This article is written by Maddy Fish, Product Solutions Executive at Appointedd.
Many businesses are now offering live virtual events as a creative way to engage their customers from home. In just a few minutes, you can set up your own virtual events business, allowing you to keep cash flow coming in.
Deciding on what type of event to offer
There are many ways to offer something unique to your business online. Here are some suggestions based on the type of business you might have.
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Experience-based businesses: For many experience-based businesses, the same core experience can still be offered online. For example, wine tasting classes or painting tutorials can be offered online with only minor changes.
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Service businesses that require in-person contact: If you require in-person contact to offer your service, consider transitioning to a workshop model teaching your customers the skills required for the service you usually provide. This could work for businesses like massage therapists or hairdressers.
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Retailers: If you normally sell products in-store, a combination of selling products online, offering eGift cards, and experiential how-to courses could be an option. For instance, if you sell makeup, you could also offer at-home makeup tutorials as an event.
Once you decide on your offering, you’ll also want to consider the price point you’d like to charge and the ideal event size. Some events may be best as a one to one session and others stand out as a small group experience.
Getting started with booking and scheduling
Once you’ve decided on what you want to offer and what price you’d like to charge, you’re ready to set up your booking solution. With Appointedd, you can customise the booking experience for your customers and allow them to pre-pay for the live virtual event. For example, you can request additional information like “have you ever done yoga before?” as a step in your online booking flow. You can also personalise the booking confirmation email so that it tells people what to have ready at home for the experience.
Here’s a video on how to set up Square and Appointedd in just a few minutes.
Appointedd is currently offering a free three-month trial of Appointedd for Square customers. The offer may be used for a maximum of 10 “resources” or bookable items in Appointedd.
Setting up payment for your virtual event
Once you’ve connected Appointedd with your Square account, you can set how many people can attend your virtual event and how long before the event you’ll stop taking bookings. You can also choose to accept payment in full or a deposit to hold the space. Watch this short video for instructions.
Offering live video for your event
There are many options for offering online video, some of which are integrated with Appointedd. If you choose an integrated solution, you can automatically include the video link in the calendar invite that your customer receives. You can also easily send a follow-up email to all attendees with a video link in advance of the event.
Adding booking to your Square Online Store
It’s important to tell your customers about your newly offered live virtual events by promoting them on your website and social media channels. You can easily embed a booking form in your Square Online Store by following the instructions in this video.
About Appointedd
Appointedd is a simple yet powerful suite of online booking and scheduling tools that is helping businesses of all sizes make a safe and profitable return from lockdown. Online booking drives efficiencies, improves the customer journey, enables safe social distancing (we even have built in sanitization buffers), drives improved basket value, and makes it easier for you to take payments and communicate with your customers. You can link your Square account to Appointedd in the Square App Marketplace.