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( votes)How do I use CRM for digital events?
Can our existing CRM help leverage the data that we gain from organizing a free event?
Can we increase our mailing list exponentially by attracting the best speakers to our annual online conference?
If those questions are racing through your mind too, read on for some answers.
When COVID restrictions begin lifting in many countries, the event industry will start to see a beacon of light at the end of the very dark tunnel.
Meanwhile, digital events have replaced the live events for the pandemic period. With so many top speakers being available at their homes and ready to tune in, it’s only natural that digital events found their way into the lives of so many professionals.
Let’s see how to save time, convert more, and get the highest attendance/engagement for your digital conferences and webinars by using a CRM.
CRM For Events: A Necessity, An Extra, Or A Life-Saver?
“I already have an event software of choice; do I need a CRM as well?”
Oh, indeed!
Moreover, you’ll need a suite of software products to organize an event that will keep giving not only before and during the event but after it as well.
An event – whether live or online – is a lead generating machine, attracts new clients, spreads your brand awareness, and adds tons of weight to your authority as an expert in a chosen niche.
Ideally, for a top conference, you will need an arsenal of event hosting software that includes:
- Event planning software
- CRM solution
- Ticketing software
- Marketing Automation App
- Performance management solution
- Waiver Software
Needless to say, to make the data flow seamlessly from one solution to another, you will need Zapier.
Zapier has over 1500 apps that it integrates seamlessly, among them are some event management solutions.
Zapier Event software integrations
By including a CRM into your event management routine, not only do you optimize the process itself, but you also enrich your database for further marketing & ticket sales. BTW, Nimble CRM is one of the top CRM solutions on the Zapier list, so you may rest assured the data flow is seamless as it gets.
Reasons to Use CRM For Digital Events
If you are an existing company, you would have a CRM anyway. And. You would know the value of email marketing. Below are a few benefits of the CRM use for event management.
Enrichment of an email list is one of the priorities of any marketer out there. This is the only database that is owned by your company, unlike social media & advertising.
Task assignment & control is another huge reason to integrate a CRM into your tech stack for a digital event. Team members will get an overview of the flow of the process, a Gantt chart, and can mark assigned tasks as complete or delegate them accordingly.
Analytics & reporting are vital for managing a big event – if digital or live. This is why it’s a must to integrate a CRM for event planners into your menu of technical solutions.
Specifically, it’s important, when an event is recurring. Data will give an insight into the ticket booking process and help optimize lots of processes and cut costs for the next event.
Nimble CRM Function For Digital Events
Nimble CRM is a universal Customer Relation Management software that has won the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of professionals across many industries. The Capterra app review site consistently places Nimble in the top five among all CRM solutions.
Event industry professionals often use our CRM for digital events management.
The best thing with CRM systems for events is that you can get all your team working on a conference, have all your vendors in the loop, and segment your clients, sponsors, and speakers accordingly for mass emailing.
Let’s see how Nimble is one of the best CRMs for event management:
How To Use Nimble CRM For Digital Events
Marketing On Steroids
When you decide to use a CRM event management software, you make your marketing so much more efficient.
Nimble CRM allows users to send a mass email, upload existing contact lists in the matter of a few clicks, monitor open rate, create a series of automated emails, assign custom tags to create different segments, and more.
Needless to say, you can integrate Nimble CRM with your marketing automation software for the best results.
Drafting emails that are pertinent will increase the open rate and ultimately result in more ticket sales. Segmenting profiles of the clients based on their interests, location, gender, and any other custom parameter is a breeze. Once you have your segments going, start sending out more personalized messages for the best conversion.
CRM as a Mission Control Center For Team Management
Team members are never on the same page; unless they are on Nimble.
They come from different backgrounds; some are new and some have done a dozen of events with you; they have different responsiveness levels; they tend to miss deadlines.
Unless they use a proper event management CRM.
Streamline all processes, control their execution, delegate tasks, assign teams to work on a project, get an overview of progress in a dashboard.
Enjoy your user-friendly yet sophisticated Nimble mission control center.
Attendee Data: Part Of Bigger Plan
Attendees of your events are the raison d’etre of why businesses organize events in the first place.
If you are a company who initiated an industry platform, gathering legendary speakers in one field. If you are an agency, who specializes in managing digital events. If you are a freelancer, doing weekly webinars for clients.
Attendee data is the most valuable piece of acquisition an entrepreneur can get hands-on as a result of managing an event.
You can use the data to segment your clients to provide a more personalized communication, service, messaging. Mass-mailing campaigns can be segmented and micro-managed on a granular level for best conversion.
Open rate will prompt why your conversion is at the current pace and may lead to you using Viber, Messenger, or SMS messaging to reach those ignoring emails.
A professional event organizer will make sure to custom-tag attendees of a certain conference so that it is possible to retarget them with offers for relevant industry products.
Target Event Attendees By Location
Are you having a live event? Great. Separate the locals from non-locals and offer them different packages – inclusive hotel accommodation and without.
You can also market in different languages based on the country of origin of your conference attendees.
Using a mascot/or specific colors/fonts for your branding? Choose branding elements, that will resonate with the cultural values of the audience you are addressing.
Location is one of the basic segmentations in CRM contacts, so selecting & sorting your mail list is a few-clicks-matter.
Know Your ROI
The boss of any event management organization wants to know a few figures: ROI is one of them.
Having invested in an event bosses usually want to know:
- Was it worth it?
- Is it worth repeating?
ROI figures will help to get the answers.
When you integrate your event software with a CRM you more than double its power. Not only can you track the efficiency, timeframe, costs of every leg of a customer’s journey, but you can also keep utilizing this data forever to perfect the patterns.
Touchpoints of a customer journey are easily traceable with Nimble CRM’s custom tagging feature. With custom tagging of contacts, deals, and pipelines, you can create a robust report pretty much out of any data point.
Ensure Personalized Experiences For Attendees
If you are in the event business, you know, that no two events are alike. Sports events are totally different from art gatherings; culinary experiences are nothing like educational events.
For those in the event business, segmentation opportunities are endless with CRM integration. Apart from a wide menu of default system tags, you can assign any tags you want to contact for further mailing, targeting, thank you letter communications.
You can create reports and filter contacts by any tags (default or custom ones) so that you know exactly what your attendee database is about. For example, if you know, that your client base is rich with people who like wine tastings, it’s easy to partner with wine producers and wine schools – as such data is priceless to them.
Reduce Manual Workload With CRM For Digital Events
CRMs across all industries create efficiencies and save time. It’s one of the benefits of CRM software across the board, also so relevant for the event management niche.
Say No to one-by-one guest invitation sending or keeping your mental tabs open not to miss sending out reminders to all of your suppliers at the right time intervals.
CRM will ensure all routine processes are automated and scheduled in advance, alerts come up if deadlines are broken and vendors are timely reminded about the event.
Take Charge Of Lead Quality
Understanding the user journey is fundamental to the success of any business, even more so for repeat business patterns. If you are in the event business, you look into the quality of your leads at every stage of conversion to 1. convert more, and 2. understand better why the leakage occurs.
Once you allocated your clients to the next stage of the funnel, marketing automation is likely to start sending the content respective to that stage of the customer journey.
Reporting, that is based on masses of data can provide actionable insights, that have the power to advance your sales process now and keep it tight for the next events.
Measure Success Of You Digital Event
Reporting and analysis are a pivotal piece of a puzzle of a successful business. Nowadays, big data turns mediocre companies into giants overnight.
If you have the data & talent to interpret it. If your company knows how to read signals and translate them into actionable insights. If your senior management team appreciates the competitive edge of the analytical data. Your company needs a CRM with an extensively customizable reporting module, like Nimble CRM.
Custom tags make it possible to create a report of any data point – you can attach custom tags to contacts, deals, pipelines.
Considerations For Picking The Right CRM
When choosing a CRM, pay attention to:
- Ratings on Capterra, G2
- Pricing (per user per month, annual savings, free trial, etc.)
- Zapier integrations (this means easy integration with over a thousand apps out there)
- Functionality
It is vital that you try 3-4 top CRMs on your pre-screening list, most of the big players offer free trials.
Event Management Platforms Integrated With CRMs
There are a few event management software solutions that are popular for event organizers:
There are ticketing software solutions, registration systems, and event management apps on the list. Bigger players might want to have a few of them purchased to take advantage of the entire spectrum of technical features on offer.
Why Choose Nimble CRM To Help Make Your Digital Event A Success?
We are a universal CRM, who cater to hundreds of thousands of professional minds through simplicity, social media focus, and endless customization opportunities.
If you need to boost your event lead generation or enhance attendee management features available in the event management software of your choice, Nimble CRM is a perfect fit.
In fact, we know you will love our product. This is why we offer a 2-week free trial that you need as little as your email to take advantage of. No credit card or commitments you are not ready for.
Give Nimble CRM a try. It’s that Nimble.
