The little black_book

PLANNING YOUR EVENTS JUST GOT EASIER WITH THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK THAT

YOUR COMPETITION DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE! WE’VE COMPILED A DETAILED

LIST OF TECHNOLOGY AND WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS TO HELP YOU STREAMLINE

AND OPTIMISE YOUR EVENT FOR SUCCESS. THE BEST THING ABOUT THE TOOLS

AND APPLICATIONS IS THAT THERE ARE NO SET-UP COSTS, NO SOFTWARE TO

INSTALL, AND NO CONTRACTS.

By ACTIVE Network The Little Black Book of Technology for Event Planners

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Table of Contents

ONLINE REGISTRATION FORMS 3 why use it? 3

how to use it? 5

ATTENDEE MANAGEMENT/ MOBILE EVENT APPS 6

why use it? 6

how to use it? 7

EMAIL MARKETING SOLUTIONS 8

why use it? 8

how to use it? 9

THEME DESIGNER 10

why use it? 10

how to use it? 11

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS 12 why use it? 12

how to use it? 13

SURVEY & REPORTING TOOLS 14 why use it? 14

how to use it? 15


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ONLINE REGISTRATION FORMS

WHY USE IT? 1. REDUCE TIME WASTED PROCESSING PAPER REGISTRATIONS

The manual process of sorting through paper registration forms is not only time

consuming, but can also increase the percentage of human errors in sorting through

and inputting registrant data, giving rise to complications and unhappy attendees.

Online registration eliminates “human errors” when processing registrant information

and automates the registration process saving you hours of time so that you can

focus your efforts on preparing for your event.

“ACTIVE Network provided a quick and easy solution to registrations, capturing all of the data we required on one system, and cutting out over 50% of the admin time required, leaving us to concentrate on marketing and creating new events for our clients.” Kate Parkin, Business Development Manager, Action Challenge UK Ltd.

“Working with ACTIVE and its technology has been great. They have brought a new lease of life to our events and made booking/ managing our events simpler for us here at APS.”

Lynne Kenny, Events Co-ordinator, The Association of Project Safety


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2. IMPROVE THE REGISTRATION EXPERIENCE

Many event planners worry that their registrants would not adapt to the change to

online registration. In fact, making such a change can be beneficial for your

attendees as it gives them greater control over their registration process.

“The flexibility, ease of use and functionality of the system means we are able to manage registrations and offer our event attendees housing options quickly and easily.”

Sacha Zarb, Head of Events and Conferences, NUS.

3. SECURE DATA & PAYMENT PROCESSING

Give your registrants more payment options,

currency types, discount codes and event

registration types. Providing your attendees with

more choice and greater flexibility in terms of

registration types and payment option can vastly

increase your registration and drive greater

conversion for your events.

“Having the registration form and payment gateway under one system is very convenient for us, as we only need to talk to one vendor.”

Felicia Oh-Lee, Resource Development Manager, Habitat for Humanity.


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HOW TO USE IT? ACTIVE offers simple but effective online registration solutions for event organisers

of all sizes. All you need to do is set up a FREE account, enter your event

information, and start building your registration forms.

When setting up your event, make sure you complete your entry and pricing options,

providing discounted or early bird entries. You can have peace of mind knowing that

ACTIVE’s system is PCI Level one compliant so all your payment information and

registrant details are in safe hands!

Make a registration form that converts! You don’t need to be a graphic designer or

have any prior knowledge of HTML to customise your forms. Simply select a theme

for your event registration forms, emails and event site from the extensive library of

sample themes in the Theme Designer, and customise with your own colours, logos

and images.


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ATTENDEE MANAGEMENT/ MOBILE EVENT APPS

WHY USE IT? 1. ACCESS EVENT INFORMATION

AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

One of the major benefits of online

registration and attendee management

tools is that you can access real-time event

and registrant information from your PC or

mobile device.

You can make quick changes and update

event information at a click of a button

and communicate any changes with

your registrants.

“We like the way we know the way the person has registered without us having to check each registration when it comes in. That way we can get all the data we need without us doing any work and that’s a really positive thing.” Jan Latham, Conference & Events Coordinator, Lincoln University


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2. SAVE MONEY

Time is money! You can cut costs by reducing the time spent on event

administration with mobile event apps.

Your registrants can update and amend their own information without your input and

access information on the go while improving their networking opportunities – so

you save time and improve the attendee experience at the same time!

“Using a system which already existed rather than developing a bespoke system meant that not only was this cost effective, it also meant we able to get the system up and running within a matter of weeks.”

Elaine Gallagher, Event Director, Elverys Sports Achill Half Marathon.

HOW TO USE IT? ACTIVE Network’s comprehensive and intuitive dashboard provides event planners

with up-to-date event information and access to all areas of their event quickly and

easily from their PC or mobile device, making event and attendee management a

breeze! You can also utilise the branded mobile event app to improve the attendee

journey at no extra costs.


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EMAIL MARKETING SOLUTIONS

WHY USE IT? 1. INCREASE ATTENDANCE & BOOST ENGAGEMENT

Automate your email communications with your event audience before, during and

after your event in order to increase engagement and boost conversion. Sending out

these emails can be time consuming and take up a lot of resources, but with email

marketing tools you are able to schedule automated sends to your lists – so you can

sit back and relax knowing that your marketing efforts are well on their way!

“ACTIVE Network has been fantastic at providing us with a service we are currently unable to supply in house. They have enabled us to improve our customer facing processes which have made a huge difference to the amount sign-ups and registrations we have received.”

Emily Fitzwater, Treks and Challenges Manager, Teenage Cancer Trust.


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2. IMPRESS YOUR AUDIENCE Using email marketing solutions you can

create and send professional looking emails

to your event audience. Email invitations are

a great way to start, but in order to keep

interest and minimise no-shows you should

also schedule email reminders at different

stages prior to your event.

It is not simply all about your current event;

it’s considered good practice to send out

emails to your attendees after an event

informing them about upcoming events that

you may be organising.

3. GAUGE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR MARKETING

Sending out emails is great, however in order to optimise your future marketing

efforts for maximum results you need to track “open” and “click-through” rates.

HOW TO USE IT? Once you have set-up your FREE account with ACTIVE and created your event,

you can simply upload, manage and segment your distribution lists into the system


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in order to schedule email invitations and reminders. Remember, you can customise

the look of your emails with the Theme Designer to match your brand and style.

THEME DESIGNER

WHY USE IT? 1. CREATE CONSISTENCY ACROSS ALL EVENTS

Make an event that stands out from the competition.

Consistency is essential when designing your marketing materials, event website,

and registration forms and will help to enhance your brand presence.


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2. SAVE TIME AND MONEY

Using a theme designer means that you don’t need to outsource graphic designers

or HTML experts in order to achieve professionally designed marketing materials for

your event. It also means that you can make updates to your website and

registration forms quickly and easily with no outside help.

“ACTIVE was brought on to provide the RideLondon.co.uk website and online entry system for our new flagship event. Launched in front of the world’s media by the Mayor of London, it was essential that the site was professional, robust and could cope with thousands of people simultaneously registering. I have been delighted with ACTIVE’s professionalism, speed of response and commitment to providing a world class experience.”

Hugh Brasher, Race Director, Ride London.

HOW TO USE IT? ACTIVE’s Theme Designer enables you to access all the tools you need to create a

sleek and consistent look and feel across your event website, emails and

registration forms. You can select from a library of images or upload your own, edit

backgrounds, fonts, and layouts.

You also have the freedom of uploading your own CSS to get an exact match in

terms of your current company website and marketing materials. Why pay £££’s to

outsource designers when you can do it yourself?


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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS

WHY USE IT? 1. CREATE A BUZZ AROUND YOUR EVENT

Social media is a great way of expanding your event’s reach and generating a buzz

with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more!

The average user has approximately 130 social contacts so this is an extremely

good way of increasing your event’s profile and expanding your marketing reach -

most of all - it doesn’t cost you a thing!


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2. MAKE YOUR REGISTRANTS YOUR MARKETING MACHINE

Word of mouth and peer-to-peer recommendations are trusted more than company

marketing materials. Encourage registrants to spread the word about their

registration and rally up their friends and colleagues to register for your event and

share it with others.

HOW TO USE IT? Most event organisers do not have the time or resources to promote their event

across various social media platforms. ACTIVE’s Integrated Social Media Promotion

tools take the hassle out of the manual process of social promotion, reducing the

costs and saving you time.

Social share icons are integrated within the event website and registration forms so

that your registrants can share their registration and event information at the click of

a button.

IF SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION ISN’T ENOUGH, ACTIVE ALSO ALLOWS YOU

TO PROMOTE YOUR EVENT TO MILLIONS OF ACTIVE VISITORS THROUGH

FREE LISTINGS ON ACTIVE.COM, EVENTFUL AND UPCOMING.

All you need to do to get your event listed is simply enter your information, upload

an image or logo and you are good to go!


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SURVEY & REPORTING TOOLS

WHY USE IT? 1. GO GREEN

Worried about your carbon footprint? Go green with electronic surveys and provide

your attendees with an easily accessible and convenient way of providing their

feedback without carrying around large clipboards and pens.

2. SIMPLIFY THE PROCESS FOR YOUR ATTENDEES

Make it easy for you attendees to provide their feedback. One of the benefits of

using online surveys as opposed to paper surveys is that you can apply conditional

logic to your survey questions so that your attendees only see questions that are

relevant to them. You can also utilise your mobile event app to work with your

survey tools so that attendees can fill out your survey from an iPhone, Android, or

any other mobile device on the day of your event while the memory of the

experience is still fresh in their mind.

SAVE TIME AND GAIN INSTANT ACCESS

Another benefit of paper-less surveys is that you can gather and review feedback

electronically without having to trawl through masses of paper surveys and manually

inputting data into excel sheets. You can also send event surveys automatically and

track results in real-time.


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“We are able to get customised reports and can easily extract whatever information we want, which saves us a lot of time.” Felicia Oh-Lee, Resource Development Manager & Spokesperson, Habitat for Humanity.

3. IMPROVE YOUR EVENT

With detailed reports, graphs and

charts with cross event data, you are

able to make an educated data-driven

decision about how to improve and

optimise your future events.

HOW TO USE IT? ACTIVE’s survey tools can help you gather important feedback, before, during and

after your event. Creating your survey is a simple process with ACTIVE as you can

match your survey design to your event website with the Theme Designer and use

conditional logic formatting for your questions. Although you have the option of

creating custom surveys with unlimited questions, try to keep your survey as user

friendly and short as possible so that it doesn’t take your attendees longer than 5

minutes to complete!

You don’t need to rely on outside agencies for your event analysis and reporting

needs. ACTIVE’s custom reporting tools enable you to create unlimited reports and

share them in real-time with your event stakeholders.


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LEADER IN ACTIVITY AND PARTICIPANT MANAGEMENT Often when we speak to event directors, we get asked “You guys provide online registration software, don’t you?” The answer is yes we do, but we really do so much more than that. We are your marketing magicians, your pricing advisers, your best practices buddies, and more. We are your event partner and we are as dedicated as you are to growing your event and the industry. We also attend a lot of events, so as participants we have a special insight into your world.

IMPRESS YOUR EVENT AUDIENCE

→ EVENT WEBSITE CREATOR

INCREASE ATTENDANCE

→ EMAIL MARKETING

EXTEND YOUR REACH

→ SOCIAL PROMOTION TOOLS

SAVE TIME

→ ONLINE REGISTRATION

SIMPLIFIED EVENT MANAGEMENT

→ PARTICIPANT MANAGEMENT

TRACK EVENT SUCCESS

→ ADVANCED REPORTING TOOLS

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

UNITED KINGDOM & IRELAND SINGAPORE AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND +44 (0) 207 554 0949 +65 6692 6072 1800 229 019 0800 452 608

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