How to optimize your event registration process

Event Management News

May 17, 2022

While you’ve likely heard the cliché “there is strength in numbers” many times before, there is no more succinct way to describe an event’s success. Events are always a great opportunity for people to learn and network. Simply put, the more people attend, the more successful your event will be! Therefore, it’s crucial to design your event onboarding process to be as easy and smooth as possible. To encourage a large turnout, here are a few pointers on how to boost your event registration.

Encourage attendees to register together in groups. It makes sense to offer streamlined registration for groups and corporations, but your event management platform must be flexible enough to handle such group categorizations. An optimized event registration process for groups should match the ease and simplicity of an individual’s registration process. If you think an extra incentive will encourage group registration further, offer discounts in the form of promo codes or coupons.
Don’t ask for superfluous information on the registration form. The more pages someone has to fill out in a web form, the likelier they are to abandon it. If they abandon your form once, 67% of people will never return (according to The Manifest) thus abandoning the idea of attending your event altogether! Therefore, limit your form to essentials, and only ask for information that’s pertinent to the event registration.
Don’t make frequent flyers have to fill out the same forms again. It’s worth repeating: no one likes filling out lengthy registration forms! So, if an individual has already attended one of your previous events, why should they have to fill out the same form again? Once a repeat user logs in, your event registration platform should be smart enough to pre-populate personal information from its database to help reduce the frustration inherent in filling out multiple forms.

Looking for flexible event registration software? Attendease offers a seamless attendee experience and a strong foundation for your meetings and events. With full-featured registration forms and the ability to create flexible registration for all scenarios, Attendease allows you to:

Manage pricing categories, promo codes, and group passes
Save registration forms to use again in future meetings and events
Manage secure payments with Stripe, Microsoft, Apple and/or Google Pay

If you’re interested in learning how to optimize your event registration process with Attendease, book a demo today!

Zoom Alternatives for Your Virtual Event

Event Management News

August 20, 2020

With the sudden change in the event industry forcing events to be canceled, postponed, or brought into an online format, Zoom quickly became the go-to platform for web conferencing world-wide. Have you ever wonder if there are any Zoom alternatives?

According to Business of Apps, Zoom daily peak of participants rose from 10M in December 2019 to over 300M in April 2020. However, just as quickly as Zoom increased its popularity, the love phase of this relationship died off just as quickly as it came to be. As Business of Apps also points out, numerous privacy and security issues came to light regarding the Zoom platform, including: sending unauthorized data to Facebook, hoarding user data, allowing unwelcome guests to join meetings, and more.

As a result of the various issues that arose, Zoom was banned by numerous governmental entities, organizations, and school boards, such as Canada, NASA, and the NY School Board. Consequently, event planners were faced with yet another challenge: they had to find a dependable and secure alternative to satisfy their needs, while avoiding the shortcomings of the Zoom platform.

Before You Choose a Platform, Know your Requirements

Before you jump into the next Zoom alternatives or Webex platform, we have some advice for you: think about your virtual event requirements beyond your web conferencing needs, because there are so many tools out there that can do way more than simply providing you with a basic web conferencing functionality.

Do you need to provide networking opportunities?
Do you need to share print material prior to the meeting?
Do you need to keep attendees engaged for a full-day online event?
Do you need more opportunities to showcase your event sponsors?

As an event professional, you already know that different events will have different requirements, so start by making a list of what you need for your event: from the must-haves to the good-to-have.

If you can have one unique platform fulfilling multiple requirements, that means you can decrease the number of tools you use, have less subscriptions to manage, and have all data integrated within fewer software. As a result, you can save time, money, and headaches.

Now that you have a clear vision of what you need, if you are looking for a Zoom alternative for your next online event, we have a few options for you depending on your requirements.

Event Tech Alternatives to Zoom

Attendease

Attendease is a robust event management platform that can help you manage your entire portfolio of events, whether online or in-person, free or paid, private or public. All from one unique platform that provides you with the functionality to manage all moving parts of your event:

Build fully branded event websites and registration process
Send automated email messages to specific groups of contacts
Track registrations, revenue, and ROI from an advanced analytics dashboard
Easily create new events by cloning the settings and web design of your previous event
Integrate with other tools you use
And more

Attendease is launching a series of new features to take your virtual event experience to the next level, which includes a native streaming capability. With this feature, your attendees can watch your virtual sessions directly from your branded website, rather than moving away to a third-party application.

In addition, a new functionality will allow attendees to book meetings with exhibitors and sponsors, and also network among other event-goers. This solution is ideal for event planners who are managing a large portfolio of events.

You can request a demo here.

Donut

If you need to bring up the morale of your team while working remotely, Donut may be a great solution for you. The platform, that integrates with Slack, allows large teams to meet up for coffee break chats and casual meetings, just like we used to do in-person, on the pre-COVID times (that seems like a century ago, doesn’t it?).

If you miss the human interaction in the office and would like to foster conversations, Donut can be a great solution. Some of the features include:

CEO lottery: Randomly draw lucky staff members to meet with the CEO for a virtual coffee periodically.
Allyship in action: Foster meaningful dialogue and shared accountability for behaviors of inclusion. Create a dedicated channel and invite everyone to join – especially senior leaders.
Virtual coffee program: Give your team opportunities for human connection through biweekly virtual coffees.
Intro teammates across different regions: Minimize distance between teammates by introducing people from different locations.
And more

For companies operating remotely and seeking to enhance networking and connectivity opportunities for their employees via online programs, Donut is an ideal solution.

Icebreaker

If your goal is to provide fun online activities to break the ice, then Icebreaker is the tool you are looking for! You can host a number of online gatherings for your team, from Happy Hour to Self-Care Check-In, and many other topics available.

The Icebreaker platform has everything you need to put your event live, in addition to providing prompts to get the conversation started between you staff members.

To begin your search for the appropriate technology solution for your event needs, it’s crucial to first knowing your event requirements. Once you have a clear idea of what you need, the next step is to schedule a demo with potential technology providers that could be a good fit for you. This will allow you to determine which option would be the best option for your portfolio of events. Book a demo with our team to learn if Attendease could be a good solution for you!

Guide: How to run a Webinar

Event Management News

March 26, 2020

Whether you are planning your first webinar, or if you are an experienced planner, we put together a list with everything you need to plan your next webinar more smoothly and efficiently. Read the tips below, and download the free template here.

Before getting ready to produce a webinar, you need to ask yourself if this is the right strategy at the right time. Are you able to make your subject engaging? Are you able to reach your desired audience? Are there enough people interested in hearing what you have to say? Is that group going to be good prospects for your business? Might it be best to produce a blog article or a white-paper instead? Examples of non-worthy webinar content might include minor product releases, news content (without a twist/opinion), broad themes with no real deliverables, or a dry sales pitch.

People will be sparing an hour of their busy schedules to watch your webinar, so make sure it’s worth it! When done right, webinars can be a powerful marketing strategy that can attract hundreds of new leads into your funnel. This is especially true for B2B companies. Here’s how to make sure your webinar achieves your strategic marketing objectives:

Webinar Content

Choosing the topic to focus on will be the most important decision you will make. The topic you choose should be highly specific, so that you can go over it in great detail and provide concrete deliverables. Avoid topics that are too broad, as it will be harder to deliver real value to your audience, and difficult to entice them to sign up in the first place.

Webinar Formats

Once you know the content you will share, choose the best way to deliver your message. Here are a few popular formats for webinars:

Presentation: discuss a specific niche topic, from a fresh perspective. People don’t want to hear more of the same. You should provide value by having a different point of view and showing different ways to do things and improve results.
Panel: Select a panel of specialists to discuss a specific topic. You can get the audience involved by having a Q&A session at the end.
How to/Tutorial: A walkthrough showing how to perform a specific task.
Interview: Interviewing a specialist on a specific topic.

How To Select Speakers for Your Webinar

Good speaker selection can create a great deal of impact on whether or not your webinar will be successful. Look for experts in the field – professionals who are highly skilled, have enough experience, and are comfortable speaking in public (and in front of the camera).

It’s a good idea to have someone from your own company speaking, but it’s also a best practice to partner with other companies in the industry that are not direct competitors to you, complementing what you offer to your clients. This cross promotion strategy is a great way to reach new audiences too, as the company partnering with you will promote the webinar to their audience also. It’s a win-win!

Promoting your Webinar

SEO: Make sure to optimize your webinar landing page for search engines by adding meta tags, headings, and image alt-tags. You may also generate blog content to promote the event and add links to the webinar page.
Social Media: Create branded banners to share on all social media channels, including headers that can be used to promote the webinar in the week leading up to the event. Consider social advertising to reach new audiences. Lastly, don’t forget your personal social media accounts, especially LinkedIn. Share the event with your network and followers, who may include potential leads for your business!
Email Marketing: Make sure to email your contacts list to spread the word! You may send a couple invitation emails and reminders as you get closer to the event. Make sure to have a dynamic email list, so you don’t send an invitation to users who have already signed up for the event.
Online Advertising: If your budget allows, online advertising is a great strategy to create awareness around your webinar. Whether you are remarketing to users who visited your website in the past, or using a targeted Facebook audience, you can use online ads to your advantage.
Other: Use your own website to promote the event. This may include updating the header banner on your homepage or adding a pop-up with a registration call-to-action.

Build your Slide Deck & Presentation Script

This is more straightforward, but here are a few tips to help you with your webinar presentation deck and script:

When putting the deck together, focus on images, rather than heavy text, which makes a presentation dull and bland.
Use as much data and evidence as possible, to backup your point of view.
Use poll questions to engage the audience (this is also a great way to gather information about your audience).
Have notes with the main points you will refer to on each slide to guide you during the presentation.

Technical Considerations

One of the most important things to consider is using a webinar platform that can support all your needs. That may start with understanding the number of attendees you are expecting, and the duration of the event. Some popular options include Adobe Connect, Zoom and GoToWebinar.

Going through a dry run will also help to see if there are any adjustments needed, including internet stability (cable connections are more stable preferred, compared to wireless), microphone, background noise, timing, notes about the presentation style of your speakers, and more.

Another great tip is to have one technical person available to help during the entire duration of the webinar, so you don’t need to do everything yourself. If anything goes wrong (and we hope it won’t!), someone should be doing that for you, while you can focus on interacting with the audience.

Make sure you have the computer batteries handy, and any other devices that you may need during the event. Turn off cellphones, remove landlines from your room, and anything else that may disrupt your webinar.

Other Considerations During and After the Webinar

Social Streaming: You might take advantage of tools like YouTube, Facebook Live, Instagram Live Stories and IGTV to stream part of your webinar and generate interest. Your followers may be interested in watching and tuning in later, or watching it on demand (make sure to share the links to register!).
On Demand: Don’t forget to record your webinar so you can share it on demand after the live event is over. Using the Attendease landing page, you can still require a registration form to be completed in order to allow in demand webinar view, allowing you to continue to generate leads, even after the event is over. Don’t forget to update the landing page after the event is over, so it doesn’t look dated.
Social Media: Make sure to have someone interacting with viewers live, using the event hashtag (and encourage viewers to use the hashtag!). This is a great way to create noise and keep the audience engaged.
Share Slides: You may want to upload your slide deck into SlideShare, which can generate some extra organic traffic for you.
Email Follow Up and Offers: As your final interaction with your audience, make sure to send an email follow up, including a link to watch the video on demand, and include an offer as a thank you for their time participating (increasing your chances to sign them up for a new deal).This is also an opportunity to make yourself available should they have any questions or would like to learn more about your company.

And that’s a wrap! Creating a webinar is a fantastic way to promote what you do and to create awareness about your company. Following a streamlined process and having the right tools in hand will help you succeed in this effort. If you manage multiple webinars, you may be interested in using Attendease to manage your events, as you can easily clone an event to create a new one in the future. Here’s how you can take advantage of the Attendease platform for your next webinar.

How To Create a Webinar with Attendease

Creating an webinar with Attendease is a great way to start, as you can easily clone any webinar event and create a new one in the future, with minimal effort. That means you don’t need to create multiple websites, landing pages and registration forms, so you can focus on your webinar content and promotion, rather than setting it up. Here’s how easy it is to build a webinar using Attendease:

Create your event settings (URL, date, time, etc.)
Choose a website template for your website.
Use our drag-and-drop functionality to build your webinar page, which includes a variety of content block options, such as images, videos, text, headings, and more.
Build your registration form, with custom fields to gather all the information that you need from your registrants. You can also use global fields, so you can manage attendees across different events, online and offline.
Setup any integrations you may wish to use. Attendease connects with HubSpot and Salesforce CRM, so your registrants’ information can go into your database. You may also integrate with Slack to receive notification whenever a new registration is made.
Once the website is ready to go and the registration process is setup, you can start promoting your webinar. Use the email marketing functionality to email your contacts and segment lists based on users who have already registered for the event or not. You can also set up confirmation emails, email reminders, and follow up emails.
After the event is over, update your landing page to support the on-demand option. New visitors may still register to watch it.
Have another webinar coming up? Simply clone the website design and settings to build a new event. You just need to update the information, without having to build everything from scratch!

Ready to see it in action? Contact our team to book a demo and see for yourself how you can effortlessly manage a webinar using Attendease. Of course, in addition to webinars, you can also learn how to use Attendease to manage any event, regardless of size or type.

Event Technology: The Best Tech Stack for Successful Event Planning & Management [Infographic]

Event Management News

February 4, 2020

Event Technology Guide: An integrated event management software stack to help you manage your event throughout your entire event lifecycle

“Focus on being productive instead of being busy” is the advice from Tim Ferris, entrepreneur and international speaker. We couldn’t agree more. With so many technology options available, it can be overwhelming to choose the best event management software that will help you be productive, rather than busy. While technology can help simplify the event management process, having isolated tools that don’t communicate between each other can make the work more difficult, instead of helping. So here is a list of the best event management software solutions that work well together to help you efficiently manage your entire event lifecycle, from beginning to end.

Before your event:

TEAM COMMUNICATION

Slack + GanttPro

Event management is not a one-person job. You are likely working together with a variety of professionals to put your event together. From the planning stages up to the end of the event, Slack and GanttPro offer robust solutions to keep your team in touch and streamline communication and task assignment, while keeping track of all your tasks.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Want to track tasks assigned and completion status from different team members? GanttPro can help you create visual charts to show you all your to-do list, deadlines for different tasks, and task status, making it easier to have a bird’s eye view of your event planning process. Having a Gantt chart to manage all the moving parts of your event will make it easier to manage all tasks, no matter how big or small, including venue booking, VR contracts, catering services, media kits, and more.

EVENT MANAGEMENT

EventUp Planner + Slack + HubSpot + Salesforce

Website Builder

In order to promote your event and accept registrations, you will need to build an engaging online presence, probably a website. Using EventUp Planner’s publishing platform you can easily create your event website using one of the many templates available. Whether you are planning a webinar, conference, product launch, or retreat, look for a website builder that offers attractive, customizable web templates to fit your event goals. With an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface, you can create your website without needing an army of designers and developers.

Ticketing & Registration Management

It’s a great idea to integrate multiple tools in order to get the most out of your event registration software. With EventUp Planner, you can integrate registration forms to your event website. You will be able to create different passes based on your event requirements, including early bird pricing, promo discounts, pricing tiers, and more.

EventUp Planner integrates with Slack, HubSpot, and Salesforce, so you can automate all your efforts and stay on top of your event registrations. Here are some examples of tasks you can automate from the platform:

Stay informed of the most important event and attendee updates, directly on your Slack account, including attendee registration, updates, and cancellation.
Connect with HubSpot or SalesForce to bring in new contacts based on event registrations.
Through HubSpot, you can also track attendee interactions with event sessions, including scheduling a session, adding to a session waitlist, or checked in at event/ session.

SPEAKER, EXHIBITOR, AND SPONSOR MANAGEMENT

EventUp Planner users can use workflows to automate the process of managing speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors. All three workflows work in a similar manner, and will make your life so much easier when managing your next event!

Workflows work in six simple steps:

Create custom application forms
Publish forms on your website
Invite speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors to register
Review and approve or reject applications
Automatically publish approved applications to your website
Let speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors manage their information. They can add their own bio, and all you need to do is approve it. Everything will be updated on your website with the click of a button.

SESSIONS & CALENDAR SLOTTING

best event management software_session-slotter

Manage sessions for your event using an intuitive calendar slotter from the EventUp Planner platform. Attendees will have access to their personal agenda, and they can also join waitlists, if the session they are interested in is sold out.

EVENT PROMOTION

HubSpot + SalesForce + AdRoll

EMAIL COMMUNICATION

Manage your email marketing needs from HubSpot, or SalesForce (or another email platform you use).

Using these platforms you can:

Manage email layouts, based on the message you want to send.
Send email blasts: Remind registrants of an upcoming event, invite attendees to participate in surveys, or inform them of other events they may be interested in.
Send a single email: If you would like to send an email to a single recipient on behalf of your event you can do so with the send single email function.
Send unique messages to specific groups of people (e.g. previous attendees, current member, and non-members).

SOCIAL MEDIA

Use the HubSpot publishing tool to pre-schedule social media posts. You can also use their social media monitoring tool to track mentions to your brand and specific hashtags.

ONLINE ADVERTISING

Take advantage of online advertising opportunities, including retargeting ads. These ads would show to users who visited your website, but didn’t purchase a ticket. Ads would show on other sites your audience is browsing, such as a news site or Facebook. You can manage online advertising directly from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google AdWords. If you want to manage all ads from one place, try AdRoll.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Optimize your website for search engines, with these SEO techniques for event websites and manage these from your website platform. There are a number of techniques you can use to get your site ranking on the first page of search engines, like Google.

During the event:

ATTENDEE EXPERIENCE

Boomset + Sli.do + Livestream

STREAMLINED REGISTRATION PROCESS

Best event management software_registration

No one likes waiting in line. With Boomset, you can avoid long waits and delight attendees right at the beginning of your event, with onsite and self-service check in options. Start by building out your event on the Boomset web platform, where a user-friendly interface guides you to collect on-site registrations, check in guests on the app, scan QR codes, and activate RFID.

To make it even easier, Boomset allows you to print badges onsite, so you can avoid stress, delays, and errors of pre-printing. This includes on-demand paper, plastic, or wristband badges.

CASHLESS PAYMENTS AND VOUCHER REDEMPTION

Best event management software_registration 2

Boomset also offers RFID technology, so you can discreetly incorporate wearable RFID chips to track when guests arrived and how much time they spent in a specific area or attending specific sessions, without imposing on their event experience. RFID technology easily tracks attendee movement to give you more accurate lead generation ROI in less time.

In addition, Boomset’s RFID technology features cashless payments, meaning attendees can purchase food, drinks, or merchandise, and pay by scanning their RFID-enabled wristband. The wristband is linked to each attendee’s credit card beforehand, so process can be automated. Cashless payments provides a better experience, with fewer lines and faster service. Not selling food and drinks? Not a problem! Using the same RFID technology you can provide food and drink voucher to attendees, eliminating the paper trail and avoiding human errors in the process.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT: Q&A AND POLLS

With Slido you can easily increase attendee engagement during your event. Guests can go to your Slido page or event app and send their questions, which can be moderated by your team. As questions are approved, they become available for all attendees to see, and upvote them. You can then select the most popular questions and show it on screen, during the presentation, so the speakers can address the questions selected. Similarly, you can ask polls, which can also be accessed on your Slido page or mobile app. Results can be shared during the presentation. Slido integrates with Powerpoint, Keynote, and Prezi, as well as live streaming tools, including Livestream, Ustream, YouTube & Vimeo.

LIVE STREAMING

Speaking of live streaming, this is one of the newer trends in event marketing, and it’s only increasing in popularity. Whether you’re streaming to social or producing an event streamed around the world, Livestream’s hardware and software can help you look like a pro. Use Slido to engage your audience by asking questions live, and seeing the results in real-time.

After the event:

EVENT ANALYTICS

Google Analytics + EventUp Planner + Boomset + Sli.do

best event management software_reporting

As an event professional, you know how important it is to analyze your event metrics. You can use a combination of tools to gather different types of analytics metrics and gain valuable insights. In our opinion, the best event management software tools for analyzing data are the following:

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Measure website traffic and engagement by specific channels
Measure website user-journey and top visited pages
Learn which marketing campaigns are driving more traffic and conversions

EVENTUP PLANNER

Integrate with Google Analytics for comprehensive website traffic data
Track registration goals
Track revenue by event and business unit
Survey attendees to define overall sentiment
Collect and measure data from form answers
Track member attendance across multiple events

SLIDO

Discover the most popular questions and topics: Learn which questions resonated with your audience and view the summary of the most frequent topics in a word cloud.
Meet your event influencers: Find your most active and passionate participants who asked the top questions at your event.
View all your poll results at a glance: Quickly browse through your polls or expand individual poll results to dig deeper into your audience responses.
Share the insights in a beautiful infographic: Generate an infographic from your event data and share it with your colleagues or participants via email or social media.
See detailed analytics by individual rooms.
Get an overview of all events under your account.
Export all your event data into pdf or xls files.

BOOMSET

Lead retrieval: Allow exhibitors to digitally collect contact information and generate leads at your event easily, at their fingertips
Real-time reporting: Give users all their information in one place via organized reports downloaded directly from the Lead Retrieval app. Event organizers can also view, download, and send reports to themselves and end users.
Easily verify attendance for CEUs or certifications, determine popular sessions for better future planning

ATTENDEE SURVEY

EventUp Planner + Sli.do

ATTENDEE EXPERIENCE AND NPS SCORE

Finding out how attendees enjoyed the event is key to learning what went right, what went wrong, and what you can do even better for your next events. Both Slido and EventUp Planner will provide you with attendee survey capabilities, as well as data visualization, so you can analyze the results. A robust event management platform will allow you to easily gather useful data such as the “Net Promoter Score” from your attendees after they have experienced each of your sessions and other aspects of your event. This particular analytic is a gauge of loyalty and customer satisfaction. Net Promoters are your most important influencers, and well worth knowing inside and out. They are your loyal fans, who will sing your event’s praises to their friends and colleagues. They generally account for about 80% of your referrals and can help you close new sponsors or exhibitors with their passion.

It’s a Wrap!

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” – Thomas A. Edison

Managing an event is no easy task. There is so much to take into consideration, and so much work to do. Using the best event management software tools will help your team manage each piece of the event experience, from start to end. Increase your productivity by selecting the best event management software tools that integrate, so you can work smarter, instead of harder. What tools to you use to manage events more efficiently?

Best Event Management Software Stack [Infographic]

Infographic_ INTEGRATED EVENT TECHNOLOGY STACK

Event Technology to Make Your Job Easy

Event technology should make your job easier, not harder. When working with outdated systems that don’t play nicely with other tools, planning and executing extraordinary events can feel like an uphill battle.

EventUp Planner provides foundational event technology that takes the complexity and guesswork out of event and meeting planning.

With EventUp Planner, you’ll get:

Simplified event marketing that meets attendees where they are
Templates and automation to make multi-event management easier
White label, branded meeting and event experiences
Flexibility to handle unique registration scenarios

Ready to simplify the planning process and love your job again? Set up a demo today!

Book a call with our team

How to Gather and Use Attendee Data

Event Management News

October 22, 2019

Having a deep understanding of your target audience is the first step to achieving your organization’s goals successfully. Whether your event is targeting consumers from a specific demographic or professionals from specific fields, having the right data at your disposal can be crucial to the success of your event. Here are three ways you could use attendee data and how you can gather it.

Give prospects a taste of the event

Show prospects what they can expect from the event by showing data from previous ones. That can include demographic information, such as geographic regions attendees are from, age, job titles, industries they work for, and more. You can also share general event stats, such as how many people have attended the event in the past. This will not only give a glimpse of what to expect from the event and who to expect to meet, but it can also create FOMO (fear of missing out), which can be a ticket sale booster for your event. Here is an example of how Pass Summit shares attendee data from previous events on their registration website, and Adobe shares survey data as social proof of attendee satisfaction. You can view other best practices for event websites in this article.

Personalized marketing messages

Once you are able to identify specific groups, you can better target them when promoting your event. Whether you are using remarketing banners or sending email blasts, you will be able to craft personalized messages for each segment you create. Think of the benefits of attending the event based on each segment’s needs to create impactful messages and winning campaigns. When sending emails, remember to follow the privacy policies in place, such as GDPR in Europe and CASL in Canada.

Measure results

We can’t talk about data without talking about analytics and results. Without data, it’s impossible to gauge results properly. If you want to know if you hit your goals, you will need to have specific KPIs to measure. Plan this before the event and check the data after to see how you did. Here are some KPIs you should consider for track for your next event:

Total number of attendees
Total revenue generated
Sponsor dollars
Most sought-after sessions

How to collect attendee data

Now you know what to do with the data you collect, but how do you collect it in the first place? Glad you asked! You can collect attendee information from registration and survey forms. Then, all you need is a visualization tool to put all the data into easy-to-read charts so you can better read what the numbers have to tell you.

We are excited to announce we are expanding the analytics capabilities in the Attendease event management platform so that you can better gauge your event data and make informed decisions. The new Registration Analytics screen includes 5 panels that display:

A summary of key event registration metrics
Registrations over time
Pass distribution
Group distribution
Pass purchases over time

The Form Answers Analytics screen includes a panel for each field from your event registration form(s) and displays the percentage of registrants who responded with each option.

The new analytics dashboard is in Beta, and we will continue to add new categories and functionality with future releases as we expand upon this module. Want to see how it works? Get a personalized demo to go over the Attendease platform and see how you can manage your events more efficiently.

See Demo

3 Event Trends Shaping 2023 and Beyond

Event Management News

October 16, 2019

We are only a few months away from a new decade — 2020 is just around the corner. When was the last time you updated the way you manage and run events? It may be time to modernize some aspects of your event that have stayed the same for far too long. Here are a few ideas to help you achieve that. The common thread: less is more.

No more waiting in line. Instead, do this:

Whether waiting for check-in, to get a swag bag, or to buy drinks, waiting in line will not only take away from your attendee’s experience but will also leave a poor impression in the end. There are many ways in today’s world that you can solve this problem that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. Technology like the ones provided by Boomset can cut wait times by providing solutions like:

On-site self-service check-ins
Face recognition check-in
RFID technology for cashless payments

No more paper. Instead, do this:

It is not just for the environment, which is a hot topic right now, but going paperless can do much more than saving trees and money: it can also save you from headaches gained by last-minute changes to the event program. In events, nothing is set in stone, and things often have to be changed. Tools like Attendease can help you manage all the moving pieces of your event from one unique platform, including sharing the event agenda, last-minute updates, and any additional material necessary. Here are a few ways that going paperless can be of service to both planners and attendees:

Share event program and information through the event website or event mobile app
Provide downloadable content ahead of time, such as PDFs and brochures
Have all updates done online with no need to re-print materials

No more swag. Instead, do this:

Gone are the days when people enjoyed collecting useless promotional material. From business cards to paper brochures, or ugly pens, keychains, and mugs. This is not only wasteful and bad for the environment (as most of the items will end up in the trash can), but it’s also more time that your team needs to get those bags ready before the event (raise your hand if you’ve ever had to fill in hundreds of bags just hours before registration opens). Instead, you can provide online swag – a modern way to impress your attendees while saving the environment and collecting data! Here is what companies like Virtual Event Bags can do for you:

Share online brochures and coupon codes from sponsors and exhibitors. Better measure how the coupons got used by using tracking capabilities from the e-swag provider.
Exhibitors can drive booth traffic by messaging pre-event and create their content to set appointments or capture RSVPs.
Exhibitors and sponsors can easily embed explainer videos as part of their message.
Contest management is built-in to drive engagement
Exhibitors can create two different placements and automatically display one message pre-event and a different one post-event.

Want to learn more ways to modernize your next event and how to do it? Watch our on-demand webinar in partnership with Boomset and learn how enterprise organizations are using technology to modernize their events!

Pro Tips for Avoiding Email Blacklists You Must to Know

Event Management News

July 30, 2019

Email marketing is one of the most powerful online marketing strategies you can use to promote events, so you must pay special attention to the quality of your emails so you are not added to the black hole of emails: the email blacklist.

Also known as a nightmare for email marketers, in technical terms, an email blacklist is a real-time list that identifies IP addresses or domains that are known to send spam. Knowingly or unknowingly, your IP(s) or domain(s) may become a part of it too depending on the quantity and quality of the emails you send and the addresses you send it to.

The blacklists are categorized into two:

A blacklist of IP address: This list will contain the IP addresses that are suspected of sending spam emails or other types of abusive emails.
Domain blacklisted: This list will contain all the Domains that are found sending spams and misleading the users.

Entering the email blacklist impacts your email deliverability immensely so it’s important to have an understanding of how the blacklists function, and what you can do as a sender to reduce your risk of being blacklisted. So let’s understand which situations can lead an email ID to be blacklisted and how to avoid them.

1- How spam complaints can affect you

What is a spam complaint?

A spam complaint is generated when an email recipient selects the spam or junk button within their email application. This complaint is recorded by the mailbox provider. They are a direct signal from recipients to mailbox providers that your emails are unwanted. More number of spam complaints means more chances of entering the email blacklists.

What is an acceptable complaint rate?

A fix is number cannot be provided for getting blacklisted. It depends on the number of spam out of the total emails you have sent. For example, the 0.1% complaint rate is considered acceptable and often seen among good senders, but the 0.5% rate is already too high. That means, if you send 5,000 emails, you should have no more than five email complaints.

How can I avoid spam complaints?

Taking all necessary steps to avoid spam complaints is inevitable to avoid any negative impact on your future email campaigns. You need to do your best to engage users so they are less apt to click the “report SPAM” button.

Email Content – Yes! The email content matters a lot so keep the content interesting for the users by personalizing the content of the email. For eg; Avoid sending out too much of information with no graphics at all. What you send to your email subscribers keeps them interested and engaged in your emails. If you’re sending out blanket emails to everyone on your list, you may get some spam complaints.
Reach out more to engaged recipients – Engaged recipients are people who want your emails and demonstrate their interest by signing up to receive them. They’ve also opened your messages within the last six months and possibly clicked links within them.
Give out an easy way to Unsubscribe – Unsubscription is better than a spam complaint right? Provide your audience an easy way to unsubscribe to avoid your emails. Like, instead of placing your unsubscribe link at the bottom of your message in tiny print, put it at the top as well. Don’t make people hunt for it because it’s there as a service to them.

2- How to maintain a healthy email list

A huge email list does not mean a healthy and hygienic email list. It’s important that you regularly verify your email lists to ensure everyone on your list has a valid email address and actually wants to receive your messages.

There are many tools & services available that can help you in maintain email hygiene by cleaning out inactive (cold) email subscribers from your future email marketing campaigns and keeping your remaining list warm with healthy email sending habits. Tools like Clearout can help you with email verification and validation services to assist you with that task.

Just a friendly suggestion, avoid buying email lists. The people on these lists are likely to mark your unsolicited emails as spam, and there’s a good chance that a spam trap is included in the list. Sending an email to a spam trap will usually land you on a blacklist.

3- Using a Bad Server

There are times and situations when you don’t have your own SMTP server and you have to send the emails from a shared mail server. In such cases, your reputation depends on that server’s reputation. If a sender also using that server is blacklisted, you will also be.

As you see being put on blacklisted is not necessary the result of a spam-like sending activity. The mail server you use may become a victim of a bot or other technical problem. You are advised to do a complete research before using a shared server.

Conclusion

By sending well-crafted marketing emails you can regularly check in with your audience, increase registrations, secure sponsorships and speakers, and grow your event brand. So it is of utmost important that you keep your email lists clean and avoid having your IP and/or domain added to an email blacklist. With these three simple tips, you will be on your way to building a healthy email marketing system that works for you. Want to learn more about email marketing? Check our free Event Email Marketing 101 Guide.

Free Event Planning Template: A Step by Step Guide

Event Management News

September 25, 2018

Having a clear event plan will help you not only draw the path to event success, but will also give you the information and metrics you need to track in order to demonstrate your event ROI. From defining the event’s objectives, to ticket pricing strategies, audience personas, and marketing tactics, our event planning template covers everything you need to know to run a successful event. Keep reading to learn more about each section of your plan and examples you should consider when planning your event.

Executive Summary

This is a brief outline of the fundamental elements of your event. It’s important to consider the following strategic goals of the event first though – so you will probably find yourself writing this section last!

Goals & Milestones

Each event will have different purpose and objectives. It’s important that you know from the start what you want to accomplish and how you will measure it. Some things you may want to measure can include number of registrations, brand perception, new members, and more.

Examples:

Increase registration by 15% YoY from xxx to yyy
Promote our brand and increase membership by 10% (xxx new members)
Attract new segment of professionals – Have xxx registrations of CEOs in the ABC industry

You might want to include milestones in your event plan. For example, you can plan how many tickets you would like to have sold by a certain date. This will be especially helpful to help plan your marketing strategies based on these milestones.

Milestones
Goal: Number of Registrations	By Date
50	February 28
100	March 19
150	April 12
200	April 26
Sold Out (250)	May 10

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators):

KPIs are metrics that you will measure that are related to the success of your event.

Examples: Number of registrations, Visits to website, Revenue, Net Promoter Score.

Target Audience

Who will be attending your event? The more you understand your target audience, the better you can market to them. This information will support your entire marketing strategy, including the selection of channels you will use to communicate with your audience, and the messages you will send. You can think in terms of demographics, psychographics, geographic, and behavioural.

Geographic: Select audience based on geographic location (city, neighborhood, etc.)

Demographics: Audience characteristics that may include age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, income, occupation, etc.

Psychographic: Segments the market on principles such as lifestyle, values, social class, and personality.

Behavioural: Segments audience based on usage, loyalties, awareness, occasions, knowledge, liking, and purchase patterns.

Example:

Our target audience comprises of mid-management professionals in the tech industry, who work in roles such as AI architects, development, and analytics. 70% of the audience are male, between 30-45 years old. We are targeting professionals located in North America who are willing to travel for great learning experiences. They are decision makers in their roles who are engaged in testing and approving new tools and software for their teams. They are tech savvy, and spend over 12 hours per day connected to the internet. They use social media channels, in special LinkedIn, Facebook, and Reddit.

Unique Value Proposition

What makes your event special? Make a list of unique value propositions together with your team and list all the benefits of participating in your event. This content can be used on your website, email and social media communication, advertising banners, and more. Pinpointing what makes your event will help you to stand out from the crowd, and help you target your sales efforts successfully.The time you spend here will really pay off as you are developing the communication pieces to promote your event across all channels.

Budget

It’s important that you know from the start what is your total budget and how you will spend it across different categories, including expenses related to website development, print material, advertising, catering, venue, decor, etc. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of the budget available, quoted costs, and actual costs.

Pricing & Offers

If you are running a paid event, list the cost for the tickets, as well as special offers and dates related to the offers, including early-bird pricing, promo codes, and pricing tiers for different segments.

Ticket type	Cost	Valid until	# Tickets Avail.
Super early-bird
Early-Bird
Regular
Student

Promotions	Promotional Offer	Promo Code	# Tickets Avail.
Sponsors
Exhibitors
Affiliate Marketing
Influencer

Marketing Mix

In this section you will select the chosen marketing channels to promote your event, including a breakdown with goals, KPIs, and tactics. This can be as simple as a bullet point list. Here are some examples:

Website

Website Goals:

Communicate about the event
Drive ticket sales

KPIs:

Website traffic
Clicks to CTA (Call to Action)
Sales driven from website

Tactics:

Create event website with online registration

Online Advertising

Online Advertising Goals:

Create and increase awareness
Generate ticket sales

KPIs:

Traffic originated from paid sources
Sales originated from (or assisted by) paid traffic

Tactics:

AdWords
Social ads
Editorial ads

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Goals:

Increase event registrations
Keep registered attendees engaged and excited about the event (and ideally have them invite their friends and colleagues)

KPIs:

Website traffic from email campaigns
Registrations completed
Open rate
Unsubscribed rates

Tactics:

Send by-weekly emails starting three months before the event
Emails will be sent to XXX (specific email list)

Social Media

Social Media Goals:

Create and increase awareness
Generate ticket sales

KPIs:

Traffic originated from social channels
Sales originated from social sources

Tactics:

Share social media updates 3x per week
Chosen channels include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Social Media Content ideas:

Quotes from speakers
Promotional video
Video from speakers’ previous engagements
Articles published by speakers
Share media articles talking about your event
Curate content regarding topics that will be discussed at the conference
Promotional content
- Save the date message
- Notify of price increases
- Promote speakers
- Promote workshops
- Special offers

During the Event

Live Stream
Twitter and Instagram Stories updates

Media & Community Relations

Media Goals:

Create and increase awareness about the event

KPIs:

Number of media mentions
Media reach

Strategies & Tactics:

Press releases to promote the event:
- Save the date
- Speakers announced/ Interview
- 1-2 weeks prior to the event
Media partners to promote and cover the event

Out of Home (OOH)

OOH Goals:

Create and increase awareness

KPIs:

Number of estimated impressions

Tactics:

Advertise on specific medium (bus shelter, subway ads, etc.)

Marketing Calendar

Build a calendar with the dates set to accomplish each task, including developing a website and sharing social media messages or sending emails. While building your marketing calendar, consider some key dates that might guide your content creation, such as:

Save the date message
Notifying of price increases
Promote speakers
Promote workshops
Special offers
Photos and videos from previous events
Sneak peek for the key takeaways for the event
Post-event survey: Follow up with a discount code for the next year’s event

Conclusion

When planning events, there are so many unique aspects to take into consideration. Having it all written down from start will help you and your team to work together towards a common goal, while being able to track all your efforts and the results achieved. Looking for more insights on specific areas covered in this article? We invite you to download the additional resources provided by linking the banner images throughout the article. Need more help? Drop us a message below!

Benefits of Using Event Management Software [Infographic]

Event Management News

July 30, 2018

According to the State of the Industry Report, over ten million meetings and events are held every year around the world, with the industry surpassing the $500 billion mark. With so many events to manage, event professionals are turning to technology to help them work more efficiently.

Research also shows that over 68% of event planners produce more than 13 events per year, with 72% executing the same event portfolio, year after year. There should be an easier way to manage this, right? The answer is yes! As technology advances, there are a number of event tech solutions for every need. Adopting an all-in-one event technology platform can help you save time, optimize resources, reduce efforts, and organize processes.

We put together an infographic to show the state of the event industry, the common challenges, and the main solutions that event technology platforms, like Attendease, can help you with.

Like what you see? Feel free to share this infographic on your blog! If you have any questions, leave us a comment below.

6 Best Event Management Software in 2023

Event Management News

January 16, 2018

There are so many different event management software solutions out there, which one is the best option for you? Rather than focusing on the traditional event management platforms (that you probably are already familiar with), we wanted to shift our focus to the most innovative event management software and platforms available in the market. These are companies that are changing the way events are managed, and are ready to disrupt the industry. Get ready!

Best Event Management Software & Innovative Platforms

Looking for the best event management software and technology is no easy task. Here are a few ideas that can help you manage better events and provide a better attendee experience. Are we missing something? Please let us know by leaving a comment or contacting us. Happy reading!

Digital Swag Bag: Virtual Event Bags

Digital swag bags are a great solution to minimize waste and save time (no more putting swag bags together!), while also having an easy-to-measure solution for your event sponsors and exhibitors. With Virtual Event Bags, you can send a number of swag options, such as coupon codes for online or in-store shopping, a voucher to redeem items at the exhibitor’s booth or retail store, an opportunity to invite attendees to schedule a one-on-one product demo during the event, and more.

Event Management Software & Automation Platform: Attendease

Ideal for event professionals who manage multiple events, at Attendease we help you to scale and repeat events without breaking a sweat. You can build your event website, build the registration form and booking process, manage and automate email communication, manage speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors, and more. The platform also has built-in analytics and integrates with other tools, including SalesForce, HubSpot, and Slack. https://www.youtube.com/embed/2–awjZCYj8?rel=0

Gamification: Poken

Poken is a cloud-based platform that enables event organizers and exhibitors to create interactive and exciting events. The tool brings together the digital and physical event spaces to drive engagement and gain better insight into real data and it’s recommended for larger events. There are many creative ways Poken can be integrated to an event, and by the end of it, you can see all the interactions and touchpoints recorded in a chronological format. The data can be used to gain insights from attendees, generate leads, and for engagement tracking.

Presentation: Visual Collaboration

With attendee experience and engagement being one of the hot topics in the industry in the past year, Visual Collaboration offers a presentation game-changer that empowers the speaker to keep the audience captivated. Presenters can ask the audience to share their ideas directly on the presentation and show multiple results in the form of a heat map, as well as providing annotations for feedback. Watch the video to learn more. https://www.youtube.com/embed/I31AhhIPEww

Event Mobile App: Superevent

Superevent is a self-service app available for iOS and Android, and offers a web-based HTML version to cover desktop and other mobile platforms. This is a good solution if you manage small events, as the free version can have up to 50 users and covers all the lite features. For larger events, you may consider a more robust solution, tailor-made to your needs, as Superevent is an out of the box solution with a specific set of features available.

Entertainment: FastBar

Everyone hates long bar lines. They reduce attendee satisfaction and impact bar revenue. FastBar solves the problem of long bar lines for special events with a simple, cashless, high-speed payment solution that improves attendee satisfaction, and increases bar revenue. You can see the activation process and see it in action in this YouTube video.

Technology can provide unique opportunities to connect people together, while also helping teams to run events more efficiently. Having access to real-time data and automated processes can help you make better decisions and make better use of your time. There are many solutions available to choose from: imagine how many challenges you could solve with some simple changes to your event management process! Use technology to your advantage and start managing events the smart way.

Are we missing anything? Do you have any challenges that you don’t know how to address? Leave us a comment and we may have a solution for you!