The conflict between Sales and Marketing is hurting your business bottom line. However, consistently competing in today’s event planning arena requires a willingness to find new ways to work together. Ultimately, when sales and marketing are in alignment, there’s happy customers which translates directly to increased revenue.

Here are a few things to consider as you evaluate how to help your sales and marketing departments work together.

Today’s consumers need both departments working in harmony. Google – the ultimate tracker of consumer behavior – states that the average consumer researches from more than ten sources before making a buying decision, and the Marketing Leadership Council report found that B2B consumers “progress nearly 60 percent of the way through the purchase decision-making process before engaging a sales rep.” By working together, both Sales and Marketing can dramatically increase not only the success of your next event, but also your business’s bottom line.

What might that look like?

Create short-term collaborative effort around each event timeline from pre-planning through post-event followup. By strategically defining a revenue goal and working together to create the best event planning strategy to reach that goal, your team exponentially increases the probability of success.

Decisions for how to effectively combine the efforts of Sales and Marketing in your event management planning must be data driven. Without data, you’re left with Marketing tossing leads over the fence, and Sales certain they’re not being given the tools they need to close the deal. 

Event planning based on data-driven collaboration between both Sales and Marketing will enhance the brand experience of your attendees while measurably improving your ROI. By collecting, analyzing, and making available data from every stage of the event planning process, both can work together to create a truly successful event with aligned goals and ultimately happy customers. Contact us today to see how we can help create your next successful event.

Event planning can be daunting, whether you’re organizing a membership drive or corporate meeting. With the increasing use of technology to simplify event management, you may reach a point of frustration trying to juggle numerous products trying find some way to put it all together. You’ll know why stand-alone event tech is not for you when you start wishing you could go back to your overstuffed binders and endless sticky notes.

The problem feels complicated.

The solution is simplicity itself.

The market is moving to either an integrated solution or a solution that can be integrated. In order to be a viable solution, a fully integrated event planning portfolio must provide more than the stand-alone products it replaces. It must be scalable, user-friendly and ideally will incorporate seamless data analysis. Whether you create your own integrated system, or go with an all-in-one event management software solution, get ready to feel relief. No more juggling act, you can now focus on planning your next event knowing that the details will all be manageable from one interconnected place. Contact us today to explore how we can help make this a reality for you.

Leading enterprises look for the opportunity to build an immersive customer journey. Integrated, scalable, knowledgable and contextual.  

Attendease has been closely working with Tech companies big and small for some number of years, from their most intimate leadership events to their most imprortant annual client user conferences.  From this experience, it is obvious that the most successful event managers are “hungry” to be leaders by focusing on what really matters for their attendees: a best-in-class integrated, end-to-end experience.  

I’ve worked for many startups and without question one big observation is this – it’s hard to win. To get the order of things right – which includes creating a fully integrated, scalable sales and marketing technology stack to propell the customer journey and drive conversion; with only a team of 10 to 20. 

But what makes a leader in Tech? Precision focus on this very goal.

I do see large entreprises focused on this, granted it is much more of a challenge than for an agile start up. There are so many more moving parts, processes and considerations. 

As an #eventtech leader, what is really important as we build out our roadmap, is to look for companies that don’t get hung up on tactical #details of a feature in their registration system, or whether their mobile app can have a speakers page. 

Think strategically about your events. 

Today’s leading marketing-driven companies can now see:

A) Events are critical to achieving business objectives

B) Events have the opportunity to be more strategic and aligned with the overall mission and vision – including how they work with your digital marketing strategy

C) Strategically partnering with the correct #eventtech to enable the sales and marketing stack will elevate your lead generation and transform your customer journey at the same time.

Looking at the bigger picture versus focusing on tactical level features will make a world of difference to achieve your goal. Look for best in class enablement, and alignment of vision that matches where you want to go with your marketing team. We’ve been working with Adobe for many years and without question they are a company that strives every day to be a better marketing organization. We’re honoured to be a part of that. 

In the world of event planning, you are tasked with making use of every possible strategy for engagement, and sometimes this is daunting. From initial contact through registration, the actual live event through targeted follow-up and data analysis, you are continually working to find ways to cement brand loyalty and create strong ROI.  Event engagement strategies that use 1 to 1 appointments to build a personalized experience for attendees is one of the most powerful methods in your arsenal. The actual implementation of this may look different depending on your event’s size and focus, but the principles remain the same. As you explore how to incorporate 1 to 1 appointments into your event planning strategy, here are some things to keep in mind.

Define exactly how 1 to 1 appointments can enhance your event attendees’ experience and increase your ROI. Personalized engagement needs to be more than interesting; it needs to be orchestrated to result in your desired outcome. Are you using 1 to 1 appointments to track the effectiveness of your advertising materials? To elicit enthusiasm and foster greater brand loyalty? As a way to evaluate the cost effectiveness of educational materials and presentations? To grow your customer base or refine your sales force? As a way your attendees can get their product questions answered which will result in greater conversions? By defining your strategy for 1 to 1 appointments, you increase your useful data collection and analysis, and enable direction changes when necessary.

Create anticipation during pre-event marketing efforts. Be strategic with social media chatter, email campaigns, and the event registration process in a way that highlights the opportunities for 1 to 1 appointments. Incorporate these appointments into your event scheduling software or mobile event app so attendees can make choices. By tracking interest in your 1 to 1 appointment availability, you’ll also be able to make certain you have adequate staffing, sufficient time slots, and are addressing the issues your attendees are most interested in.

Track and funnel. Successful event session management is so much larger than simply planning presentations and having an app to help attendees schedule 1 to 1 appointments. In order to be effective, each registrant needs to be strategically tagged from the beginning, tracked through each interaction during the event, then funneled into your automated followup campaign to help create conversions. By collecting data throughout the timeline, you’ll be able to measure your ROI with solid data points rather than guessing.

Consider adding virtual appointments. Depending on your event size and your target market, virtual 1 to 1 appointments may be a viable and powerful alternative. Incorporating virtual appointments into your event planning may enable you to have more experts available as well as greater appointment flexibility for attendees. Technology can certainly provide a virtual face-to-face opportunity even if participants are in different parts of the world, equally useful whether your entire event is conducted online or not.

Successful event management incorporates 1 to 1 appointments as a powerful and measurable engagement strategy. By carefully defining your goals and how you’ll measure ROI, building anticipation through multiple channels of pre-event engagement, tagging, tracking and analyzing data through lead generation and conversion, and perhaps incorporating virtual appointments, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful event experience. Contact us today to explore how this strategy can work for your company.

No matter how hard you work to mastermind an exceptional event for your organization, you won’t have maximum results unless you also have fully engaged attendees. The tired model of a conference delivered to a captive and passive audience is long gone; with careful planning, you can have dynamic participation before, during, and after your event.  

Here are the top 10 ways to increase attendee engagement.

In the days or even weeks leading up to your event, don’t miss the opportunity to set expectations by early interaction. By running mini-contests, rewarding potential-attendee buzz, planning recognition or prizes, creating a Twitter hashtag and posting social media ‘shout-outs’ to those participating in the conversation, you help create anticipation of a dynamic conference experience before it’s even begun.

This is one place that your planning will make you absolutely shine, or let another event slip into obscurity. Registration shouldn’t just be a formality allowing attendees to walk through the door; it must be a vital process of gathering well-thought-out information that will later be used for personalized followup.

By giving each registrant choices of which parts of the event they wish to attend, they will receive a powerful message that their presence is noticed and valuable. 

The physical setting can either foster engagement, or discourage it. Create an environment that makes interaction inevitable. Round tables, or rows facing each other, gives a collaborative feel and lets no one fade into anonymity. 

Use mobile event apps and live polls taken during the event itself. Interactive feedback is essential to help create an atmosphere of positive energy and collaboration. What do your attendees want to know? Are the presentations making sense and meeting their needs? Are their expectations being met? 

Each conference is an opportunity for dynamic connections between professionals, not just between presenters and attendees. Make it easy for individuals to get together. Here again, technology is vital. By allowing people to identify common ground and making it easy to interact with like-minded professionals, you’ll amplify the entire event experience. 

Networking sessions and small groups with measurable assignments facilitated by mobile event software go a long way to increasing the collaborative tone. 

Letting attendees know when and how you will contact them after the conference for feedback gives them a sense that their voices will be heard and responded to.

A truly engaged audience will leave an event with an emotional response. You can capitalize on that by following up quickly to further enlist each person’s continual commitment.

Make data available almost immediately to those who attended the event. Post-event followup needs to be more than a simple survey or recap. Who attended? What did they appreciate most? Tie in your pre-event engagement strategies to help foster a fulfillment experience. 

With careful planning, you’ll create an exceptional event that fully engages your audience before, during, and after attendance. While event management software is an essential tool to help make this happen, ultimately your focus must be on the individual participants and how you can facilitate their dynamic experience. Our award-winning event management platform can help you manage your events throughout the entire event lifecycle. Contact us to explore how Attendease can help.

Even if you run just one large conference a year, event management is a big deal – and a critical piece of your marketing strategy or membership mix.

Attendease allows you to take a portfolio approach to your events, making the process less stressful, labor intensive, and more profitable for your organization.

How? From preliminary planning to following up on feedback, Attendease robust registration, schedule builder and integrated event app allows you event manage like a pro! 

No-Conflict Approach to Planning Your Program

Multiple stages, different sized rooms, presenters with a variety of equipment needs – don’t you just love putting that puzzle together? 

Attendease gives you drag-and-drop convenience in scheduling and session management for all the complex components of your conference, and makes all the puzzle pieces easy to manage. The visual representation of the schedule builder provides at-a-glance peace of mind; schedule filters (much more intuitive than Excel) allow you to define your unique event restraints to avoid massive embarrassment in front of your attendees. 

Check-In With Your Sanity on Event Day

Onsite registration and check-in, processing ticket refunds, and sending real-time push notifications for room changes can all be done from the Attendease event management portfolio with ease. Also available in real-time are live poll results, event surveys and event analytics which will provide valuable insights for planning next year’s conference.

See the robust Attendease event management platform for yourself – Set up a free trial, request a demo or call us!  

A simple, well designed registration process can have a huge impact on the success of an event. Small details can be critical so it is important to carefully plan this stage to decrease complications and promote higher attendance. Simplify your conference’s registration process with these 5 strategies to improve the experience for your attendees and ensure registrations are completed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

With an increasing number of people using their mobile devices to go online, it is very important to ensure the online registration process is mobile-friendly. This means that your conference’s registration should be accessible, not only from a desktop computer, but also from any tablet or phone. By taking this step, you offer your registrants the convenience of registering immediately from wherever they happen to be. Attendease uses the latest in mobile web technology to ensure our forms work on any device.

When designing your registration process, opt for shorter registration forms. This is especially prudent as conference websites become more mobile-friendly; no one wants to fill out a lengthy form on their phone. By opting for a short enrollment form, you decrease the chances that a potential customer will exit the process before completion. If you design your online event registration forms to be quick and easy, you will increase the number of attendees who complete the process.

A professional, consistent look between your conference’s website and the online registration form helps potential attendees feel comfortable with the process.. If registrants land on a page that looks nothing like the site they came from, they might feel like they are in the wrong place and hesitate to complete the form. Keeping a consistent representation of your brand gives your registrant confidence in your company and conference.  Attendease event websites have been designed with fully-integrated registration. The conference registration forms built with our drag-and-drop form builder will perfectly match the look and feel of your company’s existing website.

When building your questionnaire, focus on the most important information. These are the details that will directly improve or impact the registrant’s experience at your conference. If the online event registration form becomes too complex or asks too many personal questions, potential registrants may abandon the form. Every field you remove will increase the chance that the enrollment process will be completed.

Whether you are developing your own registration form, using a plug-in, or using online event registration software, you will want to test your form in each of the major browsers. What looks good or works in one browser may not work in another. Most issues are fairly minor such as alignment or spacing inconsistencies, but in some cases your form may not work at all. If someone can’t complete their enrollment, it reflects poorly on your company and you lose the registration. Most people will not take the time to tell you that they experienced a problem. Attendease ensures that our registration forms display correctly and work consistently across all major browsers.

The registration process may be one of the most important considerations when planning an event. Without simple, well designed forms and pertinent questions, you risk losing potential customers. To improve the process consider a registration form builder that produces mobile-friendly forms that are stylistically consistent with the rest of your website.

What strategies do you use when designing your registration? We would love to hear from you so leave a comment below or send us a tweet at @Attendease

Marketing Coordinator

You are part of a company you believe in, tasked with managing conferences intended to generate participation, membership, and ultimately to increase sales. Yet it can be a challenge to define metrics and measure the return on investment.

In order to maximize your marketing efforts, you need a customizable event management software that provides you with actionable lead generation that can then be integrated into your overall sales and marketing strategy. Therefore the question becomes, why should we do more events, rather than less? 

An impactful question that many of our clients like nVidia, Pivotal and Atlassian have asked. However this is the conversation we had with them: 

The Attendease system can help you create scalable and repeatable events that not only seamlessly integrate with your larger marketing strategy, but also positively impact your company’s ROI.

Speak to us today to understand how we helped organizations like SXSW and the Disposable Film Festival to achieve their goals.