Web-Based Business Solutions

2 Overall Goals In other words, improving the return on your event investment Streamlining expenses Learning from events to improve future events (iterative process) Increasing registration or ticket sales

3 Return on Event ROE - Return on Event | The ratio of money gained or lost by investing in an event, relative to the amount of money invested in the production of an event. What does Return on Event mean?

4  In business for the past 11 years  Largest event management software company in the US  600+ Employees  200,000 events planned per year using Cvent  35,000 meeting planner users About Cvent

5 Agenda Promoting Your Event Measuring Your Event’s Success Enhancing Your Event

6 Problem: Too Much Work & Not Enough RSVPs “Just getting people to register is a full-time job – even for mandatory internal meetings.”  Registrants phone, fax, mail and in their registrations  Hours upon hours of data entry  Invitees throw away print collateral  Broadcasting an impersonal campaign to everyone yields low results

7 Build an Online Presence for Your Event Information at Attendees’ fingertips Add key content:  Agenda  Dates and times  Travel information  Attendee list  Sponsor information  Speaker bios  Images, video, and flash content  Anything else you choose  Share with social media sites  Appear in search results for relevant topics  Link to online registration process

8 Promote Your Event on Social Media Facebook and LinkedIn both allow users to promote events  Use Facebook for events that are social in nature  Use LinkedIn for business events  Use both when appropriate

9 Spread the News About Your Event  Tweet updates and news  Create a blog for the event  Discuss the event with those who reply or leave comments

10 Deliver Professional Invitations Customize the “From” name in your s Use your own design, branding, fonts, images, and colors Personalize the body of the with information from your contact database Make registration easy!  Provide all key information  Include registration buttons Add sponsor logos Increase Delivery Rate

11 Customers Staff Sponsors Manage Contacts & Segment Messaging MS Excel MS Access Import From: Amanda Katz, VP Sales From: James Galford, CEO From: Susan Walker, VP Marketing Contact Database Integrate

12 Contact Database Grow your database by 40% annually Customize the Registration Form or Pre-populate contact information to minimize drop-offs and incomplete responses Newmaker, Adam Mr. Executive VP ABC Corp 200 Water Way Ste 503 Washington, D.C. Ask custom questions Allow registrants to add guests and colleagues Viral Marketing: Allow attendees to forward the invitation along to others Customize branding, colors and fonts

13 Guest (associate) Registrant (executive) Allow Registrants to Choose Sessions  Provide registration forms with multi-day, multi-track, multi-session registration  Use waitlists to prevent overflow  Ask additional questions based on session selection  Register guests (bulk registration)  Show different registration paths for different groups

14 Invitee Experience

15 Agenda Promoting Your Event Measuring Your Event’s Success Enhancing Your Event

16 Tailor Your Event to the Attendees  Their reasons for attending the event  What they want to get out of the event  Food & Beverage options  Speaker topics  Session topics and scheduling  Choice of venue Conduct event surveys to gauge attendee expectations and wants Ask registrants about:

17 Use the information to improve your next event Monetize the No’s  Inconvenient location  Choice of venue  Topic of the event  Schedule conflicts When an invitee declines, or when a registrant cancels, use regret surveys to find out why:

18 Webcast your Event  Provide a web-based option for those who cannot attend in person  Use Web-ex, GoToMeeting, or another provider to deliver presentation slides, audio, polling, and chat via the web  Give registrants the option to choose the live event or web-based version when signing up

19 Extend the Life of Your Event with Video Months or even years after your event, you can continue to benefit from recorded video  Hire videographers when a high level of professionalism is required  Do it yourself when the budget is low  Post to YouTube, Vimeo, and other online video hosting sites  Embed the file on your website  Use the video to promote future events: link to it in s and on event websites  Use the video internally for training purposes

20 Agenda Promoting Your Event Measuring Your Event’s Success Enhancing Your Event

21 Track Your s Four key metrics for marketing your events  Delivery rate: How many of the s you sent were actually delivered? Reveals the quality of your address book  Open rate: How many of the s you sent were opened? Indicates effectiveness of your subject line and sender  Visit rate: Out of the s you sent, how many resulted in a visit to the target website? Shows effectiveness of the message and call to action  Click tracking: Which links within the received the most clicks? Compares different calls to action – for example, a link within the text vs. a button

22 Track Inbound Visits Use tracking codes to learn how visitors find your website

23 Learn From Your Attendees After the event, survey attendees to learn what could be improved at your next event

Stephen Macatuno Thank you