Building an « EventTech stack » for better (virtual) event ROI

25 March 2021 –  Takes 5 minutes to read

More and more we notice mention of “MarTech stack” and “EventTech stack”. The abundant number of technologies available has created the need to help professionals to select and integrate the technologies they need. Building a “stack” is a project that serves the purpose of selecting and integrating the right technology.

The context : the MarTech stack

A MarTech stack is an infrastructure, composed of various marketing supporting technologies. Thanks to their collective functionalities they help marketing professionals to reach their objectives such as lead generation and customer loyalty, as effective as possible.

Endless combinations of technologies are possible to build this infrastructure. The annually published MarTech landscape shows an ever growing number of solutions, a stunning 4,500% in 8 years’ time, with over 7000 solutions available today. The approach chosen to build a MarTech stack depends on factors like the position of marketing in an organization, its long-term strategy and the way it interacts with customers.

Typically, a MarTech stack contains technologies around the following marketing topics:

• Collaboration: technologies that serve the marketing team and external co-workers to collaborate effectively
• Customer Data: databases and related technology to analyse these
• Content: tools to create, manage and distribute marketing content
• Connections/Interactions: technologies that support the interactions between the organization and its prospects and customers (email, websites, events, social media)
• Contacts: tools to capture and manage contact data

In recent years event technology has found its place in this universe, with a wealth of new tools. It is not a surprise that 75% of event organizers admit that they have a hard time to find their way in this overwhelming offer*. For them, building an EventTech stack could be a way to pinpoint and succeed their selection.

75% of event organizers admit that they have a hard time to find their way in the overwhelming offer of event technology*

*Research 2019 by Eventsforce

Building an EventTech stack

If you want to build your own EventTech stack the following steps are recommended:

1. Note how you are organizing your events. Example: with or without agency, with a centralized or virtual team
2. Define your event strategy and event objectives. Example: lead generation, paid or free events, virtual or live events
3. Position per step in the event organizing cycle the apps or technologies that you already use and that you want to keep using
4. Select the apss or technologies that enrich and complement your stack while integrating with your legacy
5. Integrate the EventTech stack with the MarTech stack.

The result of this project could look like below:

You will note the presence of some solutions that are not specific to events, like Asana, and also the position of the solutions from the MarTech stack (showing perfectly where their role for events is)

An EventTech stack for virtual events will contain specific technology like:

• The virtual event platform with all its tools for content management and measurement of participant behavior
• Polling tools like Slido

This technology replaces the technology mentioned in steps 3 “Event management on-site” and 4 “Participant engagement” as these steps are replaced by online activities in virtual events.

Beyond technology: integration in the sales process

For 60% of the organizations having an EventTech stack in place, measuring the quality of their leads is a priority, 53% of them trace the contribution of events to sales results ****. This shows the importance of event generated leads for the commercial process: in order to reach objectives like the number of marketing qualified leads and to constantly nurture the sales funnel, events are essential. Event applications which support this approach are highly relevant in this context.

For instance a good app to scan and qualify event leads makes all the difference here. Such an app should be integrated with CRM and Marketing Automation systems in place and ideally inject leads in real-time. Automated attribution rules of leads to sales staff can further accelerate the process of follow-up of event leads without losing precious time.

More and more organizations demand that event leads are not only followed at the entry of the funnel but along the full sales process. The end result of this approach is that the Return on Investment of events can be measured and event budget can be justified.

An EventTech stack that runs smoothly

Building your EventTech stack means kicking off a project that deserves the involvement of experts. Certainly, some holes in competences and experiences of your marketing and IT teams can be closed with expert help. We often see help is needed for:

• Understanding of event technologies and their integration with the legacy marketing systems
• Development of processes to utilize and benefit from the EventTech stack
• Transfer of knowledge for a steep learning curve of those involved
• Understanding of data management and data security

The benefits that you reap from a smoothly running Event Tech stack in terms of Return on event Investment are such, that time, budget and effort to create an EventTech stack are absolutely worth it.

Sources

** Research 2019 by Hubb and BizBash

*** Market research 2019 done by Bizzabo and Cvent, and by Harvard business Review Analytics Services – The Event Marketing Revolution, 2018

**** Harvard business Review Analytics Services – The Event Marketing Revolution, 2018

---

Preparing for an online event

7 October 2020 –  Takes 5 minutes to read

The past months have seen an explosion of virtual events, platform offers, new studios and apps. This explosion is easy to explain: going virtual is the best alternative to hold (big) events. Before the corona crisis hardly 40% of marketing managers ever organized a virtual event.

LEF m&e already had, prior to the corona-pandemic, experience in organizing virtual and hybrid events. For this reason we could hit the ground running and accompany our clients in holding exceptional virtual events.

Our experiences from the past few months confirm what we knew, and we are happy to share.

Before doing that a definition of virtual event: for us this is each (partly) online held event, in whatever format (webinar, conference, exposition, round table, etc.)

Preparing a virtual event

In the preparation phase it is important to describe and quantify the objectives of your virtual event. Why would you like to hold a virtual event? What does your company want to get out of it?

The nice thing about virtual events is that most platforms allow fine tracking of participant behavior. You are collecting precious data in this way, putting you in a position to easily measurethe “Return on Investment” (ROI) of your event. Your objectives drive the choice of a platform to run the event on.

With this in mind, we would like to bring to your attention a few points that help you to prepare the best way possible:

#1 Propose a “virtual experience”

• Avoid turning an event that was planned to happen live into a virtual format
• Include participant interaction
• Propose short presentations
• Integrate engagement and gamification

#2 Beware of recently developed platforms

• Many suppliers of events apps dived into the virtual event business and built platforms rapidly.
• Some of them are good, but we have also seen platforms that have been launched too soon.

#3 Prior to signing a contract for any platform: test it with a mock event and also test the suppliers’ support

#4 Study the suppliers’ budget for the platform carefully: often additional costs are not clearly explained and could pop up when having more participants than expected or taking longer to run the event

#5 Make sure that the contract for the platform covers support before and during the event sufficiently

#6 If you are broadcasting live: chose a reliable steaming service

#7 Select an experienced production company with experience in virtual events or television productions

#8 Write a full script for your event and run through these before the event

Make a table in which the whole event is scripted, per sequence. Number the sequences and note:

• Their duration in seconds
• Who is on camera
• How will the lights be
• What happens to sound
• The camera position and effects
• Use of other visual elements (slides, videos)
• Instructions for the use of apps, like Q&A, polling or games
• Run through your script during a rehearsal. Appoint a few people who play the critical participant

#9 Communicate creatively and make clear why your virtual event is worth attending (and not the 1,000 others).

• 

• 

D-Day, the execution

This article in itself shows that a successful virtual event depends largely on good preparations. But also on the day of the event a few points are worth some extra attention:

• For events with multiple speakers and interactions we always recommend a show-caller. Involve this person in the rehearsal.
• Have a backup plan handy to cover any issue that may occur. The rehearsal is not a guarantee for smooth execution
• Keep your production team in one location, this will help if they need to react quickly

Follow-up after the event

The nice thing about virtual events is that you can see results and share leads with your sales team almost immediately when it’s over.

• Ensure that you have determined prior to the event what you will do with all the data and where these should go (CRM, Marketing Automation system). Prepare your systems for the import of the new data and ensure processes for their further use
• Measure the ROI of your virtual event: this is fully possible once the time of your average sales-cycle is over
• Note your experiences immediately and exchange about them with your team. This way you won’t forget ideas that will improve your future virtual events.

Finally

Did you enjoy your first virtual event experiences after the outbreak of corona? You will for sure recognize elements from our story. We love to hear what your experiences are!

Our story gives on purpose the impression that an “amazing virtual event experience” is hard work. We hope to have made clear that technology is not driving your event but that it is a big success factor. Everything about your virtual event needs to be well orchestrated: the content, the speakers, the technology, the extra’s that make your event special… Unfortunately one bad virtual event will drive away your participants for all the next ones.

So, don’t hesitate to involve professionals if organizing virtual events is not your daily job. You know where to find us. 😊

^{Free pictures by https://unsplash.com/}