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Event
Management
Technology
These materials are © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Event
Management
Technology
Cvent Special Edition
Event Management Technology For Dummies®, Cvent Special Edition
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Contents at a Glance
Introduction........................................................................................................ 1
CHAPTER 1: Learning About Event Management Technology................................. 3
CHAPTER 2: Developing Your Event Strategy............................................................ 11
CHAPTER 3: Managing Your Budget........................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 4: Securing the Best Venues....................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 5: Executing a Winning Event Marketing Strategy.................................. 33
CHAPTER 6: Building Your Event Website.................................................................. 43
CHAPTER 7: Mastering the Onsite Experience.......................................................... 51
CHAPTER 8: Engaging Your Attendees....................................................................... 55
CHAPTER 9: Improving, and Proving, Event Impact................................................. 61
CHAPTER 10: Ten Questions to Ask an Event Management

Technology Partner................................................................................. 69
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 1
About This Book.................................................................................... 2
Icons Used in This Book........................................................................ 2
CHAPTER 1: Learning About Event Management

Technology......................................................................................... 3
Managing Events the Old-school Way................................................ 4
Leaving the Past Behind....................................................................... 4
Using tech before your event......................................................... 6
Using tech during your event......................................................... 6
Using tech after your event............................................................ 7
Making the Planner’s Job Easier.......................................................... 7
Doing what you do, better.............................................................. 7
Saving time and money................................................................... 7
Delivering a great experience......................................................... 8
Understanding Customers’ Needs...................................................... 9
Improving the Bottom Line.................................................................. 9
CHAPTER 2: Developing Your Event Strategy..................................... 11

Optimizing Events to Grow Your Business....................................... 12
Adding events to the marketing mix........................................... 12
Planning events with a purpose................................................... 13
Defining success............................................................................ 14
Building an Event Program................................................................ 15
Thinking about audience, content, location, and timing........... 15
Maintaining cross-event and cross-channel visibility................ 16
CHAPTER 3: Managing Your Budget.......................................................... 17

Building a Budget................................................................................ 17
Setting your goals.......................................................................... 17
Categorizing costs.......................................................................... 18
Offsetting Costs................................................................................... 19
Finding sponsors............................................................................ 19
Selling exhibit space...................................................................... 20
Pricing approaches........................................................................ 20
Cost avoidance............................................................................... 20
Getting Your Budget Approved......................................................... 21
Table of Contents vii
Talking to stakeholders................................................................. 21
Convincing the C-suite................................................................... 23
Demonstrating ROI........................................................................ 23
CHAPTER 4: Securing the Best Venues.................................................... 25

Reviewing the Basics........................................................................... 25
Finding the Perfect Destination in a Flash........................................ 26
Writing an Electronic RFP................................................................... 27
Telling your story........................................................................... 27
Defining your purpose.................................................................. 28
Evaluating Venue Proposals............................................................... 28
Creating an assessment criteria spreadsheet............................ 29
Qualitative factors.......................................................................... 29
Meeting rooms matter.................................................................. 29
Building supportive relationships................................................ 29
Making the Most of Your Site Visit.................................................... 30
Negotiating with the Venue............................................................... 31
CHAPTER 5: Executing a Winning Event Marketing

Strategy.............................................................................................. 33
Facing Today’s Event Marketing Challenges.................................... 34
Creating Your Marketing Strategy..................................................... 34
Answering the 5 Ws....................................................................... 35
Aligning event and brand.............................................................. 35
Reaching Your Known Audience........................................................ 36
Personalizing email at every touchpoint..................................... 37
Timing your communications....................................................... 38
Reaching Your Potential Audience.................................................... 38
Organic and paid search............................................................... 38
Using social media......................................................................... 38
Enlisting your sales team.............................................................. 39
Marketing During Your Event............................................................ 39
Going mobile.................................................................................. 39
Amplifying your message through attendees............................ 40
Keeping the Conversation Going....................................................... 40
Following up after the event......................................................... 40
Extending your event online......................................................... 41
CHAPTER 6: Building Your Event Website............................................. 43

Choosing the Type of Website You Need......................................... 43
Choosing a Hosting Provider............................................................. 44
viii Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition
Including Key Elements....................................................................... 45
Aligning company and event brand............................................. 45
Providing relevant information.................................................... 45
Making it easy to use..................................................................... 46
Designing a Marketing Website......................................................... 46
Building the Registration Process..................................................... 49
Automating and personalizing the experience.......................... 49
Processing payments securely..................................................... 50
Managing housing and travel....................................................... 50
Fine-Tuning Your Website.................................................................. 50
CHAPTER 7: Mastering the Onsite Experience.................................. 51

Getting the First Impression Right.................................................... 51
Tracking the Attendee Journey.......................................................... 52
Making it unobtrusive................................................................... 53
Capturing attendee information.................................................. 53
Using the data................................................................................ 53
Delivering Value to Exhibitors and Sponsors................................... 54
CHAPTER 8: Engaging Your Attendees..................................................... 55

Understanding the Attendee’s Needs............................................... 55
Capitalizing on mobile devices..................................................... 56
Keeping attendees on track.......................................................... 57
Keeping attendees engaged......................................................... 57
Keeping Attendees Informed............................................................. 58
Dealing with last-minute changes................................................ 58
Helping attendees navigate your event...................................... 58
Providing interactive tools............................................................ 59
Inspiring Attendees to Connect......................................................... 59
Using Real-Time Metrics..................................................................... 60
CHAPTER 9: Improving, and Proving, Event Impact..................... 61

Remembering What You Set Out to Do............................................ 61
Reviewing Event Data and Attendee Feedback............................... 62
Reporting basics............................................................................. 63
Better understanding your attendees......................................... 63
Assessing value for exhibitors and sponsors............................. 64
Integrating Event Data with Sales and Marketing Systems............ 65
Proving the Impact of Your Event...................................................... 66
Using Data to Improve Future Events............................................... 66
CHAPTER 10: Ten Questions to Ask an Event Management

Technology Partner.................................................................. 69
Table of Contents ix
x Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition
Introduction
Y
ou might have noticed that meetings and events look much
different today than they did just a few years ago. Like
other industries, technology can affect all areas of event
planning and execution. This book seeks to share best practices
for outstanding event planning and execution and demystify
event technology by showing how it naturally fits into every stage
of the event lifecycle.
Event technology simplifies, integrates, and automates many

manual processes and disparate point solutions, so you can more
efficiently execute every aspect of your events. Technology also
enables you to better engage attendees, offer more benefits to
exhibitors and sponsors, manage costs, and prove event return on
investment (ROI). Technology lets you collect data at every atten-
dee touchpoint and puts that data at your fingertips, allowing you
to make more informed and scientific decisions about your event
strategy than ever before. Data can now be analyzed to measure
the success of events. The days of guesswork are in the past.
Due in part to these technological changes, attendees’ expecta-

tions for events have also evolved. Today’s attendees are growing
accustomed to modern and seamless experiences before, during,
and after your event. The event landscape has radically changed,
and event organizers who keep up with event technology will be
poised for long-term growth and success.
Organizations use event technology to organize their events

program, leverage email marketing to recruit attendees, create
customized and dynamic registration processes, set up secure
payment processing, build and launch branded event websites,
connect to social media channels, and collect onsite data about
everything from how many people attended the opening ses-
sion to how many gallons of coffee were consumed — all from a
central platform.
According to a Frost & Sullivan report, “Event technology can

help increase event attendance 20%, increase productivity 27%,
and decrease costs 20-30%.” If that doesn’t convince you to con-
sider adding event technology to your event planning toolbox,
nothing will!
Introduction 1
About This Book
Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition,
gives you a resource for successful event planning. It shares event
planning and execution best practices and shows you how to use
event management technology throughout the event lifecycle.
You’ll learn how technology can automate many of the processes
and tasks you do manually, saving you time and money and
increasing overall event quality. It gives you insight to how event
technology makes the whole event experience easier for your
attendees, leading to higher engagement. Lastly, it explains how
you can use measurement and metrics to demonstrate the return
on investment your event delivers to your organization. The
book is your one-stop source for how event technology can help
you and your organization more efficiently and cost-effectively
manage all aspects of the event lifecycle.
Icons Used in This Book

As you read this book, you’ll notice icons in the margins that
indicate material of special interest. Here’s what the icons mean:
The information marked by this icon is important and therefore

repeated for emphasis. This way, you can easily spot noteworthy
information when you refer to the book later.
This icon marks places where technical matters, especially more

detailed information about event technology, are discussed.
Tips offer ideas to save you time or offer suggestions for improv-
ing the event experience; they don’t necessarily involve event
technology.
Paragraphs marked with the Warning icon call attention to

common pitfalls or risky situations that you may encounter.
2 Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Seeing into the future
»» Using technology in all phases of your

event
»» Making your life easier
»» Elevating your events program
Chapter 1
Learning About
Event Management
Technology
W
hether you’re a full-time event planner, a marketer
who uses events as a marketing tactic, or a human
resources professional who develops training seminars
for employees, chances are you’re doing a lot of your event plan-
ning and execution tasks manually — a spreadsheet to track
expenses and attendees, hand-written or pre-printed badges, or
maybe you’re even licking stamps! You may find yourself think-
ing, “there’s got to be a better way.” Well, there is . . . it’s called
event management technology.
In the past few years, technology has transformed the way events
get planned, executed, and measured. The era of event manage-
ment technology is here and increasingly becoming a core com-
petence for event professionals.
CHAPTER 1 Learning About Event Management Technology 3
Managing Events the Old-school Way
Let’s take a look at how events used to be run — or maybe still
are for you. The VP of Sales knocks on your cubicle wall and says,
“Hey, can you put together a seminar for our key clients? We want
to roll out our product’s new features to them before launching to
the public.”
As soon as he leaves, you start jotting down notes and sending

emails, Googling and calling potential venues, and opening a
spreadsheet to create a budget. You know the routine. Even with
shared documents, email, and the Internet, you still have manual
processes to track and manage each stage of the event lifecycle —
inviting attendees, managing their RSVPs, checking them in
onsite, and ultimately understanding whether it was all worth it!
Many organizations run their internal events the same way. A

department head might ask you to set up a three-day training
event for 100 employees. The event won’t generate revenue but is
still critical to the business. You begin the familiar routine of bud-
geting, finding a venue, and inviting the employees. Eventually
the big day arrives and you’re busy with registration, nametags,
and handouts.
Despite your hard work, you likely don’t have total control over
the event. You may ask your IT department to create an online
registration form, or you may need your marketing team to create
and send emails to drive attendance. You’re responsible for a suc-
cessful event, but you’re dependent on others and don’t have full
oversight over planning or execution.
Leaving the Past Behind

There’s a better way to navigate and manage the entire event life-
cycle. Think about event management as a pyramid, as shown in
Figure 1-1. At the wide, bottom of the pyramid are all the logistics
that have to happen to get to the day of the event. You likely spend
far too much time worrying about — and executing — logistics at
this level. These are the important, but often repetitive, tasks that
go into creating and marketing the event. Here, event technology
automates and simplifies these manual tasks, lowering the risk of
errors and freeing you to focus on the elements of your event that
drive greater value.
FIGURE 1-1: Navigating the event lifecycle.
In the middle where the pyramid narrows, the event has arrived.
This is why you have the event in the first place! Chances are you
spend less energy than you should on the implementation effort
needed onsite. This is where value is created — and captured —
for your attendees, you, and your exhibitors (if you have them).
Here, technology helps you engage and better understand your
attendees while they’re onsite. As a planner or marketer, you
capture their “physical footprint,” that trail of information and
interest they generate as they attend sessions, answer surveys,
tweet or post, and visit exhibitor booths.
When you reach the top of the pyramid, your attendee has gone
home. Your attention turns to preparing and sharing results and
identifying areas for improvement. You’ve probably captured tons
of data points, but it’s scattered and too hard to put together,
let alone make sense of, meaning you can’t demonstrate tangible
value for all the effort you’ve spent at the first two levels. Event
management technology helps you analyze and make sense of all
that data, put it to good use to stay in touch with your attendee,
and make improvements to your next event.
Sometimes you invite other audiences to participate, like spon-

sors and exhibitors. Event management technology adds value for
those sponsors and exhibitors by
»» Giving them more visibility into event attendees

»» Facilitating meetings between them and attendees, which
can lead to potential leads and buyers
»» Giving them tools to efficiently and effectively capture
information about the leads they meet onsite
Today, best-in-class event management technology combines
software for venue selection, registration, marketing, and mobile
event apps to automate your tasks throughout the event lifecycle.
Event management technology saves you time and money and
frees you up to think about the big picture rather than the minu-
tiae. The next section looks at the tasks that can be automated if
you harness the power of technology.
Using tech before your event

From the moment the idea for an event crosses your mind — or
your desk — there are tools that help you automate and simplify
your tasks. Before your event, event management technology
helps
»» Create a budget
»» Find, compare, and select the best venue
»» Find and coordinate content and speakers
»» Create a promotional website for your event
»» Promote your event to attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors
»» Manage registration and process payments
»» Manage attendees’ housing and travel needs
Using tech during your event

Once your event is underway, there are powerful tools to engage
your attendees, while giving you invaluable insights into attend-
ees’ interests and preferences. Onsite, event management tech-
nology helps you deliver a better attendee and sponsor experience
with tools that
»» Automate and speed up the check-in and badging process

»» Encourage and facilitate networking
»» Use mobile event apps to engage with attendees and
connect them to important event information and content
»» Offer more visibility through sponsorship opportunities
»» Help connect exhibitors with qualified buyers
»» Collect valuable attendee feedback and other data
Using tech after your event
The value of tech doesn’t end when your event is over. There are
tools that let you view and analyze attendee data to understand
their interests, needs, and preferences; improve your events year
after year; and prove their value to your stakeholders. After-event
technology can help you
»» Share attendee data with sales and marketing teams to

better target follow-up and grow revenue
»» Share attendee data with sponsors and exhibitors so they
will come back next time
»» Learn and analyze what worked and what didn’t so you can
deliver a better attendee experience
»» Measure the success and ROI so you can prove your
event’s — and your — value to your stakeholders
Making the Planner’s Job Easier

Event technology allows you to standardize your processes and
run a multi-event strategy. You save time because the solutions
enable you to scale your event planning and execution and create
“muscle memory” around event best practices that you can lev-
erage going forward.
Doing what you do, better

You have multiple stakeholders. You may collaborate with the sales
team to offer events to existing and prospective clients, the execu-
tive staff to identify events that will help the organization meet
its goals, and human resources to plan employee events. You also
serve the attendees, the speakers, and sponsors or exhibitors. And,
you maintain good relationships with venues and service providers.
Event technology gives you access to key information and reports
so you can answer questions from your all of your key stakeholders.
Saving time and money

Collectively, these tools streamline your tasks and enable you to
efficiently and effectively run your events. And, when you up your
event planning skills with technology, you become almost indis-
pensable to your company or your stakeholders.
For example, when you need to find a venue for your event, you
likely send an email to some venues you’ve worked with in the
past or, if the event is to be held in an unfamiliar location, you
search the Internet for a venue, probably tumbling down a rabbit
hole of websites. It can take several days, even weeks, to narrow
your search, and you haven’t even begun to build and send RFPs
or plan site visits.
With event management technology, you have a venue-finding

magic wand. You enter your requisites, and matching venues are
automatically identified. You then write an electronic RFP using
an existing template and tap “Send” to place your request. Ven-
ues respond with bids, and the responses are presented in a way
that allows you to make an educated bid comparison — apples
to apples instead of pears to oranges. That’s just one way event
technology saves you time!
Delivering a great experience

You may wonder what event management technology looks like
for the attendee throughout the event lifecycle. Here’s a sample
of how streamlined and consistent the attendee experience can
be with technology compared to how events were run in the past.
The attendee
1. Receives a personalized email that invites her to participate

2. Clicks a link to visit the website and finds everything she
wants to know about the event
3. Registers after receiving an early-bird discount reminder —
automatically generated by the tech solution
4. Receives regular, relevant information leading up to the event
so she can maximize her time at the event
5. Downloads the mobile event app a few weeks before the
event to begin networking
6. Checks in seamlessly when she arrives
7. Picks up her on-demand badge and goes to her first session
8. Sets up appointments with peers and exhibitors through the
mobile event app
9. Sees a photo of herself on the event’s social media page
Understanding Customers’ Needs
Because you’re collecting data about your prospects and attendees
throughout the event lifecycle, you have information that helps
you craft the event they want. When you promote your events,
you gain insight about which email campaign was most success-
ful, where a visitor abandons your event website and why, which
sessions were most popular, and what attendees would like to see.
Improving the Bottom Line

As Chapter 9 discusses in more detail, event and attendee data
collection is the key ingredient in creating and proving the finan-
cial value of your event. But the data you collect can be used to
prove ROI that goes beyond financial ROI. Getting a positive return
on investment can also mean a positive impact on your organi-
zation’s brand, customer retention, and attendees who perceive
great value from your event.
Finally, event management technology can offer opportunities to

generate new revenue streams of its own through elements like
»» Increased attendance and registration fees

»» New opportunities to promote sponsors and exhibitors
»» Customer upsells
»» Lead generation
»» Sales acceleration
»» Closed business
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Using events to meet your organization’s
objectives
»» Understanding what success looks like

to you
»» Thinking about different kinds of events
»» Planning an event program
Chapter 2
Developing Your
Event Strategy
A
ccording to Forrester Research, trade shows and events are
the most effective tactic in the marketing mix, after the
company’s website. So it’s no surprise that your event
strategy should be carefully planned and executed to support
your organization’s objectives — for example, new customer
acquisition, customer satisfaction and education, increased mem-
ber enrollment, or even employee morale. When you think about
events, there are two ways to think about your events strategy:
»» The overall strategy of your events program, which uses

different types of events and tactics to meet organizational
objectives for growth, revenue, education, and brand
awareness
»» The strategy for each single event. The single event strategy
folds into the overall event strategy.
Whether you’re the executive thinking about how to drive your

organization’s growth, the marketer thinking about delivering
sales and amplifying your brand, or the event planner trying to
deliver a great attendee experience and just get more done, event
management technology can help you plan, execute, and measure
all the meetings and events across your organization.
CHAPTER 2 Developing Your Event Strategy 11
Optimizing Events to Grow Your Business
It’s important to design an overall event program that addresses
the specific goals of your organization because it’s difficult to
accomplish all your goals with a single event. Ideally, you’ll have
many events during the course of a year and you’ll plan different
types of events ranging from user conferences and roadshows to
connect with your customers and members, to attending trade
shows and other industry events to reach new audiences.
Adding events to the marketing mix

On average, 25-33 percent of the marketing budget is spent on
events. What’s more, 74 percent of attendees have a more posi-
tive perception of an organization after having attended an event
(source: EventTrack, Event Marketing Institute).
Today’s event toolbox consists of many types of events, from

events you host to events you attend. Even digital events like
webcasts are becoming more prevalent. It’s important to pick the
event types that best meets your organization’s goals. Putting
together the right event program — and measuring effectiveness
across all of it — can make all the difference.
When matching your event to your goals, think about the two
main event categories:
»» Events you host: Hosted events, such as user conferences,

roadshows, executive dinners, webinars, fundraisers, or
trade shows, help you meet a variety of objectives. For
example, you may plan user conferences and roadshows to
connect with your customers and drive new sales, seminars
to educate members, and free events to give existing
customers a sneak peek at a new product or offering. You
may host internal events that range from onboarding
training courses to employee appreciation and recognition
events. Events you host have several advantages. You have
complete control of the audience (invite whomever you
want) and message. You educate and engage your audience
on your terms (even determining where, and with whom,
they sit for dinner!). With total control over the experience,
you can focus and measure attendee behavior. You can
amplify and reinforce your brand.
»» Events you attend: Attending key events in your industry
and trade shows is part of building and extending brand
awareness to new target audiences, procuring new leads,
obtaining competitive intelligence, conducting market
research, and even opportunistically staying in touch with
your customers who may also be in attendance. Look for
hosting opportunities at events you attend, such as sponsor-
ships, dinners, or receptions that increase your onsite
visibility. This is a great way to make your presence known.
Just about anything you can do offline, you can now do online.
Here are some of the benefits to holding online events:
»» Expanding your reach beyond those able to travel to your

physical location
»» Providing great content that can be re-used throughout
the year
»» Offering incremental sources of registration or sponsorship
revenue
Your events are a big investment . . . in time and money. You need
to measure and optimize your live events just as you do with your
other marketing channels such as your website. Event manage-
ment technology allows you to do that, both at a single event and
across all your events.
Planning events with a purpose

Match your event type to the objectives you’re trying to meet.
Some of the most common goals for an event are
»» Building awareness: People can’t consider you if they

don’t know you. Building positive awareness is often one of
the first objectives of an organization’s event strategy. The
purpose of these events is reaching a new audience and
garnering new customer or member leads. Choose
industry trade shows carefully based on the presence of
your target audience, and be sure that your messaging
reflects their interests.
»» Engaging customers and members: Make sure you
engage — and impress — your customers or members.
A hosted event can help you continue conversations with
customers and start new ones, and accelerate and close
deals, so be sure your invite list includes your key
opportunities . . . and then treat them like VIPs!
»» Increasing lifetime value: It costs far less to retain an
existing customer than acquire a new one, and events are a
great way to show your customers or members that your
organization has the vision and capabilities for the long
haul . . . and that they made (or will make) the right decision
by partnering with you.
»» Training and inspiring staff: Not all events are about the
bottom line. Happy, motivated employees lead to happy,
long-term customers. Part of your event strategy should
include internal events such as sales training, product
training, and motivational events.
Defining success
What will success of your event look like to you? The term defining
success has become a buzzword, yet, it’s key to define what suc-
cess looks like for each event and the total event program. Other-
wise, how will you know if your event was worth the time, effort,
and cost? Know what value you were looking for to determine
your event’s ROI. Here are some of the benefits of measuring your
event’s ROI:
»» Understand which type of events you should do more of,

and which events you should do less of.
»» Right-size the human and capital investments in your event
program.
»» Communicate the value of your events and your efforts.
»» Make better, more informed, decisions overall.
The question then, is how to measure event ROI. It starts with
accurately capturing event spend — the “I” in “investment” —
and doing it across all your events. The “return” is the value
you needed to get out of the event, often expressed in atten-
dance numbers, attendee satisfaction, and so on. Increasingly,
though, the return must be expressed in dollars. That requires
deeply understanding what is happening with your attendees and
tracing that directly to revenue.
Events no longer need to be an “offline” activity. Using an event

management platform that integrates event and attendee data
makes it easier to analyze data — and prove ROI — because the
information is captured and stored in a single system.
You need to coordinate your events across the company, making

a plan for the next year and beyond. Event technology’s strong
reporting capabilities enable you to deeply understand all your
events; the data is consolidated, complete, and easy to analyze and
report on. You can see how each individual event performs and get
cross-event reporting. You know if you’re meeting your KPIs and
can find ways to continually improve your event strategy.
Building an Event Program

After you’ve identified the purpose and type of event, you can
build the specific program. Event management technology can
help you make better decisions and plan the details of your events,
because often you will be planning and executing several events
simultaneously.
Thinking about audience, content,

location, and timing
Just like a well-written composition paper, you want to think
about the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of your event and
link it back to the purpose of your event and how this event fits
into the overall event strategy of your organization. Consider the
following:
»» Who: Your audience. Will your attendees be new potential

leads, qualified prospects, existing customers, or employees?
How many attendees do you anticipate?
»» What: Your content. What message do you want to convey
to your audience? What call to action would you like them to
respond to during or after the event? How do you want them
to feel about your organization when the event ends?
»» When: The timing. Is your event tied to a season, a product
announcement, another event? What date will cause the
least amount of friction with your attendees’ schedules?
»» Where: The location. How much meeting space do you
need? What city will help you drive attendance? Is the venue
easily accessible from the local airport?
»» Why: Your purpose. What ROI do you want to achieve?
What will success for this event look like? How does this
event fit into the organization’s overall event strategy?
Maintaining cross-event and

cross-channel visibility
Because each single event is part of the overall event strategy, no
event should be an island. As you build the overall plan of many
different types of events, look for opportunities for cross-event
and cross-channel promotions. Which attendees will come to
multiple events? And how will you know unless you can “follow”
their presence and interests across your events?
Event management technology captures all of an attendee’s inter-

actions with you and your events in near-real time. This wealth of
attendee data — integrated with modern marketing automation
systems — means you can send personalized communications
about additional events they’d be interested in and drop them into
the right marketing campaigns.
Integration with your customer relationship management (CRM)

system also means your sales team will be armed with better
information about attendees. They can have more productive
conversations with their prospects and customers, and you can
see exactly the impact that your events have, from the moment
when you generate a lead to when that lead becomes a customer,
and beyond.
A good event program consists of many different types of events,

and each event has its own KPIs to be met and measured.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Setting budget goals
»» Identifying costs
»» Creating ancillary revenue
»» Talking to the C-suite
Chapter 3
Managing Your Budget
I
t all comes down to money. A robust and reliable budget manage-
ment tool in your event management system is key to accurately
collecting budgetary information, tracking negotiated savings,
demonstrating event ROI, and making better business decisions.
Historically, budget management and spend tracking for meet-

ings and events has been difficult, often inaccurate, and always
time-consuming. As you well know, it’s vital and unavoidable, but
recent research shows that event planners feel budgeting is the
most challenging part of event planning and execution (source:
Cvent “Second Annual Global Event Industry Benchmarks Study”).
Building a Budget
A well-thought-out budget can save you time, money, and head-
aches. Event technology can help you build that projected budget,
think ahead to identify potential overages, and show you ways to
make money from your event beyond registration fees, through
sponsors, exhibitors, and advertising.
Setting your goals

The first step to creating your event budget is to determine what
you’re trying to accomplish. Do you want to generate 100 new
CHAPTER 3 Managing Your Budget 17
leads for the sales team? Are you running a training seminar for
the customer service staff? Do you want to enroll new members in
your association? Each of these events can be as simple or gran-
diose as your imagination and budget.
Go back to your organization’s overall event strategy and think

about where this event fits in the grand scheme of things. Make
sure this event aligns with your organization’s brand and short-
and long-term objectives. Likewise, consider how your choice of
speakers ties in with your budget and goals. A high-profile key-
note speaker can be a huge draw for potential attendees but can
also represent a huge expense.
Categorizing costs
Each organization manages its cost and revenue centers in a
slightly different way. For example, marketing for your event may
be part of the marketing department’s budget or may be part of
the budget for each individual event.
Some of the categories you should consider are
»» Venue rental: Depending on the size of your event, you may

divide the costs among the various locations, such as
meeting rooms and exhibit space.
»» Audiovisual (AV): Your venue may include this cost, or AV
costs may be allocated separately on the basis of production
and equipment needs.
»» Attendee collateral: Remember to budget for badges, tote
bags, and any memorable swag you want your attendees to
take home.
»» Speaker fees: This may include honorariums as well as
transportation, food, and accommodation.
»» Food and beverage: This may include meals and snacks for
attendees as well as night-time events like welcoming or
closing galas.
»» Entertainment: This can be as simple as an emcee or a
celebrity singer.
»» Transportation and accommodation: This covers travel
and hotel for the event staff.
»» Labor or service fees: Some locations require you to work
with local unions.
THINKING ABOUT STRATEGIC
MEETINGS MANAGEMENT
If you plan meetings and events across multiple departments and need
visibility into total event spending across the entire organization — or
if you need centralized approval for your event’s budget, date, or
purpose — a Strategic Meetings Management (SMM) program may be
just what you need. An SMM solution streamlines the meeting request
and approval process, collects and tracks budgetary data, and creates a
centralized view of events across the organization.
Companies that implement an SMM program save as much as

25 percent in meeting spend during the first year alone (source:
Worldview Travel Corporate Services).
If you have an idea of how much you plan to spend, you can iden-
tify some potential areas for negotiation opportunities when
speaking with venues (to learn more, please turn to Chapter 4).
Offsetting Costs
Get creative with finding ways to keep your budget in the black.
You can offset costs with sponsorships and the right pricing
strategy, and reduce or avoid costs for certain parts of your event.
Finding sponsors
When you approach other organizations to sponsor your event in
one way or another, you’re offering to let them into your net-
work and meet your attendees, typically for a fee or a trade of
some kind. To maximize the value that sponsors receive from
your events, make sure to highlight and measure the advertising
benefits across multiple event touchpoints. Sponsorship opportu-
nities can include
»» Mentions in email invitations

»» Call outs on your event website
»» Dedicated posts on social media
»» A logo on name badges
»» Ads within your mobile event app, including splash pages,
banner ads, and sponsored listings
»» Questions in surveys and polling
»» An onsite networking experience
»» Sponsorship of a session, meal, or giveaway
»» Onsite branding or signage
Selling exhibit space

Exhibitors are the lifeblood of many conferences and trade shows
and can be a large revenue driver for your organization. You want
to make sure exhibitors feel they connected with qualified buyers
and built new relationships at your events, so they’ll decide to
return to your event next time.
Technology can help your exhibitors capture leads, collect the

right information, score leads, input notes, and send them off to
their sales team for follow-up. This makes your exhibitors happy
and excited to sponsor your next event.
In addition, technology enables your event team to view exhibitor

lead counts in real time, which booths attendees are visiting, and
the flow of traffic on the floor. You can use this insight to ensure
exhibitors receive the lead flow they need and can follow up right
away to ensure their ROI.
Pricing approaches
You can boost your bottom line by charging more. Think about
»» Registration fees: Simply increasing the registration fee by

$5 to $10 can add extra dollars to offset costs.
»» Add-on items: Offer items or elevated experiences that
attendees can purchase on top of the registration fee.
Cost avoidance
The alternative to charging more is spending less. Think about
»» A mobile event app: Printing costs add up quickly, not to

mention the cost of shipping heavy paper-based collateral to
your event. Putting information like event agendas and maps
on a mobile event app and then making presentations and
session recordings available online after the event can add
up to big savings and help the environment too.
»» Onsite check-in technology: This can reduce the amount
of staff that’s required at the check-in desk.
»» On-demand onsite badge printing: This can lower the
number of staff hours needed to pre-print, stuff, and
organize name badges before the event.
»» Track meal attendance: Use this data to help you prevent
overspending on F&B for future events.
»» Track session attendance: Use this information to better
gauge your space needs at future events.
Getting Your Budget Approved

Getting event budgets finalized often means you need approval
from the director of marketing, CMO, or CEO. Having a solid bud-
get that demonstrates ROI makes that conversation easier and
event technology helps you do that.
Talking to stakeholders
Your goal when talking to stakeholders is to get everyone on the
proverbial bus. You want them to listen to your event overview,
understand your budget, and have them give you full buy-in. The
reality is, they’ll probably have feedback and you may have to
negotiate a few items on your list. Keep the following in mind
when talking to stakeholders:
»» Use language they use. Executives are concerned with ROI,

revenue, risk, cost containment, labor savings, sales pipeline,
lead generation, and actionable insights.
»» Customer/member acquisition. Acquiring new customers
or members is critically important for most organizations;
show how your event can drive new customers and build
loyalty. Association execs, for example, love to find new
members and retain those they have.
»» Revenue versus cost. Stakeholders roll out the red carpet
for revenue-generating events but those that offer a softer
return such as getting face-time with customers or building
brand recognition can be a harder sell. For all events, but
especially softer ones, lay out a year-over-year plan that will
come close to breaking even and hopefully even earn
money — the ultimate dream and goal.
»» ROI. At the end of the day, you’re back where you began. It’s
really about money and seeing a good return on investment,
however you define that: revenue, leads, conversions, or
brand recognition.
When you negotiate with your stakeholders, keep in mind that

each one has different concerns. Table 3-1 lays out examples of
what some of your stakeholders are likely to be looking for.
TABLE 3-1 Stakeholder Goals

Stakeholder Goals
Executive Having reliable data that shows ROI
Being able to confidently allocate their budget

and resources
Having an efficient, effective team
Hitting revenue goals
Building the organization’s brand and reputation
Marketing leader Being able to prove marketing’s value and hit their KPIs
Driving sufficient leads and pipeline for sales
Having the right marketing mix and live event strategy
Having visibility into the ROI of their events program
Having reliable real-time data that they can act on
IT leader, marketing Ensuring that all technologies work together smoothly

technologist, or
marketing operations Ensuring that all data remains integrated
Ensuring that your partners prioritize data security

and integrity
Maintaining compliance with company policies and other

regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation
Stakeholder Goals
Events team Planning and managing all their events efficiently
Easily reporting on the success of their events
Meeting their attendees’ and internal stakeholders’

expectations for meetings and events
Delivering a great attendee experience
Convincing the C-suite

Often, your organization’s board of directors or C-suite execu-
tives may not see your event as critical in the grand scheme of
things. Making your event match the overall event strategy that
supports the organization’s purpose and strategy can give you a
leg up when you present to the top brass.
Executives want to know your event puts the organization in a

good light, building brand recognition and adding a shimmer to
the brand halo. They’re more likely to be on board with your event
if you can demonstrate your event will deliver high-quality leads,
accelerate the sales pipeline, and generate revenue. They’ll be
willing to invest in the programs that help the organization hit
growth targets.
Demonstrating ROI
In a world where 80 percent of event processes are managed
manually (Frost & Sullivan), demonstrating ROI can be challenging,
but it’s a challenge that has been solved. This is one of the areas
where event technology really shines!
Centralized reporting provides event planners, marketers, and

stakeholders with key performance indicators like registration
rate, average cost per attendee, and attrition rate, providing a
transparent overview of their events that facilitates better deci-
sion making. You can easily get to and report on the data that’s
most important to each of your stakeholders, including your
executives.
“Best guesses” and manual processes are replaced with concrete

data, giving everyone peace of mind.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Picking the perfect venue
»» Crafting a precise RFP
»» Visiting potential sites
»» Negotiating the best offer
Chapter 4
Securing the Best
Venues
V
enue costs are typically the largest cost element of your
meeting or event. Finding a venue is also one of the more
time-consuming tasks for a planner, but one critical to the
success of the event.
Event technology can help you find the best venue at the best
price in the least amount of time by letting you easily request a
proposal from multiple venues and compare rates side-by-side to
ensure you’re spending wisely.
Reviewing the Basics

You have been tasked with planning your organization’s next
conference, and the stakeholders in your company have asked you
to consider unfamiliar destinations and hotels. They have asked
you to “shake it up” and basically start the planning process from
scratch — and that’s left you scratching your head about where to
begin finding a new venue.
Your event should be a cohesive representation of your organiza-

tion’s purpose and culture. Think about the following to begin
CHAPTER 4 Securing the Best Venues 25
to define the type of venue and destination that best meets
your needs:
»» What type of event are you planning? An education

session of like-minded professionals has different require-
ments than an executive offsite.
»» Where will you go? A best practice is to leverage the event
city and venue to drive attendance. On the one hand, that
might mean holding your event in the city where your client
or members are located. On the other hand, choosing a
desirable destination can increase attendance.
»» How will attendees get there? Remember, time out of the
office is one of the top costs of attending an event. Does
your location or city have great lift?
»» What type of venue do you need? Keep in mind the
number and type of sleeping and meeting rooms you need.
»» How much can you spend? Think about both your budget
and your attendee’s budget, keeping in mind airfare, hotel,
transportation, and meal costs.
An event that no one attends is no event at all. The appropriate

choice of a destination and venue shows you have your attendee
in mind. One of the easiest ways to gather this information is to
review surveys from past events, create a new online survey, and
send it to all past and prospective attendees. Carefully consider
their feedback before moving ahead with a future event.
Event management technology keeps those survey results at your

fingertips, helping you improve your events year after year.
Finding the Perfect Destination in a Flash

After you determine your criteria, with a venue sourcing tool such
as the Cvent Supplier Network, rather than spending hours doing
Internet searches, you simply type in a few facts about your event
and a vast database identifies potential venues. Results show you
key information about destinations including
»» Meeting space
»» Number of meeting rooms
»» Capacity of meeting rooms
»» Size of meeting rooms
»» Average hotel room rates
»» Average daily meal costs
»» Total number of sleeping rooms
»» Activities and entertainment
»» Star ratings
»» Promotions
»» Pictures of venues
Using technology to source venue space does not mean you can’t
still work with the venue contacts (NSOs/GSOs) you’ve estab-
lished relationships with. Tech doesn’t mean you have to start
from scratch.
Writing an Electronic RFP

With the results of the database search in hand, you can begin
comparing what the venues offer so you can narrow down to a
handful that you’ll ask to submit proposals. A best practice is to
get bids from multiple venues to guarantee the best rate. Tech-
nology makes this process much simpler and quicker because
you only have to create one eRFP to send to all the venues you’ve
selected — and get bids back in the same format — so that you
can easily compare apples to apples.
Make sure you’re using a technology that can consolidate your

sourcing process via one channel — where you can source to
properties you’re uncovering that could be a good fit — while also
working with the properties where you have contacts or that fall
into your preferred program.
Telling your story

Take the time to give the recipient of your RFP a comprehen-
sive overview of your company and the meeting you are asking
them to bid on. Make sure the vendor understands your needs,
“must-haves” like using your own audiovisual (AV) provider, and
“nice-to-haves” like complimentary parking.
If you’ve hosted this event before, give the venues insight into
what this event has looked like in the past. This helps venues
understand your previous spend and actuals to see if they can
accommodate.
The proposal from the venue is only as good as the information

you provide, and the eRFP templates make it easy to fill in the
blanks. Make sure to include a detailed description of your
»» Event and attendees

»» Sleeping, meeting, and exhibit room requirements
»» Budget guidelines
»» Deadlines and contact information
Defining your purpose

Describe your event objectives, those three to five things your
organization hopes to accomplish with the event and how the
venue can help. Tell them in a clear and concise manner what you
are looking for from the venue. If there’s a possibility that this
venue may be put into your meeting rotation, let them know up
front. The possibility of future business can help them sweeten
the deal even more.
Evaluating Venue Proposals

Now comes the hard part: Evaluating each proposal. This is a
time-consuming and multi-step process. It is vital to review desti-
nations and venues both from a quantitative and qualitative stand-
point. The quantitative analysis helps you weed out venues and
destinations that just won’t fit, while the qualitative data will help
you determine if the venues work well with your group dynamics.
If you don’t use an eRFP tool, hotel proposals can come in many
formats, some easier to read than others, that you will then have
to compile. A digital solution makes your job easier by giving you
a consistent format for receiving venue proposals, allowing you to
make a quicker, more insightful decision.
Creating an assessment
criteria spreadsheet
Before the first proposal hits your email inbox, know your “must-
have” and “nice-to-have” criteria. List those criteria on the left
and the hotels and destinations along the top. You also need to
establish a weight factor on the “nice-to-haves.” For example, free
Wi-Fi may weigh higher than the number of nearby restaurants.
The proposals that meet all your “must-haves” are the ones
that will make the first cut. Now it is time to look at the “nice-
to-haves” — the qualitative factors — and see how they weigh in.
Chances are, five or six venues will rise to the top, so you can feel
confident in your short list.
Qualitative factors
After you’ve narrowed down your destinations and venues, it is
time to move on to the qualitative measurements. Consider things
like star ratings, amenities offered, nearness to restaurants and
attractions.
Meeting rooms matter

According to a study by the International Special Events Society,
information about the meeting rooms is the most important fac-
tor in venue selection, and that makes sense because your attend-
ees spend a good portion of their time there.
Analyze the meeting space floor plans, capacity charts, and pho-
tos online and look for things like
»» Ceiling height: This can affect sight and sound.

»» Layout: For example, are there columns that could block an
attendee’s view, or is the room an odd shape?
»» Proximity: Is the room close to other meeting rooms and
guest rooms?
Building supportive relationships

You’ll be spending a lot of time with the venue staff so it’s impor-
tant to feel you can work well together. Engage with the staff
and determine how responsive they are to your requests. Their
responsiveness will be a good indication of how attentive they will
be if they win your business.
Making the Most of Your Site Visit
Up until now, you and your staff may have been doing everything
in a vacuum, with the occasional update to your boss. Now is the
time to review your research with your management team, event
committee, and a few attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors, and
ask for feedback to help narrow your choices. This is a critical step
because you don’t want to waste your time and resources attend-
ing a site visit for a venue your organization won’t consider.
If possible, hold a face-to-face meeting with all of them. Provide

a video conferencing option for those offsite.
It’s perfectly reasonable to ask a hotel to schedule a site visit with

you. This gives you an opportunity to walk through the venue and
experience what it would be like for your attendees.
Venue sourcing technology helps you prepare for your visit. By

accessing the hotel information before your site visit, you will
have a clear idea of when the hotel was built or renovated, how
much meeting space they have, and what sort of attractions are
close by.
When scheduling and visiting sites, keep the following in mind:
»» Plan to spend at least half a day at one venue, and if

possible, spend the night so you get a true feel for the
facility, including the check-in/check-out experience,
restaurant selections and service levels, quality of guest
rooms, and the ability to use the hotel’s amenities such as
the spa, pool, or fitness center.
»» Spend time with the catering or conference manager and
sample their food, visit every area of the hotel, confirm
meeting space flow with your agenda, acoustics, and visual
appeal, and ask about Wi-Fi and AV support. Ask yourself if
you can visualize your event taking place here.
»» Note your impressions during the entire journey of your site
visit from the destination airport to the sleeping room.
Validate the rates quoted in the RFP, and double check that
all fees and taxes are included. You don’t want surprises
when the final invoice arrives!
After your site visit, call everyone together for another meeting.
Your objective is clear: Rank the venues. Adjust the ranking for
each venue to reflect what you learned during the site visit. It may
quickly become clear which venue is the best choice.
Ask yourself if the venue is too opulent for your guests. “Too
cheap” and “Too expensive” are not words you want to hear from
attendees.
Negotiating with the Venue

Now that your physical or virtual site selection process is com-
plete, it is time to roll up your sleeves and negotiate a fair pack-
age for your organization. Often, this is the most uncomfortable
part of the process for planners because it involves asking for
discounts and complimentary services; but it doesn’t have to be
a grind.
What negotiating boils down to is synchronized value — in other

words, you have what they want (the need for guest rooms, dol-
lars available for meeting space, and revenue for food and bever-
ages), and they have what you want (a great hotel at a desirable
location). If possible, do your negotiations in person or via a video
chat and think about the following:
»» Negotiate the four big concession areas first: Discuss

sleeping room rates, food and beverage, meeting space, and
technology, such as AV and Wi-Fi. The other concessions are
minor compared to the big four.
»» Technology requests: Ask for free Wi-Fi everywhere and
strike the required vendor listing from the technology
concession. Venues will imply you must use their AV (and
catering) vendors; however, these vendors are not required,
and you may bring in your own team.
»» Understand your total value to the venue: Outline the
total estimated economic value your meeting will have to the
venue. Look at the estimated total spend for each conces-
sion. Calculate the total value of spend first and return to it if
you get stuck in the negotiations.
»» Refer to your assessment criteria: Remember your
must-haves and your nice-to-haves. If you’re willing to
concede something, the venue is likely to be flexible, too.
»» Leverage historical data: This best practice improves your
negotiating power. Refer to past rates venues have offered
you or, if you contract a venue for multiple events, show how
much business you’ve given them to negotiate better rates.
»» Using technology to manage venue sourcing means all
historical data is stored in one system.
GLOSSARY OF VENUE TERMS

Request for proposal (RFP): A request to get pricing and availability
(a proposal) from a venue to see if your event will be accommodated
appropriately at that venue.
National/global sales offices (NSOs/GSOs): These are dedicated to

identifying the best business for their chain or branded hotels to
ensure that they’re filling their sleeping rooms and meeting space.
Room block: A planner contracts a “block” of sleeping rooms for an

event to pull the inventory out so it isn’t sold to the public. These
rooms generally have a discounted rate in exchange for the bulk
purchase, but the planner is obligated to fill the rooms.
Room nights: The total number of rooms a planner commits to

occupy at the hotel in exchange for a contracted rate. The number of
room nights does not equal the number of attendees.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Standing out in a noisy marketplace
»» Creating your marketing strategy
»» Developing content
»» Using email to reach attendees
»» Being social
Chapter 5
Executing a Winning
Event Marketing
Strategy
A
s an event planner or marketer, you need to drive the right
attendees to the right events, but it’s getting harder and
harder to do because there’s so much noise in the market-
place. Recent research shows that event planners identify event
marketing and promotion as one of their top three challenges
(source: Cvent “Global Event Industry Benchmarks Study”).
To stand out, you need to understand the audience you’re try-

ing to reach, and then create marketing efforts that resonate with
them. Having the right event marketing strategy can increase
attendance by as much as 20 percent (source: Frost & Sullivan).
An effective marketing strategy that coordinates personal-

ized communication before, during, and after your event gen-
erates excitement, increases attendee loyalty, and drives sales
opportunities.
CHAPTER 5 Executing a Winning Event Marketing Strategy 33
Facing Today’s Event Marketing
Challenges
When marketing your event, get creative in your use of digital
and offline tactics to break through the traditional model of filling
up the inbox with generic promotions. Talk to customers, mem-
bers, or attendees in a way that interests them and addresses their
individual needs.
Speaking directly to each single attendee, however, is time-

consuming. Technology helps you personalize at scale: You can
easily segment your audience and send different messages to
different types of invitees. In addition to segmentation and
personalized messaging, tech allows you to
»» Meet them where they are when you select channels based
on who your audience is
»» Meet them on the different devices they might be using (for
example, phone, tablet, or laptop)
The right event marketing will ensure you get the word out about
your event, so you’ll attract more attendees. But your marketing
efforts shouldn’t end there. You want to build buzz about your
event, get your registrants engaged and talking about it long
before the first day, and maintain that momentum after it’s over.
Creating Your Marketing Strategy

All strategies are not created equal because not all events are
created equal. For example, the strategy — what you’re trying to
do — for a user conference announcement differs from a
fundraising event strategy. For a user conference, you might want
to increase the number of customers who go through your user
training and create buzz and excitement about your product road
map. For the fundraiser, your message is about how your event
drives your non-profit’s cause.
Your tactics —how you’re going to implement your strategy —

might include timed email announcements, social media ads, and
an event website. The Internet and mobile devices offer an explo-
sion of potential channels and tactics, and you choose the appro-
priate mix to market your events.
Answering the 5 Ws
As you plan your event marketing strategy, ask the five Ws for
your event:
»» Whom do you want to reach?

»» What do they want to learn? What problem do you solve for
them? What action do you want them to take?
»» When is the best time to reach them?
»» Where do they — virtually — hang out?
»» Why should they care about your event?
The answers to these questions help clarify your strategy.
Aligning event and brand

Your event is one of many ways your organization builds brand
awareness, and proper branding is crucial to creating a mar-
ket strategy. Every touchpoint that attendees interact with is an
opportunity to reinforce your organization’s brand. Consider how
many times your attendee interacts with your brand during the
event lifecycle. For example:
»» Invitation emails
»» Email communications leading up to the event
»» Your event website
»» Registration process
»» Name badges
»» Onsite signs at the event
»» Mobile event app
»» Your social media posts about the event
Technology makes consistent branding easier.
CURATING ENGAGING CONTENT
TO BUILD A GREAT PROGRAM
Attendees expect relevant and compelling content in order to justify
time away from the office and the cost to attend. Use surveys to ask
attendees about their challenges and topics that interest them most,
then build a program that meets their needs. Remember that great
content can help drive attendance.
Of course, you want compelling speakers to present the content.

Never before has it been easier to find speakers, nor have people
been so willing to share their knowledge and expertise as today.
Depending on the type of event, you can find speakers from any
number of sources:
• Someone from your organization who has a story to tell

• Customers or association members
• Subject experts in your industry or outside your sector
• People in your C-suite executives’ network
• Key influencers in the community
• A keynote speaker who will motivate your audience and drive
registration
Event technology can facilitate the call for papers (CFP) process, so
you can feature great content at your event. A CFP solution makes col-
lecting submissions, vetting speakers, voting on their relevancy, and
managing speaker deliverables much easier. Use email, your website,
and social media to let experts in your field know you’re seeking
speakers for your upcoming event.
After you receive the submissions from potential speakers, you can dis-
tribute them electronically to your team members for review and scor-
ing. Event technology enables you to streamline and consolidate the
process of accepting or rejecting submissions and notifying authors.
You can then publish approved submissions on your event’s agenda.
Reaching Your Known Audience

Knowing your audience means you have contact information
about them — in particular, names and email addresses — and
ideally information that helps you segment by demographics.
Segmenting your audience is a best practice that allows you to
personalize your marketing and make your communications
relevant to each individual attendee.
Technology automates this process and makes it easy to do at

scale. If you have a strong contact database, you can segment your
marketing by job title, role, company, industry, past attendance at
your events, and more.
Personalizing email at every touchpoint

Email is a fantastic marketing tool for reaching your known audi-
ence. A clean contact list is key to making it effective.
If you’re pulling your list from an Excel sheet or your CRM, clean-
ing it up may take a little work, but will make marketing future
events much easier. With the right email tool, you can manage,
update, and maintain your list on an ongoing basis.
Remember, if you’re planning an email marketing campaign for

your event, you need to consider the local rules of the countries
where your intended audience is. Some countries require permis-
sion from your contacts to be able to send them emails (called
opt-in), and many require you to offer the option to unsubscribe
from future emails (called opt-out). Make sure you know these
rules before you send!
In addition to helping you segment your list, event management

technology can track people you’ve invited who have responded or
declined your invitations, as well as those who are still in process.
It can also help you keep a record of contacts who have unsub-
scribed and make sure you don’t send them emails they don’t
want. It allows for personalization, so you can reach, persuade,
and manage invitees effectively. With highly targeted, person-
alized, and automated email campaigns, you’ll engage contacts,
boost response rates, and drive event attendance.
Email content can include background information on key session

topics, industry studies, or podcasts with speakers. Send each
attendee the information she’ll find most useful.
Test, tweak, and track your emails to see what works and what
doesn’t so you can continually improve your campaigns.
Timing your communications
The attendee journey begins as soon as your event is announced
and continues through the event. Good email marketing — or event
direct mail — looks professional and is systematically deployed.
Event management technology enables you to automate emails,
updates, and confirmations. Event after an invitee registers for
your event, keep communications going to keep them informed,
make speaker announcements, and build excitement and buzz.
By engaging regisrants prior to the event, marketers can encour-

age desired behaviors like upgrading to paid registrations,
choosing sessions or tracks, promoting one-on-one meetings,
downloading the mobile event app, and sharing on social media.
Keeping attendees interested and involved leading up to the event
increases the number of people who actually attend, and they may
encourage others to join them.
Reaching Your Potential Audience

You can leverage a variety of channels to reach your audience,
whether your event is new or you want to broaden the attendance
at an event you have run before.
Organic and paid search

Paid search is a terrific way to attract prospects who have an
interest in what you have to say but might not know you.
Keep organic searches in mind when creating any material that

you publish online. Make sure to use metatags to optimize your
results in search engines.
You can acquire a list of email addresses that match the demo-
graphics of your target audience.
Using social media

Social media is the always-on event marketing channel that fur-
ther engages attendees and extends your reach. You can easily
empower your attendees to spread the word to their networks that
they are attending your event. This can drive attendance by creat-
ing the “fear of missing out” in others.
Use multiple channels to market your event and reach your audi-
ences. You need to know and promote on both the online and
offline channels where your attendees hang out.
Create a designated hashtag for your event to unify social posts

from multiple people on the same subject. Remember to promote
this hashtag on your event page, marketing materials, and blog
before, during, and after the event and encourage people to use it.
One of the fastest and best ways to validate and raise awareness
for your events is tapping into influencers. Encourage people to
share and retweet posts about your event. Identify the influencers
in your sector and reach out to them early in the event process.
Your potential audience listens to these people and often follows
their advice.
Enlisting your sales team

If you have a sales team, these individuals are a great source of
event marketing support. Make sure they know about your event
and ask them to promote it when they have contact with custom-
ers. Think about incentives to motivate them to do so.
Marketing During Your Event

Continuing to engage your audience with your event marketing
tactics, before, during, and after your event is a best practice. The
latest innovations in social and mobile technology, combined with
event management technology, offer opportunities to wow your
attendees.
Going mobile
Smartphones and tablets offer immediate and intimate connec-
tions to your audiences. With a mobile event app, you can market
your event even during the event by sending push notifications to
attendees about upcoming sessions, new sessions that are added,
or parts of the event they should check out. Encourage attendees
to post about your event on their social networks so you can
expand your reach and audience.
Amplifying your message through
attendees
Use multiple formats to amplify your message. For example, you
can stream some of the sessions online, have webcasts during the
event, or even provide a digital track.
Organizations can compile and project attendees’ social content

in real time while also including custom posts to spark excite-
ment. With event management technology, you can create this
virtual event experience that brings your social networks and
event content to life, live at your event. You can use a social wall
to make event announcements and even run onsite games and
challenges to promote interaction.
Event management technology such as registration systems,

mobile event apps, and post-event surveys can collect many types
of personal information, including names, physical addresses,
email addresses, computer IP addresses, session attendance,
frequent flyer information, food preferences, and more. Data
security and privacy are increasingly important to individuals and
organizations alike. Governments and other regulatory bodies
are responding by setting guidelines for how personal informa-
tion can be captured, stored, and accessed. In some cases, non-
compliance can result in significant financial and reputational
damage. So, being a good steward of your attendees’ data isn’t
just good marketing — it’s required.
Keeping the Conversation Going

Event management technology lets you capture your attendee’s
physical footprint while she’s walking the tradeshow floor or
attending sessions. The more data you collect about her movements
and interests, the more personalized follow-up you can send her
during or immediately after the event. This data helps you deliver
more relevant information, and a more relevant event next year.
Following up after the event

After the event, plan a follow-up campaign to thank attendees for
coming to your event and ask for feedback and suggestions for
future events. You can also share resources or news about upcom-
ing events and provide steps for keeping in touch.
Lock in exhibitors and attendees for future events with year-

round communications based on onsite interest.
Extending your event online

The brand building and other engagement opportunities don’t
have to end just because the event is over. Highlight key takeaways
from the event on your event website for those in your target
audience who couldn’t attend. Where possible, include videos,
photos, and quotes from your attendees. Use the same tactics and
channels you used to promote the event to drive your audience
back to your event or organization’s website. Your goal is to start
building demand for the next event.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Thinking about your registration
experience
»» Designing your site
»» Registering attendees
Chapter 6
Building Your Event
Website
Y
our event website is your biggest promotional tool and
the hub for your attendee to read about your event, reg-
ister, choose which sessions to attend, and learn about
the location and its attractions. Event management technology
makes it easy to create a custom website that matches the look
and feel of your event, whether it’s a fundraising banquet, a
board meeting, or a multi-session, multi-day, full-blown
industry conference.
Choosing the Type of Website You Need

You’re probably itching to get started designing your website,
choosing the images and color palette, and writing copy. Hold on!
First you have to make some decisions about the purpose of your
event website.
You can create two different online registration experiences based

on the type of event, how much content the event will have, and
CHAPTER 6 Building Your Event Website 43
how much demand you must generate to attend. Choose between
two types of event websites:
»» Registration-only website: This type of website simply

allows visitors to register for the event. This website works
best for events that don’t require additional information to
convince the potential attendee to attend.
»» Marketing and registration websites: When you host an
event that requires a more thoughtful decision on the
attendees’ part, you want to create a website that both
markets your event and offers a seamless registration
process. You provide information about the event to build
awareness and use language that converts the visitor into a
registrant. This type of website also educates the attendee
about what to expect at the event. You typically choose this
type of website when you have a complex registration
process or multi-faceted content.
Choosing a Hosting Provider

The number of events you plan each year and your level of tech-
nological expertise help you decide if you will host your website
on your IT platform, use a third-party platform, or turn to an
event management technology provider:
»» Hosting yourself: If you’re part of a large organization,

your organization probably has a self-hosted website and a
webmaster. You may be able to piggyback on that website to
host your event website or rely on the webmaster’s expertise to
create your event website. However, the needs for your event
website may compete with other priorities for your web team.
»» Using a third-party host: A third-party host such as
Wordpress or Squarespace makes creating a website relatively
easy with templates. There will be limitations on how the
website integrates with the registration process, however,
because the user must go to a separate website to register.
»» Working with an event technology provider: This option
allows you and your staff to set up and manage your event
website yourself. With many providers, you can customize
your site without knowledge of HTML and, in some cases,
without knowledge of CSS or any coding at all. Customizable
templates for marketing, registration, speaker bios, and
sessions enable you to create a robust and complete website
with plug-and-play simplicity.
»» Some providers offer user-friendly drag-and-drop designers
to create branded and professional event websites. Keep the
attendee experience in mind when they interact with your
event websites and registration process. Ensure that your
provider can help you meet accessibility standards and
create sites that are responsive, meaning they will look good
no matter which type of device your attendees are using.
Including Key Elements

Your event audience is likely to spend the most time interacting
with your brand on your website in advance of your event. With
this in mind, it’s important to impress your audience with a web-
site that’s sleek, professional, easy to navigate, and informative.
Aligning company and event brand

It’s important to maintain consistency across your event promo-
tions and marketing to build brand awareness throughout the
event journey, and event management technology is tailor-made
to deliver a consistent experience. Your event website and regis-
tration should be an extension of your brand. Having alignment
between the website, emails, and registration will help make your
event seem more legitimate and professional. Event management
technology allows you to choose from a variety of professional-
looking templates and design themes that you can customize to
reflect your organization’s logo and branding.
Providing relevant information

As you begin thinking about the design of your website, gather
content that you’ll want include such as your value propositions,
general information about dates, times, location, and pricing.
Your website may have updates during the event lifecycle — and
tech makes those updates easy to do. In the days leading up to
registration, the call to action may simply be to leave a name and
email to get on the mailing list. After registration opens, the call
to action is to register for the event. While the event is happen-
ing, the call to action may be to post photos or tag the event on
social media.
Making it easy to use
Some of the most common reasons website visitors abandon the
site are because it’s difficult to use, the pages are slow to load, or
relevant information is hard to find. Make sure your website is
user friendly, easy to navigate, and responsive and can be viewed
on any device.
A best practice is to make registration frictionless for invitees, no

matter what device they’re using. Whatever platform you choose
to host your website, make sure it offers a version that’s opti-
mized for mobile devices — more and more people do their web
surfing from their smartphones and tablets.
Designing a Marketing Website

Often, the planning is the most time-consuming part because
once you have determined your website’s goals and purpose and
gathered content, event management technology makes building
the site quite easy. Creating an event marketing website follows
the same foundational steps that you would take when designing
any website:
»» Do your research: Review surveys from past events and any

data you’ve collected from online surveys you’ve been
conducting to find out what information is most useful to the
potential attendee who visits your site. Do they see sessions
on topics relevant to them? Do they think twice about
spending the registration fee compared to the perceived
value? Make sure to address their questions in your market-
ing copy so they can easily say, “Yes” to your event.
»» Create a site map: As you design the website, put yourself
in the visitor’s shoes. You know everything about your event,
but the person coming to your website doesn’t. What’s the
most important piece of information they need to see? Put
that front and center. Think about the types of pages your
website will include, for example, an FAQ page, speaker page,
and pricing that shows early bird and affiliation discounts.
Make your call to action clear to the website visitor.
»» Build the wireframe: As shown in Figure 6-1, a wireframe is
like a storyboard for your website. Event management
technology helps you create the schematic for each page of
your website. At this stage, you can play around with
different arrangements for the elements until you find the
one that best meets your purpose. You won’t see the design
elements or content on the wireframe; you will establish the
functionality and the type of content each page will contain.
FIGURE 6-1: The wireframe shows the plan for each page of your website.
»» Gather content: You need to have all your content in one
place, typed, proofread, and ready to insert in the wireframe.
At this point, you should have the event description. You’ll
add information like speaker bios and photos, session
descriptions, and venue floor plans as that information
becomes available.
Another feature you can consider adding to your event
website is a directory of event registrants, which allows other
attendees to see who is attending and begin networking in
advance of the event — creating a “can’t miss” factor.
»» Put it all together: After you’ve created a wireframe you’re
pleased with and gathered all the content, you put the two
together. Event technology guides you through the process
of placing content in the proper fields of the wireframe.
At this point, you also choose the color palette and insert
your event and organization logos so the website reflects
your brand.
Make sure images you include meet the size and resolution
requirements of the host platform you’re using, and keep in
mind that hi-res images will slow down a website.
»» Test and reiterate: Before launching the website to the
public, you want to work out as many of the kinks as you
can. Event management technology lets you test your
website before going live. Pretend you are an attendee and
go through all the motions that an attendee would do when
visiting your site. Better yet, ask someone who wasn’t part of
the design process to test it. When something doesn’t work
or isn’t intuitive, fix it to make it so.
Pay particular attention to any links you include. You don’t
want your visitor to click on a link to the registration page or
city map and receive the dreaded 404 message. If you use
event management technology, you minimize that risk.
»» Launching the site: Launching your event website can be
an event itself. As part of coordinated marketing efforts,
send an email to your mailing list with a link to the site and
blast your social media accounts with links. Build excitement
around your event and encourage early bird registrations.
Building the Registration Process
You want to make registration as easy as possible for people who
visit your website. First, make it easy for them to reach the event
website from a link embedded in an email or a link on your orga-
nization’s home page.
With event management technology, the meeting planner has

control to register, modify, cancel, or refund attendees or let them
do it themselves.
Automating and personalizing

the experience
Once they reach your event website, make registration simple.
Event management technology enables you to prepopulate your
registration forms with attendee information. For example, a
potential sponsor would see the option to select between differ-
ent sponsorship packages, or a regular attendee would be able to
select the sessions he wants to attend and add to his agenda. You
can make registration as sophisticated as the event itself and offer
different registration paths to address the type of attendee and
offer appropriate discounts.
A best practice is to segment your audience, so that each attendee

gets put into a registration path that’s relevant to her. Technology
automates this process and makes it easy to do it at scale.
Another best practice is to ask strategic survey questions during

the registration process. These questions give you key insights
about your attendees and help you plan a better event for them.
Technology makes it easy to ask the right attendees the right
questions and have that information automatically stored in their
contact profile.
Your attendees can help spread the word for you by promoting
the event to their communities and social circles! You can set up
a dialog box with promotion options to appear once registration
is complete. This provides the attendee with the ability to use
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and email to encourage others to join
them at the event.
Processing payments securely
Processing payments and refunds manually can be a hassle, not
to mention a security nightmare. Set up your website to offer
dynamic pricing based on registrant type, early bird discounts,
volume discounts, and coupons. Event management technol-
ogy enables you to collect online payments quickly and securely
through services like Stripe, PayPal, and CyberSource, and the
payments are deposited directly to your bank account.
Managing housing and travel

If you offer travel and lodging services, you can, and should, make
those part of your registration process. Collecting this information
during registration helps you store it all in one place, report on
your room block, and send confirmation emails with travel details.
It also can help you utilize a room block dashboard to keep track
of rooming risk and rooming pickup numbers. Payments for these
services are processed at the same time as the registration fee.
Fine-Tuning Your Website

To achieve the best results from your website, analyze your users’
abandonment rates. Understand how much time people spend on
your website, on which page the abandonment takes place, and if
they’re beginning the registration process and then abandoning
or if they don’t even begin. This data can help you tweak your
website to better meet the needs of your audience.
Another best practice you should adopt is setting up trigger

emails that are sent automatically in response to certain actions.
For example, if someone begins registration but does not com-
plete it, you can have them receive a friendly reminder with a link
to finish the registration process.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Managing check-in and creating name
badges
»» Capturing and tracking attendee data
»» Understanding your attendees
»» Qualifying leads for sponsors
Chapter 7
Mastering the Onsite
Experience
A
ttendees expect a seamless experience before, during, and
after your events. Event management technology ensures
people get through your check-in process accurately and
quickly, and your event makes a great impression from the start.
Getting the First Impression Right

A best practice is to make check-in as quick as possible, so your
attendees maximize their time at the event. An easy check-in is
one of the first welcoming points and sets the tone with attendees
for the entire event. Technology makes the entire event experi-
ence modern, quick, easy, and painless from the moment your
attendees walk through the door to when they leave the last ses-
sion. Benefits include
»» Accelerated check-in: With tech, attendees can use touch

screen tablets to check in with name badges printed on
demand. Nothing puts a damper on an event like a sea of
unclaimed badges.
CHAPTER 7 Mastering the Onsite Experience 51
If necessary, you can add identity and signature verification
for additional security for you and your attendees. Or you can
even receive alerts to notify you when VIPs have checked in.
»» Onsite registration for walk-ins: Easily get walk-in attend-
ees registered, process their payments, and print their name
badges.
»» Badges printed on demand: Pre-printed badges mean
having to deal with manual distribution and making hand-
written corrections when an attendee sends a substitute or
has changed organizations. Badges printed on demand
eliminate the problems of misspelled names, missing atten-
dee badges, and tables with rows of badges to sort through.
The badge is another opportunity to brand your organization
and event, or to use as a sponsorship opportunity, but make
sure the attendee name is large enough to be read from an
arm’s length distance for better networking.
»» Secure payment processing: If you need to process
payments onsite, event technology has your back. You can
accept payment for onsite registration fees, donations, raffle
tickets, and merchandise through a payment processing
solution that some technology providers offer.
Automation throughout the check-in phase means you can

greatly reduce your staffing needs at the reception. You can set
up an information desk to resolve issues and answer detailed
questions, leaving your staff free for other, higher value event
responsibilities.
Tracking the Attendee Journey

After attendees arrive and check in, do you know what they’re
doing inside your event or do they become “ghost attendees”?
Without the right onsite technology to help you understand their
activities, their attendee journey becomes invisible to you, which
is a big missed opportunity.
For the duration of your event, attendees are voting with their
feet. They are expressly showing you their level of engagement
and telling you the topics, products, and services that inter-
est them, what they want to learn more about, and what their
pains are.
Use technology to help you capture the sessions they attend,
exhibitors they visit, how they answered polls, questions they
asked, their survey responses, who they met with, and more. This
data is invaluable for your sales, marketing, and executive teams.
Event management technology enables you to capture and share

the attendee’s journey through your event, gaining a much better
understanding of your attendees and their interests along the
way. You’re probably already tracking their interactions with your
“digital” assets like your website or email communications. Track
their “physical footprint” at your event just as precisely.
Making it unobtrusive
One of the easiest, most unobtrusive ways to capture your attend-
ees’ movements is by using radio frequency identification (RFID).
RFID is embedded into your attendees’ badges and you collect the
data as they move from place to place throughout your conference.
Capturing attendee information

Whether you use RFID or another tracking option such as ses-
sion scanning or check-in kiosks at sessions, consider the type of
information you can capture:
»» Session attendance and how long people stayed

»» Exhibitor floor traffic
»» Booth visits and duration
»» Meal attendance and times
»» Attendance at social events and receptions
»» Session feedback
If you offer continuing education credits at your events, tracking
your attendee’s journey helps this process; your attendees don’t
have to keep track of the sessions they went to, and you can send
them proof of attendance as soon as the conference is finished.
Using the data

You’ll want to use the data you collect for attendee follow-up and
analysis for future events. However, the near just-in-time nature
of onsite data collection means you can make adjustments to the
event as it’s happening. If you see that a session is standing room
CHAPTER 7 Mastering the Onsite Experience 53
only, you can consider adding a repeat session. Or if you under-
stand the foot traffic on your exhibit floor, you can send a push
notification to drive attendees to the least-trafficked areas.
After your event, the data helps you demonstrate your event’s
value and prove ROI to stakeholders. Some ways to use the data
(see Chapter 9 for more details) are
»» Determine your event’s impact on sales

»» Prioritize leads for your sales team
»» Build complete attendee profiles, so your sales and market-
ing teams can send more targeted messaging
»» Ensure you have the right topics, speakers, and session
formats
»» Understand who your attendees are so you can adjust your
event marketing strategy
Delivering Value to Exhibitors

and Sponsors
Your event is a place for exhibitors and sponsors to network with
your audience. Likewise, your event is a one-stop shop for your
attendees to learn about the latest products and make new con-
tacts. Technology tools help them
»» Connect to the right attendees: A great feature of event

technology is the ability to connect exhibitors and sponsors
with attendees who have an interest in their product or
service. You can empower exhibitors and attendees to set up
appointments with one another at your event.
»» Capture qualified leads: Offer a lead retrieval option where
exhibitors can utilize a mobile event app to scan attendees’
badges or business cards, then qualify, rate, and take notes
on their conversations. They’ll have the leads instantly for
quick and more effective follow-up — no more jotting notes
on the backs of business cards!
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Helping attendees get where they want
to go
»» Sharing event information
»» Making connections
»» Going mobile
»» Collecting engagement data
Chapter 8
Engaging Your Attendees
Y
ou’ve gotten people to your event. Now, how do you give
them a first-class experience? Attendee engagement can
be challenging even for the most experienced event pro-
fessionals. You want to help attendees maximize their time at
your event by making it easy for them to stay informed and get
wherever they need to go.
The key to great engagement is offering the tools and opportu-

nities for that engagement. Mobile event apps offer lots of ways
to create engaging and personalized event experiences. They
eliminate the need for outdated printed brochures and sched-
ules, instead offering attendees access to their personal sched-
ule, interactive event maps, attendee messaging and networking,
social media feeds and gamification, polls, and feedback surveys.
Some provide tools to project social media activity on screens live
at the event to encourage even greater engagement.
Understanding the Attendee’s Needs

In an effort to satisfy different attendees’ needs and address short
attention spans, you often create events with lots of choices for
multiple attendee types. Options can be appealing but also over-
whelming, so you want to give attendees a way to efficiently
choose which sessions to attend, and offer opportunities to learn,
CHAPTER 8 Engaging Your Attendees 55
network, and meet with exhibitors and sponsors. A mobile event
app that attendees download before coming to your event solves
both needs by enabling you to
»» Appeal to their interest by telling them in advance about the

opportunities available at the event
»» Assuage that feeling of being overwhelmed by offering a way
to manage and organize their time at the event
The reason it’s important that attendees maximize their time,

stay informed, and get to where they’re going is because this
enhances the event experience for them. If they have a positive
event experience, they may come back next year. It also helps
planners reach their event goals, like closing sales, gaining mem-
berships, creating memorable incentive trip experiences, or col-
lecting donations.
Capitalizing on mobile devices

The best practice is to craft an experience based on your event
goals, like delivering great content or connecting attendees with
each other. Mobile event apps are the vehicle for you to engage
attendees throughout your event.
Attendees already have their noses in their phones, so it’s time to

use that tendency to your advantage and win back their attention.
Research shows that the time spent on mobile apps has increased
69 percent annually, and users spend an average of five hours per
day on their mobile devices (source: TechCrunch). A mobile event
app can connect your attendees with your event in new, deeper
ways, with only a little extra effort.
Delivering a personalized app experience gets the right people the

right information at the right time. Consider the following things
you can do:
»» Segment attendees into groups, based on interest or VIPs

»» Send specific notifications to a group, such as a special
discount or event update
»» Show attendees their personalized schedules and allow
them to make modifications
Developing a marketing strategy for your mobile event app may
feel like just another item on your to-do list, but it will set you
on the right path from the start. Putting the time in upfront to
plan how you’ll remind attendees about the app’s availability and
value will ensure the highest adoption and engagement, which
leads to event ROI down the road.
Keeping attendees on track

When you encourage attendees to download the app before the
event, you let them organically engage with your content before
the official start and give them all the tools they need to make a
plan about where they’ll go and when.
A mobile event app lets attendees preview sessions, so they can

choose which to attend and create a personalized schedule.
Providing your attendees with information via the app also elimi-
nates the need for endless email updates and is a great way to
share “know before you go” information — for example, what to
pack or where to get the airport shuttle. If changes occur, simply
update attendees directly through the app.
Keeping attendees engaged

Sessions often take up the bulk of attendees’ time at certain
events; the last thing you want is for presentations to seem
like boring lectures. That’s why session-level engagement is so
important to the overall success of your event.
Provide in-app polling and live Q&A features to add a layer of

interactivity, instead of just making them sit through a one-
way conversation. Speakers can use the app to create polls, ask
or respond to questions, and get everyone more involved in the
presentation.
Surveys are useful tools to understand attendee needs and prefer-

ences. In-app session level surveys lead to higher response rates,
and you can boost that even more by reminding attendees to take
the survey using push notifications.
Keeping Attendees Informed
Technology offers many ways to keep attendees aware of the
goings-on at your event. First and foremost, use the mobile event
app to communicate changes. Secondly, make sure the venue
offers electronic displays that you can control remotely from your
laptop or mobile device, and use those displays to communicate
last-minute changes or announcements.
Dealing with last-minute changes

Although you have spent many hours planning the best event
possible, changes are inevitable. Mobile event apps provide a
fast, efficient way to notify attendees of changes as needed. For
example, if a last-minute room change happens, you can send a
notification to all the attendees who’ve put that session in their
event schedule. Or send a general notification to keep everyone in
the loop.
Push notifications are more effective and immediate than email.

Attendees may not check their email, but a push notification pops
up on their phones instantly.
Helping attendees navigate your event

Notification success depends heavily on reaching the right people
at the right time, which beacons help make possible.
Beacons are small, inexpensive wireless devices that use low-

energy Bluetooth technology to broadcast signals to mobile devices.
Simply put, when someone with your mobile event app walks by
the device, it triggers a notification or reaction of your choice.
Think about placing the beacon in the following locations to help

your attendees navigate and engage in your event:
»» In the main hall to welcome guests and encourage engage-

ment on their way into the event
»» At the entrance to presentations so attendees receive links
to handouts before the session begins
»» Near booths to promote exhibitors’ products, contests, and
giveaways
»» In the food and beverage area to remind attendees about
networking sessions and encourage social follows
Providing interactive tools
Your mobile event app can offer an interactive map of the venue to
help attendees find conference rooms and exhibitors.
Other interactive tools include games that provide a fun way for
attendees to engage and interact. Attendees can earn points for
using different features of the mobile event app, such as interacting
with your event content, or sharing messages with other attend-
ees. Reward users with discount codes or prizes from sponsors.
Inspiring Attendees to Connect

Networking is often cited as one of the top reasons to attend a pro-
fessional conference. Your mobile event app can facilitate network-
ing through various features, all connected with an in-app activity
feed. With an activity feed, users can see other attendees’ com-
ments and curated social media posts. The mobile event app can
»» Create networking opportunities: In today’s digital world,

a social media profile is the equivalent of a business card.
Your app operates as a social network itself, allowing
attendees to connect with people with whom they already
share an interest and giving you the opportunity to collect
data rather than losing it to another platform.
In-app, peer-to-peer communication helps facilitate and
simplify attendee interactions, giving attendees a chance to
interact with each other before deciding whether or not to
share personal information.
»» Connect like-minded attendees: Because attendees can
connect via the app, they can send messages to each other
and use the scheduling tool to meet up during the event.
»» Connect attendees with exhibitors and sponsors: Identify
your attendees’ interests and needs through pre-event
surveys and the mobile event app, then match up attendees
with sponsors and exhibitors who can help them solve their
challenges and needs.
When attendees first create their profile for the mobile event
app, remember to ask if they want their data shared with
your sponsor and exhibitor partners.
Sponsor and exhibitor profiles are a great addition to the
information in your mobile event app. Collateral material can
be made available in your app and attendees can refer back
to anything that piqued their interest.
»» Connect attendees and speakers: With a stellar speaker
lineup, chances are attendees would love to interact with
them during and outside the sessions. The mobile event app
allows attendees to engage with speakers during the session
and through social media profiles after the event.
Using Real-Time Metrics

Although overall event attendance will always be vital to measure,
consider the importance of tracking these more detailed metrics
through your event app:
»» Users: The number of unique event downloads

»» Event starts: The number of times the event is opened,
including revisits and refreshes
»» Check-ins: The number of times attendees checked in to
activities
»» Average usage: The average amount of time users spent
within the event
»» Bookmarks: The number of times users bookmarked
organizations, activities, and speakers, and the average
number bookmarked per attendee
»» Detail views: The number of detail pages viewed by all
attendees, and the average number per attendee
»» Scheduled items: The total number of activities added to all
personal schedules, and the average number of activities
added per attendee
»» Notes taken: The total number of notes taken by all
attendees, and the average number taken per attendee
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Leveraging KPIs
»» Harnessing the power of attendee data

and feedback
»» Sharing data with sales and marketing

stakeholders
»» Showing your event’s worth
»» Making future events better
Chapter 9
Improving, and Proving,
Event Impact
F
or many event professionals and marketers, event success
has traditionally been defined by the number of attendees or
the post-event satisfaction score you get from a survey.
Although these are important metrics, digitizing your event lets

you expand and supercharge the insights you get from your event.
Event management technology lets you measure and optimize
your live events just like other elements of the digital marketing
mix, like your website and email communications. As organiza-
tions increasingly must justify their investment in events — and
all marketing — with concrete data, event management technol-
ogy gives you access to more and better attendee and event data.
It gives you the ability to visualize that data, so you can see pat-
terns and make smarter decisions. All this allows you to prove the
value of your events and demonstrate your contribution to the
organization’s bottom line.
Remembering What You Set Out to Do

Now is the time to compare the key performance indicators (KPIs)
you originally set for your event to the actual data from your event
CHAPTER 9 Improving, and Proving, Event Impact 61
to assess whether your event was a success! Event and attendee
data helps you answer the following questions:
»» Did you meet your revenue, attendance, and customer

engagement goals?
»» Did your event generate the leads, sales opportunities, and
closed business you expected?
»» Did you collect data about your attendees that will help sales
and marketing more effectively follow up with attendees?
»» Does the data you collected help you better understand your
customer?
»» Did your message resonate with your audience? Was there a
favorite topic or theme? Did any topics fall flat?
In this stage of the process, your objectives are to
»» See if your event met its KPIs

»» Look at whether your entire event program — the sum of all
the single events — contributed to your organization’s
overall goals
Event management technology shines in helping you see ROI

from a single event, but it’s indispensable if you want to examine
ROI across an entire event program.
Reviewing Event Data and

Attendee Feedback
Attendee feedback gives you deep, valuable insight into your
attendees’ interests, level of satisfaction, and likelihood to return
to your future events. You can ask your sponsors for feedback, too,
to learn what they thought about your event.
As you compare this event with past events, keep in mind the
things you did differently and read the attendee comments with
an eye to trends that show what they liked and what was frustrat-
ing for them.
If you change your agenda to reflect feedback, keep in mind that
year-over-year (YOY), your survey feedback or questions might
not be apples to apples. Plan to keep some questions the same
YOY, so you can compare satisfaction annually.
Reporting basics
Event technology lets you pull and present data in many for-
mats, including digestible views of the data like charts and
graphs. Understanding key metrics and trends helps your team
make informed decisions about how to improve your events. Pull
reports that show you information such as
»» Registration revenue
»» Number of attendees by type
»» Invitee status
»» Attendees per session
»» Booth visits
»» Post-event satisfaction
Better understanding your attendees

Your picture of your event’s success is only as effective as the data
you collect and the analysis you perform. Events present valua-
ble opportunities to better understand your attendees, what they
want, and how to deliver a more impactful experience. In addition
to the information your attendees give you during the registration
process and the data collected throughout the event, surveys con-
tinue to be a best practice. Use event management technology to
gather the following types of information:
»» Pre-event: Ask invitees questions during the registration

process about topics they’re interested in and how they’d like
to receive content.
»» During the event: Track event attendance, session atten-
dance and ratings, booths visited, appointments held, social
shares, and product demos watched.
»» Post-event: Ask about overall event satisfaction and the
attendees’ likelihood to attend future events. In addition,
ask about
• Satisfaction with individual tracks, sessions, and speakers

• Ease and quality of the location and venue
• Quality and accessibility of exhibitors
• Usefulness of event app and networking tools
In your surveys and polls, make sure you ask and formulate ques-
tions in a way that garners useful information throughout the
attendee journey. Be thoughtful about how you solicit feedback:
»» Yes/No questions: Ask for specific information with yes/no

questions.
»» Scoring: Use a scale system to determine satisfaction — for
example, 1 through 10, poor to excellent, or grading parts of
the event. Hard numbers allow you to evaluate trends and
easily compare results.
»» Multiple choice: Give attendees the possibility to choose
multiple options, so you don’t force a binary choice.
Ask attendees about what worked and what didn’t, so you can
improve future events.
Reviewing feedback can be a time-consuming task, yet it pays

off in the long-run when you plan — or need to justify budget
for — future events. Event management technology enables you
to gather all the feedback in one place and run analysis. You can
look at registration surveys, live Q&A and session polling answers,
and post-event surveys.
Look at social media analytics, too. Consider which platforms

were most effective during each phase of the event and compare
to the social blasts and campaigns you produced.
Assessing value for exhibitors

and sponsors
Exhibitors will have a sense of how much traffic they received
just by the number of attendees who stop by their booth. You can
provide extra insight — and value — by sharing attendee feed-
back on specific exhibitors, the percentage of total attendees that
stopped by their booth, or attendance numbers at a session they
may have sponsored. In addition, detailed audience demographics
can be invaluable for exhibitors.
Event management technology allows you to view exhibitor lead

counts in real time, which booths attendees are visiting, and the
flow of traffic on the floor. It also allows you to create a heat map
of where attendees gathered, which can help exhibitors pick high
traffic spots for next year’s event.
Integrating Event Data with Sales

and Marketing Systems
There’s been a dramatic rise in the adoption of marketing automa-
tion and customer relationship management (CRM) systems like
Marketo, Eloqua, and Salesforce. These systems allow marketing
and sales teams to better understand, target, manage, and track
touchpoints with customers and prospects. Many organizations
rely on these systems to trigger timely, personalized communica-
tions to customers and prospects, and ultimately determine which
of these activities created the most value.
A best practice is to integrate your event and attendee data with

these other critical business systems. Event management tech-
nology integrates with these systems for seamless data flow, so
you don’t worry about tons of manual data imports and exports
between systems. The benefits of these integrations include:
Integration with your back office systems (like your CRM or mar-
keting automation) is important because they often serve as an
organization’s system of record. By integrating your event data
with them, you can clearly prove what impact the event had.
Data about attendees’ activities at your event can give you a much
clearer picture of their interests and even their readiness to buy.
This allows you to identify the best leads for your organization.
By getting this data into your CRM system, your sales team can
have more relevant and productive follow-up conversations with
attendees, building sales pipeline — or getting those already
interested in your product to purchase. This seamless data inte-
gration also means sales can follow-up quickly when the leads are
“hot,” not days after the event is over.
In addition, by getting this data into your marketing automation
system, your marketing team can tailor follow-up communications
with attendees and help nurture them through the buying cycle.
Ultimately, integration can enable you to prove exactly how much

revenue is attributable to your event.
Proving the Impact of Your Event

For many event professionals, answering the question, “Did my
event drive sales?” is a guessing game. In the dog-eat-dog world
of ROI proof, many stakeholders, especially senior executives,
need evidence that the investment of dollars and people in the
event was a good one.
To deliver proof of ROI, you need to capture the right event data
and ensure it’s consolidated, so you can look for patterns and gain
insight. You need to connect this data to your business-critical
systems, so you can tie event and attendee activity back to rev-
enue. Finally, you need to communicate the value of your event,
using the collected data and insights, to key stakeholders in a lan-
guage they understand.
Put yourself in your stakeholders’ shoes and preempt questions

they’ll have. Most senior executives or stakeholders start with
two things:
»» Did the event drive revenue?

»» Were we able to decrease our event-related costs?
Executives also care about other key metrics, like the number of
attendees, the number of leads generated, survey responses, and
new attendees or members. The data you present must support
the ever-important ROI.
Using Data to Improve Future Events

Although financial ROI is important, it would be a mistake to
believe that the only return that matters is a financial one. For
many events and organizations, the measure of success is grow-
ing year-over-year attendance, or even ensuring that the mes-
sage or themes were delivered effectively.
The same data that fed your ROI story can and should be used to
improve your event next year. Ask yourself:
»» What content and topics were the highest rated?

»» What sessions had the highest attendance?
»» Did attendees want more networking time?
With this data at your fingertips, you can make real time adjust-
ments and deliver a more personalized experience at your next
event. Think about how the information you collected can improve
your future events:
»» Estimating food and beverage (F&B) costs: Food and

beverage can be one of the highest cost items in your
budget, so analyzing the spend to understand consumption
can be an effective way to save on future events. Were there
a lot of leftovers from the lunch? Did you notice a trend of
more requests for vegetarian options and fewer for beef?
Event management technology enables more accurate F&B
estimates by using RFID or scanning attendees as they enter
locations where meals and drinks are served.
»» Selecting venues and layouts: As you review and analyze
the data, look at the number of attendees compared to the
venue. If many of your sessions were standing-room only,
you might consider a venue with larger conference rooms
for future events. If you were left with a lot of unsold
exhibitor space, think about finding ways to provide more
value and benefits for them.
»» Creating appropriate event content: The data you’ve
collected provides insight as to whether you had sessions on
the right topics, in the right formats, and by the right
speakers. You learn if attendees felt there was enough time
for networking and breaks. Look at session ratings and
feedback, speaker ratings, attendance numbers and
engagement at each session.
Without technology, feedback is usually anecdotal. “I remember

that session being really packed. . . . a lot of people had to stand in
that session. . . .” With technology, there’s no guessing.
IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Evaluating an event management
technology partner
»» Looking at support they offer
»» Considering technology needs
Chapter 10
Ten Questions to Ask
an Event Management
Technology Partner
A
fter reading this book, you might be thinking, “Gosh, this
all sounds great, but where do I begin? How will I know
that I’m picking the right event management technology
provider?”
You want to feel confident that the company you select can sup-
port your organization now and in the future. Here are some of
the critical factors you should consider:
»» Powering the entire event lifecycle

Can they provide support from venue search and speaker
procurement to onsite check-ins through post-event
feedback? Do they offer help with event marketing, registra-
tion, attendee engagement, and lead retrieval?
»» Proven track record
How many events have they powered through their system?
Do they understand the future of the event industry?
CHAPTER 10 Ten Questions to Ask an Event Management Technology Partner 69
»» Event size and complexity
Do they have experience powering all types of events? Have
they worked with other organizations like yours?
»» User-friendly solutions
Is the software easy to learn and use? Is their solution
efficient and integrated throughout the event lifecycle? Can it
integrate with your other back office systems?
»» Training and event support
Do they offer training before the event and have around-
the-clock support? How big is their customer support team?
»» Flexible, customizable branding
Can the event website, registration, and reporting be
customized to reflect your organization’s brand?
»» Solutions sized for your needs
Is the solution offered in line with your current needs? What
about your future needs?
»» Product development and innovation
Do they continually improve their solutions as the market
changes? Are they innovative?
»» Company history and stability
How long have they been in business? How much churn do
they experience? Are they growing and profitable?
»» Data security and compliance
Do they prioritize data security? What do they do with your
attendees’ data? Do they comply with regulations like the
General Data Protection Regulation?
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These materials are © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO

ISBN 978-1-119-51685-9 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-51678-1 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

Development Editor: Barbara Boyd Editorial Manager: Rev Mengle

CHAPTER 4: Securing the Best Venues....................................................................... 25

CHAPTER 5: Executing a Winning Event Marketing Strategy.................................. 33

CHAPTER 6: Building Your Event Website.................................................................. 43

CHAPTER 7: Mastering the Onsite Experience.......................................................... 51

CHAPTER 8: Engaging Your Attendees....................................................................... 55

CHAPTER 9: Improving, and Proving, Event Impact................................................. 61

CHAPTER 10: Ten Questions to Ask an Event Management

CHAPTER 1: Learning About Event Management

CHAPTER 2: Developing Your Event Strategy..................................... 11

CHAPTER 3: Managing Your Budget.......................................................... 17

Table of Contents vii

CHAPTER 4: Securing the Best Venues.................................................... 25

CHAPTER 5: Executing a Winning Event Marketing

CHAPTER 6: Building Your Event Website............................................. 43

viii Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition

CHAPTER 7: Mastering the Onsite Experience.................................. 51

CHAPTER 8: Engaging Your Attendees..................................................... 55

CHAPTER 9: Improving, and Proving, Event Impact..................... 61

CHAPTER 10: Ten Questions to Ask an Event Management

Event technology simplifies, integrates, and automates many

Due in part to these technological changes, attendees’ expecta-

Organizations use event technology to organize their events

According to a Frost & Sullivan report, “Event technology can

Icons Used in This Book

The information marked by this icon is important and therefore

This icon marks places where technical matters, especially more

Paragraphs marked with the Warning icon call attention to

2 Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition

»» Using technology in all phases of your

»» Making your life easier

»» Elevating your events program

CHAPTER 1 Learning About Event Management Technology 3

As soon as he leaves, you start jotting down notes and sending

Many organizations run their internal events the same way. A

Leaving the Past Behind

4 Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition

Sometimes you invite other audiences to participate, like spon-

»» Giving them more visibility into event attendees

CHAPTER 1 Learning About Event Management Technology 5

Using tech before your event

Using tech during your event

»» Automate and speed up the check-in and badging process

6 Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition

»» Share attendee data with sales and marketing teams to

Making the Planner’s Job Easier

Doing what you do, better

Saving time and money

CHAPTER 1 Learning About Event Management Technology 7

With event management technology, you have a venue-finding

Delivering a great experience

1. Receives a personalized email that invites her to participate

8 Event Management Technology For Dummies, Cvent Special Edition

Improving the Bottom Line

Finally, event management technology can offer opportunities to

»» Increased attendance and registration fees

CHAPTER 1 Learning About Event Management Technology 9

»» Understanding what success looks like

»» Thinking about different kinds of events