Opening the Invite – The Party Starts Here
Social media has helped connect millions of users around the globe, but the instant gratification of micro-content has led to complacency in simple, uninspiring event invitations. What was once a world of beautiful paper invites has gone digital with event calendars and social media event invites. While the convenience and rapid transfer of information can be beneficial and cost effective when paired with a great invite, something has been left behind.
An event launch needs to appeal to a certain audience – especially to 
donors. The last thing you want is your invite to be ignored among the digital noise, forgotten, or pitched with the rest of the junk mail because it doesn’t capture the recipient. You want to appeal to your supporters in a way that is vibrant, topical and engaging.
Think in terms of selling your event and how to get attention; when you send marketing emails for your organization, you craft a powerful subject line to get people to click and open that email. With an event invitation through the mail, you want to grab attention and entice the recipient to open it, interact with it and read.
This is important because the event invitation is sometimes the first point of contact. Where many organizations fall short is in boring DIY event invitations and electronic invites through free sites (and some simple paid sites). Going with simple invitations like this, or with social media event posts, is a mistake for a number of reasons.
- The Invite Doesn’t Accurately Represent You, Your Event or Organization
- Cheap Invites are Often Rushed with Information Missing
- Limited Space on Cookie Cutter Invites Leads to Abbreviations
- Cookie Cutter Invites Don’t Often Match Event Formality
- Cheaper Invites Reflect Poorly on the Planner and Organizational Committee
Will simple invitations ruin an event? Not necessarily. The issue with simple invitations is that they don’t often motivate the recipient to support the cause. Would you rather your invitation simply notify a recipient like a dinner chime or would you like your invitation to rally supports like a reveille?
“I’m Too Sexy For This Card”
Custom invitations designed specifically for your event give you the
eye-catching edge you need to stand out among other invites that come to the recipient, especially if they’re receiving a flurry of event invites and a number of other organizations are targeting that individual for donor support at the same time.
Your invitation should be a symbol of what makes your organization or group unique – it should stand out as impressively as your cause. When you achieve this, you can capture the attention you need to get that all-important donor to open your invite.
This is where the event actually begins or “where the party starts” – the invite. With a clever design that accurately represents your cause, your event and your organization you can ramp up the excitement and get recipients interested in attending.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Donors
The words on your invitation are important but one of the more common mistakes made in designing event invitations is in making things too wordy; it’s entirely possible to say too much. Instead of trying to communicate everything in words, get the point across with the name, event, time, location, hosts and registry/RSVP info. Offer a simple explanation of the invite and let your design do the talking.
Visual effects can astound and mystify, they can provoke interest and in many cases seal the deal on attendance before the invite is read in full. A powerful invitation isn’t just read, it is “experienced” much the same way one would experience the event itself.
The Hand of an Artist
An artist or creative soul paints a picture with a careful hand and focus that proves they care about their craft. It shows their level of devotion. When you take the time to carefully plan a creative invitation designed to overwhelm the senses, entertain, and ensnare your target audience then you show to attendees and potential donors that you care about your cause and the image of your organization.
That type of devotion cannot be communicated in a simple card, an e-vite or Facebook event invitation.
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Guest Author: John Kneapler Design is an award-winning graphic design firm, bringing almost 30 years of industry experience to create invitations, organizational branding and print collateral for New York City’s most prestigious charities and fundraisers. Learn more about creative invitation design today – http://www.johnkneaplerdesign.com