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Meet Ella. She’s an event manager for a busy event management company. Her company organises over 30 large conferences and exhibitions every year. A lot of these are annual, but many are one off events. Either way, they all take a lot of time and money to organise.

Ella’s company is quite traditional in the way they manage their events. They use a mix of direct mail and email to promote their events and take the majority of their bookings via a form on their website, via emails, from people completing forms and posting them in or via telephone. Many of the events require payment and Ella has to do this manually over the phone for each delegate.

Ella relies heavily on spreadsheets. Each event has multiple spreadsheets, all with many tabs. These help her manage the delegate list, their contact details, dietary requirements, payment details, travel arrangements and more. Ella regularly gets sent on training courses to help boost her spreadsheet skills – however, no amount of training can help reduce the number of spreadsheets she uses! They seem to grow and grow...

A lot of Ella’s time is spent transferring data from one medium to another – mostly into her spreadsheets. The bookings via postal form need to be manually entered, the emails

she gets from the online booking forms need to be manually entered, as does the information she takes via the phone when taking bookings. This manual data entry takes a long time, and errors often happen. As well as entering data into her spreadsheets, she also has to log into their CRM system to update their customer records when they register for an event, and send an email to the finance department to let them know the delegate has paid (or not as sometimes is the case – which then requires Ella to chase the delegate and update the finance department with the latest information).

One of the jobs Ella dreads is the printing of all the delegate badges. She needs to extract the information from her spreadsheets and paste it all into her badge template she’s created in her Microsoft Word programme. This is such a long and tedious job – and most of the time it never prints properly first time round! There are many days where Ella feels like throwing her printer out the window and walking out for good!

Once the badges have finally been sorted and the day of the event arrives (which normally comes which an extremely late night in the office the night before), Ella has to

constantly carry around huge folders full of her printed spreadsheets. It’s difficult to manage and address problems on the day as she can’t get access to all the information she needs. It’s generally pretty stressful.

Once the event is over, Ella’s boss asks her for the delegate feedback. This was done via printed sheets that Ella handed out during the event. She has to quickly type all the

comments and add all the feedback scores into (yet another) spreadsheet. However her boss doesn’t want the raw data; he wants reports and graphs which analysis the ROI (Return On Investment). Ella is trying to do this as best she can, but she’s conscious of another event coming up that she needs to start planning.

All in all, Ella is a pretty stressed event manager. Her bosses aren’t exactly sure what value their events are providing, and they can see they need to find a way to help Ella gain control and visibility over their events. At the same time, they’d quite like to cut their costs by improving efficiency across the whole company. Ella’s complaining she can’t

perform her job to the best of her ability, finance are complaining about lack of visibility with regards to budgets, spending and delegate payments, and they can’t see what events are performing well, and which aren’t.

There’s only one answer – event management software.

Come back next week to see how Ella's life as an event manager has been drastically improved since her company installed evocos event software.

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In the final part of our blog series on using Twitter as an effective platform for event communication we will be looking at Managing your twitter account and how to respond to negative tweets.

Managing Your Twitter Account

Like any social networking platform Twitter never shuts down, your followers are able to contact you via your Twitter account 24/7, this is why it is vital to have someone who has total ownership of the account and manages it on a daily basis or a team of people monitoring and updating the account. The frequency of the updates can be determined on time frame of the event so depending whether it is the immediate lead up to the event, during and post event the level of monitoring needs to be adjusted and increased accordingly.

Twitter is all about engagement, if you are using it as a way to communicate with your delegates, you need to ensure you respond to any questions, tweets or Direct messages as soon as possible. One of the benefits of using Twitter as a communication platform is its level of immediacy, many of the largest news stories in recent times have been broken on Twitter, and people affected by world events often use Twitter as a method of communication. It’s updated constantly and as such anyone serious about using it must be able to commit to it as a platform which requires constant monitoring.

Responding to Negative Tweets

 A lot of businesses are worried about using Twitter as it is a high public level of communication and anyone can start using Twitter and write a negative tweet about a business or individual. It is important to remember that even if you decide not sign up for Twitter those negative tweets will still be out there and you can only deal with negative feedback/tweets if you know about it.

Monitoring Twitter for certain keywords such as your company name or event name means that you’ll be aware of any tweets that are relevant to you. If anyone posts anything negative, it’s vital that you respond to it as quickly as possible. If it’s a complaint, try to explain what happened, apologise or request their contact details so you can contact them off of Twitter.

Dealing with negative tweets and complaints in a public forum gives you the opportunity to show how good your customer service levels are. Companies are humanistic and as such will always make mistakes; people are aware of that. It’s how you respond to that complaint that differentiates you from your competitors. If a customer’s complaint gets ignored, this can sometimes cause them more irritation than the original complaint itself.

Following up the complaint via Twitter shows to the aggrieved Twitter user and to your whole network that you are actively engaged in ensuring you provide high value and high quality customer service.

If you have enjoyed ou three part blog series on Twitter and Event Management industry then why not download our free whitepaper:
The Benefits of Twitter to The Event Management Industry:
Improve Communication Before, During & After Events with Twitter

evocos is a fully web based event management software, if you would like to discuss your event software requirements then please call and one of our team would be happy to talk to you 0800 369 8677 or email us events@evocos.com or complete our contact form and one of our team will call you right back.

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In the first of our Twitter and events blog posts we introduced how event managers can start to use

In part 2 we are going to look at #Hashtags in Twitter, how to generate a quality network and what you should be tweeting about.

#Hashtags

Hashtags are used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. Hashtags were originally created by users of Twitter as a way to categorise messages. When you create a hashtag for an event you should create one that matches the event in question. A good tip is to try and keep the hasthtag to a minimum number of characters as possible so as not to take up valuable space in the 140 character limit of tweets. You now need to let your delegates know about the hashtag and promote it to all stakeholders involved in the event, encourage them to use the hashtag when anyone is tweeting about the event and to monitor any updates on the event. This way both thte event organisers and delegates can monitor what is being said and answer any questions and respond to any comments.

Generating a High Quality Network

Ensure you add your Twitter username to all relevant marketing communications. Include it in the event collateral, emails and direct mail. It is key to start building your followers and the owner of the account should then start to follow the relevant Twitter users such as:

• Delegates
• Suppliers
• Speakrs
• Prospect Delegates
• Those in the local community
• Those from relevant industries

It is important that the account generates a high quality network, the quality of your followers is more important than the quantity of your followers. Ensure that you continue to update your Twitter account with interesting and relevant information on the event and try not to leave the acount inactive. You should work towards ensuring your network consists of relevant, high quality users; those in your industry and those who can help promote your event further.

What should you tweet about?

This is a toughie, planning your tweets can be a pretty daunting task. It is vital tht you come across as useful, engaging, helpful and interesting. If you are constantly promoting your own agenda this does not tend to do well on Twitter. Therefore the goal is to share information, provide advice and help to others and to become a trusted platform for those in your industry. But this still doesn't answer what you should be tweeting about, my suggestion would be things like:

• Event announcements - new speakers, new key delegates, sponsors etc
• Updates - Changes to agenda, location, registration process etc
• Answer Questions - people might ask questions about the event - the speakers, presentation items, logistics
• Ask Questions - Ask your network of follower's questions that can help improve the event, engage with your followers, what do they hope to achieve from the event, what presentations are they looking forward to, what do they think can be improved?
• Retweet (RT) - This is where you RT another users tweet, such as positive feedback regarding the event that you'd like to share, tweets from suppliers or sponsors talking about the event, industry news, anything you deem as worth sharing to your followers
• Links to useful content - If you come across an article online that is relevant to your event or industry you can tweet a link to the relevant web page.

In part 3 of our Twitter and events blog post we wil be covering Managing your Twitter account and responding to negative tweets. If you would like more information on Improving your events using Twitter then please download our Whitepaper, "The Benefits of Twitter to the Event Management Industry" or if you would like to talk to one of our team about your event software requirements then please contact us

Tweet

All organisations are singing to the same tune "be more efficient, reduce those costs but maintain if not increase the level of service we offer".  So if you are an event manager how do you do more with your events for less and better with your events for less? Reducing the number of events that you run is one way of handling budget cuts, however a more effective and proactive way would be through automation of your event processes. An increasing number of event managers are starting to sway towards implementing event software into their business, as technology grows and develops you will find a solution that will fit with your budget, the investment is justified as the right software will increase efficiency and in the long term start to reduce costs.

This blog is split into two parts, the first part of this blog will look at event software providing efficiency savings for local authorities and will demonstrate how the implementation of an online event software solution with a fully featured self service portal will enable authorities to monitor, manage and control all services online. We will be looking specifically at the registrar service offerd by local authorities, births, deaths and marriages.

A good stat to start with is through the implementation of an intelligent online self serve portal, you can lower your costs by up to 80% with these incredible stats more and more local authorities are adopting intelligent workflows and automating their processes through the use of technology  and through this technology they are increasing access of services to their citizens via their website allowing their citizens to simply book an appointment (register a birth or death or a marriage notification) at their convenience, increasing the efficiency of the service offered and simultaneously reducing the cost to the local authority.

When booking an appointment with a registrar for a notice of marriage, the criteria required to book such an appointment is dependent on a huge and complex number of variants. Applicants must answer a set of questions such as whether it is a civil partnership or not, nationalities, country of residence, district they live in, age, time of residence in said district etc.  An online self service booking portal in such a case provides a journey for the citizen/delegate asking them these required qualification questions, leading to the final stage of allowing them to book an appointment online (if they meet the set criteria). If they are unable to book an appointment due to a failure to meet the requirements, the reasons are explained along with action steps to help them get to the next stage in the process. Giving citizens/delegates the ability to book appointments online in this way ensures the registrars time is utilised efficiently.

As a local authority below are some fundamental reasons why you should invest and implement an online self service booking portal:

·         Ability to provide an intelligent workflow and journey for your citizen

·         Enables you to manage the registrars time resourcefully and efficiently

·         Will ensure your website provides an efficient and relevant information flow

·         Enhances the efficiency of diary management of the registrar

·         Will provide relevant reporting stats

·         Reduces administration staff and costs

·         Provides more for less and better for less

·         Increases access of services to citizens

·         Allows you to better accommodate your citizens - doesn’t restrict when the citizen can access the service (24/7)

·         Provides an enhanced self service booking portal

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Find a venue, make sure it is the right venue, select your target delegate audience, send branded invites, register the delegates, take payment if required, send communication to those registered delegates, schedule speakers, manage workshops, produce badges and barcodes, produce reports...wow...the list goes on and on..but is this sounding all to familiar? Managing a conference is complicated, time consuming and extremely hard work. More and more conference and event managers are starting to use a managed service to handle all these tedious tasks for them leaving them free to get on with the more important areas of managing a conference.

Most conference and event managers will look at an event management company to manage their conference for them, however, these companies still need to utilise the relevant event technology, such as; invitation management tool, microsite builder, online registration, email communication with your delegates and a report writer to analyse your event stats. This all starts to add up in cost and becomes a financial drain and more than likely your budget won't extend to these extras. Here at evocos we did our research and recognised their was a real need from the events market for this kind of service and on the back of this research we have launched an Event and Conference Managed Service to help you manage your conference, minisming cost and increasing efficiency. 

Our conference and event service will do the following for you:

• Affordable flat fee to manage the conference for you
• Design & create a website branded to your corporate specifications
• Liaise with your event & marketing team to ensure correct brand specifications
• Configure & upload your delegate database  
• Send branded e-invites to your known users
• Provide a single click transaction from e-invite to personalised & branded landing page
• Allow your delegates to register online through your website
• Customise your online booking form per event
• Enhance delegate liaison by managing a delegates full day itinerary
• Maintain & manage delegate registration and information
• Send automated delegate booking email confirmations
• Produce customised reports based on your specific event and delegate requirements
• Produce personalised delegate packs tailored specifically to each individual delegate
• Collate and store relevant information and produce delegate badges prior to the event
• Ensure total control over access through production of individual barcode security
• Provide a comprehensive schedule of all one to one meetings, workshops, seminars

The events market is a tough industry and everyone remembers your "last conference or event" so it is crucial that your conference or event is a success. Why don't you call and speak to one of our team to ask for a free demonstration of how our new Managed Conference and Event Support Service will ensure your event is a success at a very competitive and cost effective price.

In the first part of this blog we covered what the cloud actually means and what it means to an event manager, starting with Google Docs. The second part of this blog covers a cloud based event management software and how this can play a key role in the organisation and management of events.

Event Management Software
More and more event managers are starting use event management software within their organisation and incorporating this into their day to day event processes. Comprehensive event management softwre includes features such as:

• Website Integration: Seamless integration with your website gives delegates a smoother, safer journey and ensures you stay with in your coporate brand guidelines.
• Online Registration: Creating fully customisable online booking forms on your own website capturing the most relevant information from your delegates
• Onlie Payment Processing: Allow your delegates to pay online in a safe, secure environment
• Invitation Management: Make sure you are targeting the right prospect delegates with an integrated invitation management tool
• Email Marketing: Powerful, integrated and fully functional email marketing tool to send highly targeted email campaigns to delegates and prospects
• Badge Production: Save time by producing personalised badges quickly and effectively.
• Resource Management: Simply manage all your resources through a comprehensive calendar
• Integrated Reporting and Analysis: Ensure you can determine the true ROI of your events though a powerful reporting and analysis suite - quickly and simply drill down to the event data in matter of seconds.
• Event Survey: Created integrated, customisable and automated surveys for effective feedback management

Event software can help event managers create more effective, successful events. Research has shown that during the current economic downfall, many event companies have begun to take advantage of the benefits of automation and event technology to help stay afloat. Inicreasing efficiency and reducing the cost of hosting events is helping to increase the return on investment provided to both the event company and to the delegates attending.

A cloud based event management solution will offer you the opportunity to manage event teams and service delegate and booker requests, from any location at any time. Simultaneousy, event promotions, bookings and cancellations and updates can also be undertaken using the internet as a key delivery vehicle.

From the event managers point of view, event management software on the cloud will take care of high volumes of outbound transactios (e-newsletters, invitations, etc) and inbound transactions (event bookings modifications, cancellations etc), saving time and money, whilst giving delegates a smoother and improved experience.

From a management point of view, a cloud based event management solution provides the mechanism to be in real time control of all event activities - event managers are able to get an accurate view of the state of active events, what stage particular event marketing campaigns are at and the feedback being received on your on-going events programme. Third party partners - trainers, speakers, sponsors, caterers, venue managers, etc - can also be granted easy eaccess, in a secure fashion, to the event related details that they need access to and can respond to any event changes that affect them, again on a real time basis.

Having a cloud based event management solution in place opens up significant opportunities for integrating the solution with complimentary applications and solutions both internally and externally. For example:

Internally

• Finance applications
• Customer and contact management solutions

 Externally

• Partner websites
• Third party online payment providers
• Social networking environments

With a cloud based event management solution, the management of events becomes wholly a business issue with the IT issues being handled by the cloud application provider. The avilability of the events management solution, the backing up and securing of data, as well as the scalability of the solution in times of peak activities are all handled, transparently, by the cloud applications provider.

For further information on cloud based event management software, please contact the evocos team

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Everyone is talking about "the Cloud" but what does it all mean? And more importantly what does it mean to an event manager?

Firstly a little background on "the Cloud", cloud computing is the delivery of shared resources, software and information over the Internet. It is still a relatively new delivery model for IT services and provides users with a completely different way to use and manage their IT software and platforms. The most common way to use cloud computing is through a subscription service or pay a monthly fee to use a particular software solution and instead of the software being installed on a user's computer directly, the user accesses the software remotely, via their web browser. Some of the generic benefits of cloud computing include:

• Cost: Cost can be greatly reduced since capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure, lowering the barriers to entry
• Local Independence: Users can access systems using a web browser, regardless of their location or device they are using
• Scalability and Peak Load Capacity: using software on the cloud means that companies can manage peaks in demand with ease
• Reliability: Reliability is improved making it a safer option with regards to disaster recovery
• Maintenance: This is easier on cloud computing since the software is not installed on the user's computer; meaning that support and upgrades are managed and taken on by the provider themselves.

Event managers are starting to understand how they can take this development in IT and use it to help improve the management and quality of their events. This post will look atevent management and the cloud and will highlight two popular event software solutions that can be deployed via the cloud. Event managers can take avdantage of cloud computing and use it to improve efficiency and reduce the cost of their events.

Two of the most popular cloud software solutions for event managers are:

Google Docs
Google Docs is a fantastic example of cloud computing. Traditionally, working off a master document on a conventional server or network could cause many issues such as:

• Not knowing if you're working on the most recent version
• Only one person at a time being able to gain access
• Ony those working on the server/network would be able to access the document
• Issues with duplication

Hosting documents on the cloud means that key members of the event team (and external partners and suppliers) can access documents at any time from any location. There is also no limit to the number of peope who can view the document at any time, all updates are made in real time, and there are no issues with document duplication. Additionally, hosting documents on the cloud is also safer, since they are not relying on the security of the network or server they would normally be kept on.

I will be posting the next part of this blog shortly which will cover the second most popular cloud software solution for event managers.

In the meantime if you would like more information on evocos or event management and the cloud then please contact us.

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In part one of the blog "How Event Software Can Benefit Your Delegates" we covered Website Integration, Online Registration & Online Payment as some of the ways that can help make the delegate journey that much smoother.

In the second and final part of the blog we will be covering Improved Communication, Fewer Errors, Supplier Management & Access to Data.

Improved Communication

Most event software solutions will include various methods of communication that event managers can use to contact their delegates. At the point of registration, delegates can select the method that they would most prefer to be contacted by; email, post, telephone, SMS, social media etc. good quality event management software solutions will come with fully integrated communication tools to enable a variety of options to be used;

• Email: Integrated email tools means that event managers can send out targeted emails to specific groups of delegates. These email tools let event managers split delegates into groups based on various criteria so that communication is as focused as possible. Full reporting tools ensure event managers can track email opens, click and overall success rate
• SMS: Event managers can use their event management software to send out text messages to delegates, easily and efficiently.  If this is the chosen method of communication of delegates, this can be managed and tracked with ease via the software
• Social Media: Event software can be integrated with a host of social media networks. Managing your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account from one central platform makes it easy to communicate with delegates - keeping them instantly abreast of all event news and updates.

Fewer Errors

Managing an event with event software makes it far less likely that errors will occur on the day of the event. Event software will include a "Resource Module" or something similar that will assist the event manager with tracking all elements of an event - from the suppliers, delegate numbers, badge printing, personalised itinieraries, presenters and more. Many of the elements that previously were manual and time comsuming can be automated via the software - activities like the printing of delegate badges. Although a small part of an event, if a delegate arrives and there is not a badge printed for them or their name is misspelt, can cause issues for both the delegate and the event manager. Having a smooth running event will increase delegate satisfaction and will result in an improved level of feedback and repeat attendance.

Supplier Management

Most events will work with suppliers at some point - whether it's the venue, catering, transport or material production. It's important that suppliers are managed tightly and that communication between delegates, event managers and supplier is smooth. For example, durng the registration process, delegates can state if they have any dietary requirements. Using the evnt software, catering suppliers can be given their own logon, giving them direct access to all delegate numbers and all their dietary requirements. Eliminating the event manager from this stage now frees up the event manager to focus on more productive tasks, but also reduces the risk of errors being made as the communication is passed down the line.

Access to Data

Event software can be hosted online, which means event managers can gain access to all the information regarding the event at any time and from any place (internet access required). On the day of the event, if tehre are any issues or pblems, event managers can easily resolve these, since they can access all the data relating to the event.

Taking the time to invest in an event management software is an effective way of running professional, successful events, where event managers and delegates can benefit from improved communication and an improved event experience.

Please contact us if you would like more information our online event software solution, evocos.

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Even though event software can help event managers plan more successful events with a greater level of efficiency, the benefits do not just extend to the event managers and team who use it but to the delegates as well. They can reap the rewards of more flexible and appropriate communciation, fewer errors, improved event experiences and delegate journeys.

Event management software can be a fantastic tool for event managers - helping them to manage more successful, efficient events. The benefits extend beyond time and cost savings; delegates will often benefit directly from attending events that are managed using event software.

Website Integration
Utilising event software will allow events managers to publicise and promote their event on their own website. With 8 out of 10 people researching events online, it is now more important than ever that prospect delegates can find information of your event on your website. Having the event software integrated into your corporate website will mean that information on the event can be promoted with the same "look and feel" and on the same domain, providing a sense of trust to the delegate.

Online Registration
Once the delegate has found an event on the Internet, being able to given them the ability to register online is a huge benefit. People are increasingly used to being able to carry out activities and transactions online and allowing them to register there and then is not only convenient for the delegates but will also increase registration rates. By allowing delegates to register online also reduces errors with regards to delegate information - things like name, address & contact information are more likely to be entered correctly by the delegate. This will reduce problems later on down the line.

Online Payment
Event management software solutions should come with the ability to handle online transactions. As the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) stated in July 2010: "E-commerce is having a huge impact on the way we do business. It can lead to dramatic growth in trade, increase markets, improve efficiency and effectiveness and can transform business processes." So the benefits of taking online payments is clear – both to the event holders and the delegates. For delegates, paying online is a fast and easy way to secure their position at the event. Event software offers a facility which allows delegates to choose their preferred method of payment using a variety of leading online payment engines, such as' Worldpay, Protix, Google pay, Paypal etc, via a secure website. Using event software will also provide a level of trust to delegates, as it will not record or retain any sensitive payment details.

For the event manager, taking payments online reduces paper work and helps to improve cash flow. It eliminates any late payments and reduces admin as invoices and other documents do not need to be manually created and sent out. After taking payment online, the event software can automatically update the finance system and issue a receipt to the delegate.

We will be covering Improved Communication, Fewer errors, Supplier Management and Access to Data in part two. However in the meantime if you would like more information regarding evocos event software then please do not hesitate contact us

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In the first part of the blog we covered how to create a LinkedIn Group  for effective event management, the second part of the blog will cover the promotion of this group with the aim of building  up a strone network, allowing you to discuss key industry topics, learn from peers and promote your events.

Once the group has been created, you need to start adding members to your group, I mean who wants to join a group that doesn't have any members? Start inviting colleagues (past and present) and your existing customers to join and encourage them to start discussions within the group.

Once you have started to build up a small membership base, promote the group on your website, email signature, newsletter, blog and other social media sites. Make sure you are promoting your group wherever possible and make it easy for people to join. If you are using Twitter and Facebook, you should consider creating new accounts to match your LinkedIn group. This will enable members to network across all major social media platforms, but still providing all the same messaging, content and industry focus.

Before the event, if you have industry leaders speaking at your event, encourage them to join the group and engage with the community, pre and post event. They could start up threads around agenda topics that can be discussed in the lead up to an event. They can also promote an event by explaining in more details what their involvement is.

Ensure you promote your LinkedIn group at the events, print details of the group on literature you are handing out, ask speakers to mention it in their presentations and mention it when you are networking with delegates.

The thrid and final part of this blog post will cover Managing a LinkedIn Group, however if you would like more information on the services offered by evocos, then please contact us

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