them through in order to join your events. Make the registration process as easy as possible if you want to build a relationship with your customers. If you’re never going to interact with your customers again then an add-on event registration process may be the best strategy.
Smell the Aroma – (a.k.a, how Event Espresso can help with both strategies)
You can get the most out of your event registration process with Event Espresso (WordPress events plugin). The focused event registration strategy is accomplished by keeping your event titles simple, your event descriptions short, the information required to register is kept to a minimum, and the event plugin can even be configured to complete the registration process before receiving payment which affords you the opportunity to give the potential customer individual attention to finish the registration process if they happen to abandon it.
If you want to pursue an add-on strategy then give the potential customer as many registration options as you can imagine. Add information to products and other events in the description area of these events and include that same information in the confirmation emails. Eventually, Event Espresso will include a shopping cart option that will allow you to add related items to your events to try and up-sell the customer.
Which event registration strategy do you use or have you ever really thought about it? Tell me why you think your strategy does or doesn’t work.
1 Comment
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Vote for Event Espresso
Event Espresso has been nominated for the prestigious “2010 Plugin of the Year Award” at WordPress Honors. Please take a few minutes to show your support for Event Espresso (and any of your other favorite plugins,) by voting.
Need a little more incentive? Each person that registers on the WordPress Honors website will be entered to win great prizes from other great WordPress theme and plugin developers.
So hurry up and cast your vote for Event Espresso and start winning prizes! :)
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Posted by Seth Shoultes on Monday, September 13th, 2010
Social Media Buttons
Now includes Facebook and Twitter share buttons.
Among several minor bug fixes etc, we have included a simple social media plugin/addon that can be used to display Twitter and Facebook buttons in your Event Espresso templates. If you have relocated your template files to your uploads folder, you will need to make these changes to your template files.
I have also provided templates for the payment and return to payment pages.
Calendar Week View
The calendar has also been updated to include weekly and daily agenda views and a settings page to manage the calendar options.
Here is a list of recent changes between the last four versions.
Changes:
3.0.16
Added simple buttons for Twitter and Facebook. Templates have been updated to include these changes.
Added payment and return to payment templates.
Added required text to form fields.
Added a new function to Get a single start or end time:
* function event_espresso_get_time($event_id, $format = ‘start_time’)
* @params $event_id (required)
* @params $time (optional, start_time (default) | end_time)
Changed the plugin to use the built in jQuery library, instead of the Google jQuery API.
Adjusted the questions display query to order by group order. This will work if the users do use the group_order field. Otherwise the questions will get mixed up.
Added the search and replace values to the invoice email
3.0.15
Moved the system questions and question groups function into the database install scipt. Hopefully this will fix the problem with the system questions and groups not getting installed.
3.0.14
Applied some formatting to the category name in the category listing.
Removed the wpautop function from the category editor.
Added the end_date of an event to the event_list.php.
Fixed the following issues
1) Edited questions always defaulting to ‘required’.
2) Deleting of questions and groups via checkbox.
Follow us on Twitter @EventEspresso
#WP #eventprofs #plugin
2 Comments
Posted by Seth Shoultes on Thursday, September 9th, 2010
The Event Espresso team is excited to be a part of WordCamp Las Vegas 2010 (follow on Twitter: @lvwordcamp #wclv,). This will be our second WordCamp sponsorship after we sponsored WordCamp Utah, right here in our hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. We enjoyed networking with everyone at WordCamp Utah so much, that we decided to do it again in Vegas.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter or join our WordCamp Las Vegas Twitter list of attendees and be online during the event. One special Twitter follower will walk away with a free download of Event Espresso to use on their site (or a clients) WordPress installation.
Can’t wait until WCLV for a chance to get your hands on the premium version of the plugin for free? Use the coupon code LVWORDCAMP to get $20 off! Hurry the code is limited to the first 10 uses.
Download now >>
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Posted by Garth on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
Event Espresso (EE) has been available for almost 18 months and we’d like to highlight all the different type of events that our customers now manage more profitably and efficiently. Is your event type listed?
- Boat Sailing Appointments
- Workshops
- Conferences
- Personal Training
- Consultations
- Classes
- Concerts/Gigs
- Others???
We know there are probably dozens if not hundreds of other types of events you’ve used Event Espresso for, so leave us a comment and let us know if we don’t include your type of event on the list. We’d like to hear back from as many of our customers as possible. If you know someone else who is using our WordPress event management plugin, let them know we’d like to hear from them.
If you’d like to showcase what you’ve done with Event Espresso, feel free to post your website profile in our Website Showcase.
4 Comments
