4 Tips to Building Your First Sign Up

You can create your first sign up in just a few steps. We pride ourselves on providing a tool that is easy to use but packed with features. There are a few things to consider when creating your sign up and a little advanced planning can go a long way. 

We’ve included some of our favorite tips to help plan your event. Focus on these important elements and add your personal touches to engage your group with a sign up.

1. Decide on what type of sign up you need 

There are different kinds of sign ups. For example, not every sign up needs an RSVP. We’ve divided our sign ups into 4 categories to help differentiate the common types of formats.  

Sort by Date

This format is when you have one or more dates on your sign up. It’s one of the most common forms of sign ups, and a good place to start if you aren’t sure which format to choose. The Sort by Date category is a simple and clear layout for most sign ups. 

Sort by Slot 

This is another common format option. This format is ideal when your participants need to find a desired slot prior to choosing an available date or time. This is also the best choice when you only have a single date sign up but have multiple slots or roles.

Slots Only 

Sometimes you don’t need or want a date on your sign up. Perhaps your sign up is for donation items that don’t have a deadline. Whatever your scenario may be, this sign up only has slots — meaning no date appears on the sign up. Keep in mind that with no date, your sign up will not generate reminder emails — because there is no date to trigger those reminders. 

Single Date RSVP 

This is only one of the options if your sign up has a single date, but is suitable when you need to collect RSVPs. This format is an excellent choice for events such as a baby shower, neighborhood potluck, birthday party or company picnic.  

In this format, your participants will be asked to RSVP and to list how many guests will be coming. You can also add sign up slots to ask people to sign up to bring items or handle responsibilities at the event.  

2. Be sure to correctly assign times to slots 

SignUpGenius is built to be flexible for a variety of uses and can manage sign ups with a long list of dates and times. Our tool has the power and flexibility to automate complexity so that large sign ups are still easy to create and save you time. Genius Tip: If you have a long list of dates, use our hide dates feature to keep your list of dates current.

If you only have a few dates and times and only one type of slot, the Slots tab might seem to offer more than you need. Keep in mind that our site powers a lot of different kinds of sign ups that need this functionality. If you only have one type of slot or a simple sign up and you feel stuck on this step, we recommend watching this short tutorial to help you out. You can also check out our FAQ post on it as well.

3. Know the information you’ll need from your audience 

Sometimes a name and email address are all the information you need on a sign up. Then again, sometimes more information is needed. If you’re creating a meal sign up for someone who just had surgery, it would be helpful for everyone to know the meals being delivered. This helps prevent multiple people from delivering the same dish.

On our Settings tab, you can select and customize the information that you need to collect on your sign up. Keep in mind that only the name and comment of those who sign up are visible to everyone else. Any other information you collect, such as email addresses, remains private and only the sign up creator can access this information. We also provide the ability to hide names and comments on a sign up as an extra layer of privacy.

Need to add form fields to your sign up and collect some custom information?  Our custom questions feature gives you the ability to design and format additional form fields.

4. Decide if you need premium features

Our basic level may be the right fit if you only organize a few smaller events per year. But, we don’t want you to be frustrated because you aren’t using the features that some sign ups need. Keep in mind our premium features are affordable and available for annual or monthly subscriptions. Ultimately, you just need to decide if there are features that you need to power your sign up. Try a Free Trial to test out some of these features. 

For example, your sign up looks a lot better without ads. Ads allow us to offer a free version of our site. However, we’re happy to make ad removal an option for premium subscribers. So, if you don’t want your audience to see ads, consider one of our premium plans. We offer a number of other helpful features, such as sign up locking and tabbing. Choose the plan that best meets your needs so that you can maximize your sign up experience.

They say the devil is in the details. It’s certainly true that some devilish things can happen when you haven’t thought through some of the additional details on your sign up. With these tips, you’ll be able to create a sign up that meets your needs, communicates effectively with your audience, and gives you the information you need from participants.

Create a Sign Up

Related Articles

Make the Switch to SignUpGenius & Get Started in 3 Easy Steps