Event Management – Why Membership & Events Should Go Together

Introduction

There are a lot of great Event Booking systems out there, including Eventbrite, Cvent and Eventsforce. So why did we choose to build a fully-featured event and conference booking and management engine into Subscribe360, and why is it the right choice for membership organisations?

Member Event Pricing & Enforcement

The answer is that nearly all of the membership organisations we talked to wanted to offer member-only events and member-only pricing. This isn’t possible with these stand-alone event platforms without compromises such as honesty based bookings. The other big issue is that the data is held in two places, removing a key benefit of CRM – "one source of truth".  Some organisations want to go one step further with a requirement to support member-only events that can only be seen by members. This may be restricted further with the event restricted to specific grades of membership. 

Taking this into consideration, we decided that the Subscribe360 Event & Conference functionality had to be baked into Subscribe360. However, it would need to be fully featured, with no compromises on the booking or management functionality.

Out of the Box Event Portal

Out of the box, Subscribe360 provides a fully-featured Event booking system fully integrated with the member’s portal. This ensures that the booking engine can display tickets and options, based on the contact's membership status. 
 

Key requirements that the portal and booking engine had to support included:

• Public Event Listing with category, region and date filters
• Member-only Event Listing
• Member and Non-Member Pricing
• Discount voucher support
• Inventory management, e.g. limit the number of non-member tickets
• Invoice and online payment options
• Control event booking options, e.g. dietary or guest information
• Full waiting list support
• Support for multiple attendees per booking
• Control the number of attendees per organisation and per booking
• Complete control over portal branding, allowing seamless integration with the main website
• Secure delegate-only pages, automatically created for each event – share joining information and pre/post-event materials
• Automated population of billing and shipping information
• Seamless integration with leading payment gateways as standard
• Attendance management
• Mobile and Tablet App to book in attendees

Guided Booking Process

The booking process is fully guided in both the portal and within the Subscribe360 management interface. This allows an Event Manager to pick up and complete a booking over the phone if necessary.
 

Member Engagement & CPD

Having event management integrated also allows Subscribe360 to automatically allocate member engagement scores for Contacts booking and attending an event. In addition, if Continuing Professional Development (CPD) scores are allocated to the event, this will be automatically added to the Contact’s record when they attend the event, e.g. 5 points for attending.  This also provides seamless reporting with a clear link between the Event and CPD / Engagement records.

Waiting lists

Comprehensive waiting list support is provided as standard. This includes automated communications with those in the waiting list in order of booking when spaces become available. This automation of the waiting list saves staff time and provides an excellent service for members.

Remarketing

The opportunity to remarket and follow up on incomplete event bookings is provided as standard with Subscribe360. It makes use of the Dynamics 365 sales process when booking events, allowing us to tap into the out-of-the-box sales functionality and reporting. This ensures that if someone starts booking an event on the portal but does not successfully check out, then an Open Sales Opportunity will be available in the CRM. The Dynamics 365 marketing facilities can then target these Contacts, increasing revenue and event profitability.

Event Finance Management

Subscribe 360 allow the Event Manager to record all costs and revenues for events, allowing the organisation to assess event profitability and viability.   This can include items such as venue hire costs, setup costs, staff costs, sponsorship revenue, ticket sales etc.

Summary

Having event and conference management within Subscribe360 not only provides a better experience for the member but also ensures that membership organisations maximise revenue and that events are an integrated part of the membership experience.

To see the Subscribe360 Event & Conference system in action and how it can be part of your membership transformation project, contact us today.