The Importance of Event Efficiency – Improved Event Performance

Our final post on event efficiency focuses on the benefits of improved event performance; being able to efficiently run events has a huge impact on the performance of the event. Delegates will have an improved experience if the event runs smoothly and without errors. Being efficient ensures that delegates have an enjoyable and error free journey – from the point of booking, to payment, registration on the day, experiencing the event and providing post event feedback.

Events with efficiency issues are likely to be poorly managed, with errors and mistakes causing delegates to have unsatisfactory experiences. Ensuring that you provide the best possible experience for delegates is vital for the success of future events.

Increasing delegate attendance is something many organisations struggle with, and if an organisation has issues over its reputation, due to their inefficiency, that will have a knock on effect on future event registrations. A key part of successful events is building up reputation in the industry and generating a long list of loyal, repeat purchase delegates.

Finally, being an efficient event manager also means that they are able to organise more than one event at a time. For companies that are based solely around event organisation, or for companies that just happen to host  many events, this is a vital part of the event management process. Event managers must be able to successful organise the planning and running of multiple events and this can only be done if they are working to best practice, efficient event processes.

Improving Event Efficiency

Event managers can help to improve the efficiency of their working practices by making use of event management software. Event software is able to take best practice event processes and automate and manage them from one central platform. Removing inefficient spreadsheets from the process and working on a software solution designed specifically for event management had proven to have huge cost and time saving benefits.

Event management software solutions are able to manage all areas of event planning from:

• Website Integration
• Online Registration
• Event Communication
  • E-Invite
  • Email
  • E-Survey
• Badge Production
• Resource Management
• Management of Financials
• Event Reporting and Analysis

With the event management industry being hit with rising costs and lower delegate attendance, it’s vital that companies organising events fight back by being as efficient as possible and continually improving their processes. It is the companies that tackle efficiency issues head on, and employ the use of technology who will ensure their events are successful now and in the future.

To find out how to improve your event efficiency, contact us and we can provide a free event health check on your event management process or provide you with a one to one demonstration of an event management software solution.

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The Importance of Event Efficiency – Cost Savings

Following on from our last post on the importance of efficient event management in order to save time in the event management process, this post focuses on why it’s vital event managers work efficiently in order to save money.

The common phrase ‘time is money’ is extremely applicable in event management. Having an event manager who is efficient at their job, who understands and follows best practice event management processes and who has good relationships with efficient suppliers is a vital part of generating a high and fast ROI. Poor event managers can cost an organisation huge amounts of money through their poor efficiency and organisation.

Working with suppliers and building good relationships can also save money – the better the relationship, the more likely that supplier discounts will be involved. Running efficient events also means paying your suppliers on time – a vital part of gaining supplier discounts and bonuses.

An ineffective event manager will cost an organisation through the mistakes they make. Doubling up on orders, missing vital parts of the process and other mistakes can be costly in terms of the time it takes to resolve, but also through being forced to purchase items at the last minute.

Our next post will conlcude with the benefits of improved event performance and delegate satisfaction from having an efficient event management process. To read about the benefits of time savings – view our previous post: Time Saving Blog Post.

If you’d like to find out how you can save money by becoming more efficient, then contact us and we can provide a free event health check on your event management process or provide you with a one to one demonstration of an event management software solution.

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The Importance of Event Efficiency – Time Savings

In the current economic climate, it’s vital that event managers work as efficiently as possible. Managing successful events is a time consuming and complicated process. It can take many years of training and on the job experience for an event manager to become extremely effective at what they do.

This series of blog posts will be looking at three areas of event management where efficiency gains can be made:

• Time savings
• Cost savings
• Improved event performance

This post will be looking at the importance of efficiency in order to gain time savings:

Working to an efficient process has huge benefits in terms of time savings. Creating processes that others can follow also means that other team members can assist or take over the management of an event with ease.  Team members are able to understand quickly what stage of planning the event is at; cutting down on meetings and training sessions.

Many event managers will create and update their processes with each event; learning from their experiences to make the process of managing each event more effective and efficient. Having a set procedure that is written down means the events can be planned and managed far easier – important areas are never missed out and realistic timescales can be easily produced. Having dedicated processes saves time because event managers do not need to create plans from scratch for each event. They can replicate each event process again and again, building on in and improving it with each event.

Being efficient in the event planning process also helps with event analysis. This includes analysing the performance of suppliers – knowing who has been used in the past to supply goods and services and having details of the relationship can help analyse if this relationship is working at maximum efficiency. It’s vital to understand if suppliers standard are falling, and this can only be done if the event manager is working efficiently and monitoring the relationship with each event.  It is hugely beneficial for event mangers to be able to use the same suppliers over and over again – sourcing new suppliers is an extremely time consuming process. Additionally having suppliers that let you down can be a huge drain on time as event managers try to resolve the issue at the last minute. So understanding and staying on top of existing supplier relationships is a vital part of efficient event management.

Post event, it’s important for event mangers to be able to quickly and efficiently get management information on that event to analyse the success of that event; was there an increase in delegate attendance, did delegates rate the event highly, did you get a good return on investment (ROI) etc. These are important event metrics that must be analysed quickly and efficiently. A common issue event managers have is that they are so busy planning multiple events, that they do not have time for this important event analysis stage. However, it is only by analysing events that you can help to improve the performance of future events.

Our next post will focus on the importance of efficiency in order to save money – a vitally important part of event management in the current climate.

If you’re interested in finding out about the latest best practice event processes, then please call or email us and we can provide a free event health check on your event management process or provide you with a one to one demonstration of an event management software solution.

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Event Software? or Spreadsheets? Which is the Best Way to Manage your Events

Spreadsheet or Event Software?

As an event planner you would have relied heavily on spreadsheets, but this post explains why spreadsheets can be problematic and inefficient.

Spreadsheets are a tried and tested way of managing events – they can track budgets, monitor resources and can be an effective way of creating and managing lists. The main benefit of spreadsheets as an event management tool is the low cost associated with them. The majority of event managers have access to spreadsheets and they are a widely accepted document format.

However, there are a high number of drawbacks if event managers decide to use spreadsheets as their main event management tool. Common issues include:

Poor efficiency: Using spreadsheets is not a very efficient method of managing all the aspects of an event. It is likely that event managers will be using many different spreadsheets, all with dozens of tabs, holding a huge amount of data. Managing all this data within spreadsheets can be confusing to an outsider, and time consuming for all users.

Lost data: Spreadsheets are only as safe as the server/system they sit on. If they are kept on a computer hard drive, there is a risk that all the data will be lost if anything happens to that computer or laptop. Spreadsheets are also prone to freezing/stalling and unless the event manager is accustomed to saving on a regular basis, there is a high risk that data and work will be lost.

Trouble keeping data up to date: Many events have multiple event managers, all using the same spreadsheets to organise and plan various areas. Problems arise when managers update spreadsheets without informing the other event mangers that the spreadsheet has changed. If event managers take a copy of the master spreadsheet and work on that, the master soon becomes out of date. There are also issues when more than one event manger needs to access the spreadsheet at the same time. Only one editable copy can be opened, causing the others to be ‘read only’ – removing the ability to make updates.

Hard to create reports to measure success: A key part of event management is the ability to analyse event success. It is vital to have the ability to understand what makes a particular event successful and what needs to be measured in order to analyse event performance. Using spreadsheets makes this a difficult task. Although creating graphs and charts can be easy on spreadsheets, the amalgamation and sorting of the data can be an extremely complicated and time consuming task. It is quite often the case that when using spreadsheets, the activity of measuring event performance is forgotten or dismissed.

Lack of management information: Similarly to the difficulty in creating reports to analyse performance, there is also a lack of management information overall. For companies organising many events a year it’s important to be able to have a clear picture of these events as a whole; understanding delegate numbers, budgets and other KPIs across all events can help shape event strategy in the future.

If you are planning a large number of events then these problems become much harder to deal with, more event managers are turning towards professional event management software to help manager their events. If the above rings true with you then please call contact us and we can provide a free event health check on your event management process or provide you with a one to one demonstration of an event management software solution.

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Event Software – Do more with Less

Do more for Less - Resource Efficiency

The definition of efficiency savings is providing and maintaining your existing level of services at lower cost. evocos event management software will ensure you do more with less and will increase your efficiency savings through:

• Reduction in staff costs – lower head count required due to automation of processes
• Move towards a paperless office by implementing a fully web based event solution
• No need to outsource the organisation or management of your eventsClosely monitor and maange budgets and costs – ensuring savings are made wherever possible
• Time savings – ensure your event system integrates seamlessly with all internal business applications
• Low implementation costs – giving a fast return on investment (ROI)

Do more with less; one system does the job of many systems

• Manage events
• Online registration & delegate management
• Simplifies the complex scheduling process
• Integrated email marketing tool
• E-survey manager
• Reporting
• Payment process
• Reporting & analysing tool
• Event Checklist
• ROI Measurement

To learn more about how you can make efficiency savings then please contact evocos and we would be more than happy to come and discuss your concerns.

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Integrating your Event Software into your Business

Throughout my blog posts I have touched upon the subject of integrating your event software with your internal business applications but I have never gone into any detail.

Being able to integrate your event software into the internal business systems currently used within your organisation makes for a more efficient solution. Business systems such as CRM solutions (MS Dynamics CRM, SalesForce, Sage SalesLogix etc), finance packages (Exchequer, Sage etc) , HR solutions (SAP, SOA etc) and even bespoke internal business applications will contain data that needs to be updated regularly alongside every event.

Having the ability to automate the event management process through integrating your internal system will remove any errors and will also make the method of updating other platforms far more efficient.

CRM Integration
integrating your event software with your internal CRM system means that contact and company details, together with event booking and attendance records are shared between the two systems. Your CRM solution allows for event bookings and event modifications to be made directly from its own contact records. The CRM user will have complete control of customer event interactions.

Finance Integration
Event related invoices and credit notes can be generated through either your event software or your corporate financial solution, allowing seamless payment transactions to be passed back and forth between your finance solution and your event software.

HR Integration
For internal meetings involving staff attendance to these events can record and update your HR solution ensuring all information is collected.

Bespoke Integration
In addition to the more standard CRM and finance applications, if you have a system that was developed internally and is bespoke to your business requirements, you need to ensure the event software selected has the ability to connect and is flexible enough in it’s architecture to allow you to do so.

Website Integration
Integrating the event software into your organisations own website, means that not only does the delegate gain the benefits from a familiar website, but the event organisers can retain full control over the content and branding of the registration page. Customisable booking forms should be able to be created with ease. The booking forms will be integrated with the back end office systems, updating the records automatically as soon as a delegate registers for an event.

The right event software solutions will have flexible technical architecture and connectors that will allow easy and seamless integration with all your current and future systems. If you would like to talk to evocos in more detail about how our event solution can integrate seamlessly into your business then please contact us.

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FREE Event Health Check

Event Health Check

If you are looking to simplify your events management process but you aren’t sure where to begin, then evocos can help, we are offering, for a limited time only, an exclusive Event Health Check on your event management processes and strategies.

What are the benefits of an Event Health Check?

• Ensuring your events continually hit your targets
• Making your events as effective as possible
• Improve communication with your delegates and internally
• Simplify your event process
• Keep all your event data in one central, easy to find location
• Make your job a lot easier and much more fun!

We appreciate that no two organisations will have the exact same requirements but what we do understand is that there are common areas across all events and we will address these during your Event Health Check. Some of what we will cover include:

• Objective setting
• Communication & engagement strategy
• Event branding
• Resource management
• Delegate registration process

For a full list on what the event health check covers click here

The idea behind the health check is one of our experts would come to your offices and provide an objective audit of your current event processes, this will be done during an interactive 2 hours workshop. We will produce a health report which would provide you with suggestions and advice on how your organisation can improve their event management strategies.

The first 10 customers who take up this offer will also receive a free health check and review of their event software solution requirements this will be included in the Health report.

Find out how you can take advantage of this offer by clicking here FREE Event Health Check

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What Can Event Software Do For You?

Juggling too many spreadsheets?

The management of events whether it be for an internal meeting, a training day or a seminar can be an organisational nightmare. Event planners, more often than not, find themselves trying to manage and juggle multiple spreadsheets. A big issue for an event manager is control; “who updated the last

spreadsheet?” “Is there an additional spreadsheet or document relating to this event in another department?”

So what can implementing an event software do for you?

• Seamlessly integrate into your existing website
• Allows you to register your delegates online
• Automates email invitation process
• Enhances targeted communication to delegates through an integrated email marketing tool
• Quickly and simply produces delegate badges
• Schedules and manages multiple event resources
• Delegates can pay securely online
• Determines event ROI through a comprehensive and integrated reporting and analysis suite
• Establishes better relationships and understands your delegates through an integrated event survey manager

Event managers can gain huge efficiency and control benefits by implementing and utilising a flexible and easy to use event software solution making your job/role that little bit simpler and definitely more efficient.

For further information on event software, contact evocos.

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Events & the Recession, are we really over it?

Are we really over the worst? Has the events industry recovered? Or are we still feeling the lingering effects of the recession? Having recently published the results of an online survey about planning and organisation strategies of event managers in 2010, the results have shown that event managers are planning to host more events in 2010 than in 2009 (Press Release: Event Planning and Organisation Will Increase in 2010).

This is great news, after seeing a two year period of steady decline in the event management industry.

Companies have now started to recognise that events which deliver clear & immediate opportunities back to your business are a great way of meeting this economic uncertainty head on. As a result events are back on the increase again. The industry recognises that it is change not cancellation that is required. These events need to be highly targeted, effective and low key and so we are now getting back to true business events and away from lavish ones.

However budgets are still under scrutiny and you are still expected to “spend smarter”, so how do you ensure you do this? From the outset the objectives and deliverables of the event you are hosting need to be clear. Why are you hosting the event? Are you trying to increase your ROI model? Are you creating product awareness? Whatever the reason may be event management can be used as an effective approach to tackle any economic uncertainty head on. Events can generate more revenue back to your business and sustain your existing customer base.

Over the last two years branding opportunities have been dropped in favour of activities that demonstrate immediate benefits, this means that face to face marketing and networking opportunities are among the easiest to measure if you have the right tools in place.

Being able to quantify results post event is imperative, you want to be able to accurately measure areas such as:

• Cost per delegate
• Overall event profitability
• Projected sales forecasts

You need to constantly review your event results and interrogate your data effectively to give you accurate answers. Good event software solutions can make the evaluation and reporting process simpler and more efficient. Utilising a fully comprehensive integrated reporting suite will provide you with the ammunition vital for securing sponsorship, additional budget and running a successful and profitable event.

Outside of venue costs one of the other largest area of expenditure is marketing, now is the time to review your approach. A reliance on direct mail is expensive and perhaps not as effective so why not try to move a substantial part of your campaign to email or promote yourself via social media sites.

Proper segmentation of your target market will enable you to produce highly targeted and relevant marketing campaigns. An email tool built into an event system enables you to produce branded, highly targeted emails quickly ensuring accurate, highly targeted emails are sent. An integrated email marketing tool will ensure you interrogate your delegate database and drill down to the core audience.

Streamlining and automating your events is essential and using event technology to do this will ensure you keep one step ahead when you are planning, promoting, organising and managing your event. Remember fortune favours the brave and although the future may look mixed there are many positives that can be taken. Organisations that are lithe, innovative and stay one step ahead of this unsteady economic climate will be sure to thrive. Investment and implementation of a cost effective solution, can be seen as a reactive approach to ensure survival.

If you would like more information on our event management software solution, evocos, then please contact us

Part 2 – Why it is Important to Measure Your Event Performance

Following on from post “Part 1 – Why it is Important to measure your event performance” Obtaining information on the event objectives you have identified can be the hardest part of the performance analysis. The difficulties are sourcing this information and converting into valuable data.

Numerous event organisers are looking more and more to technology to help them with this part of the event process. Event management software solutions help event manager’s plans, manage and analyse their events. Some solutions often come with built in reporting and analysis suites, making the measurement of events a much easier task.

For most corporate organisations that manage events lead generation is probably going to be important objective, event management software can help in the identification of lead quality and quantity. If you understand what makes a high quality lead, event managers can create customised registration forms that capture the delegate information that identifies poor and good quality opportunities.

A key metric that is usually difficult obtain but should be measured is understanding the messaging that you are trying to convey to your delegates. By using the event data that has been collected on the day of the event or post event, event planners can improve future events as well as enhancing customer relations with delegates. Once again utilising event management software can help in measuring this metric. By providing comprehensive feedback through a module within an event software solution, event managers can produce surveys which delegates can complete on the day or which can be emailed post event. The results from the online survey can be automatically populated into the event management solution, ready to analyse the results instantly.

Understanding delegates and the responses they have to your event will help event managers to accurately qualify the event sales leads. Event management software provides analysis tools which will allow event organisers to drill down very quickly to the event data which is held on the system. Providing customised reports as well as standard management information reports will show how well booked events are and how successful the event programme is.

If you would like to receive further information on how implementing an event management system can help you measure the success of your event then please do not hesitate to contact us.

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