Conference Registration

How successful will your next email campaign turn out? That all depends on how you set up your graphics and images, how easy it is to customize the system once it's up, and how convenient it is for registrants to access your form with just a few clicks of the mouse. Sound complicated? With Cvent, it doesn't have to be!

Be sure to use a descriptive subject line. It should be one that quickly grabs your audience's attention, while avoiding words such as "Free," "$$$," "Save" and "Discount" that may be red-flagged as spam.

Make your emails content-based. Relay your communications with text and only rely on graphics for support (not for them to "carry" your message). The ultimate goal is to create a good balance between these two elements so that image-heavy emails don't get caught in spam filters, and more potential registrants will receive your message.

Include a clear call to action. Simply ask yourself, "What do I want people to do after reading this email?" For example, if your main purpose is to get someone to register for your event, make sure that's what the email emphasizes.

Finally, choosing when to launch your email event invitation campaign and schedule follow-ups will depend on your preferences and your particular target recipients. That being said, experienced planners advise picking a time between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays to hit as many people as possible. Need to send a lot of emails but can't find the time? Turn to Cvent to solve this problem! We make it easy for you to schedule automatic emails to be sent as often as you'd like, on whichever days and times you deem appropriate.

For many of you, your online event registration form may be a "first touch" point of contact for potential registrants and new members to your organization. Following the guidelines outlined below will ensure that this first impression reflects both your marketing strategy and a high level of professionalism in its design and functionality.

Branding the form to fit your business gives registrants a great visual that will stick in their minds. Cvent allows you to match the look of your website, event emails and other marketing materials with your brand's color schemes, fonts and logos. This provides a personal touch that looks more professional than some generic "cut and paste" design.

Asking for information? Only collect what you really need! When filling out online forms, registrants will appreciate the time you save them if they are only required to answer relevant questions. Cvent wants as many people as possible to complete the registration form for your event, so our registration functions allow you to create different paths for different types of registrants. This way, you don't have to worry about invitees abandoning your form because they won't be forced to provide answers to questions that don't seem applicable to them.

Clearly communicate your customer-focused cancellation and refund policy. With Cvent, you have the flexibility of coming up with appropriate cancellation and refund policies for your events. Once they are established, make sure invitees can clearly view these policies on your registration form. The goal here is to encourage potential registrants to register early while abating any fears associated with a "no refunds" policy.

And finally, make your privacy policy public. Even more so today than in the past, people are concerned about access to their personal and financial information. Show potential registrants that you hold their privacy concerns to the highest standard by assuring them that you are taking careful steps to protect their information and clearly stating how it will be used to avoid any questions or confusion.

By implementing these tactics, you'll secure a professional, registrant-friendly and trustworthy impression for your organization that will prove true after you actually execute those successful events!

As the market leader in online event registration, it was a natural fit for us to build integrations with the leading CRM system, Salesforce.com, and the leading web-conference platform, Webex. 

Our user-friendly Salesforce integration provides Cvent clients with customization options when exchanging data between our application and the system that they currently have in place. With our configuration interface, planners can easily set up event invitee and registrant data to transfer seamlessly between Cvent and Salesforce, replacing the tedious tasks of manually importing and exporting files. The flexibility of our integration allows planners to change the integration settings for each event, sync Cvent contacts with existing leads and contacts to ensure that no duplicates appear in Salesforce, automatically create and assign tasks, and automatically add or update a Cvent invitee's status in Salesforce.

These examples are just some of the features that our clients benefit from. In addition, planners can extract the most recent Salesforce lead and contact data to pre-populate Cvent event forms and have the ability to thoroughly search Salesforce leads or campaigns to enter into a Cvent contact group.

By integrating with Webex, we open the door for people to register for an organization's web-conference right from Cvent. Furthermore, the automatic confirmation and reminder emails provide registrants with the links and access codes for the most updated Webex sessions. And once they participate in Webex, their attendance status can go directly back into Cvent. Again, this only requires the use of a simple configuration interface to reap the benefits of seamless data-sharing.

In the end, Cvent's integrations translate into win-win situations, both for event planners and attendees: we offer ease of use on both ends, without the need to completely overhaul one's current business processes.

For event industry professionals, Cvent can't be beat as the best one-stop-shop: our web-based software offers online event registration, event management, event web site creation, robust reporting, online surveys, and a sourcing tool. In addition, we've rolled out a Destination Guide so planners can focus their site selection and event sourcing efforts by comparing meeting-specific details among international cities.

At Cvent, we understand that you are burdened by the daunting task of coordinating countless aspects of the meeting and event planning process. We want to lift that burden by offering you an abundance of comprehensive resources, along with as much technical support as you need to keep things running smoothly and successfully.

And once you have all the event-related details in place or complete the meeting, you can easily distribute a variety of internal and customer pre- and post-event surveys to capture the valuable feedback that will help your organization in future planning.

The tasks involved with meetings and events can't get any easier or more customizable in look and feel with Cvent, and the seamless integration of all our online tools is extremely helpful because it allows you to have everything housed and connected in one central location.

Intimidated by the thought of taking on a system with multiple components? Just start with one of our offerings. Let us take the bulk of your manual processes and handle them with our impressive products. We're confident you'll want more after getting a little taste of Cvent!

And we're sure you'll find that choosing Cvent to manage all aspects of your organization's event needs is more affordable in the long run than trying to keep up a decentralized system. Once you get comfortable with Cvent's high-quality software, you'll wonder why you haven't stuck with just one "shop" until now.

One of our clients had a consultant training convention this year, which was also their first year using Cvent for event management. The event registration went great, and during a review they mentioned how they definitely wanted to take advantage of the post-event survey to get feedback from their attendees after the event. We brainstormed different ways they could utilize this feature for the event, such as emailing the registrants the survey or making computers accessible on-site so that guests could fill the survey out online before they left.

The client ultimately decided that, because it was an Apple-related event, attendees would fill out the survey on iPods that were located all over the convention. This was a huge success! Every attendee was able to access an iPod and fill out the post-event feedback survey before they even left the event. There was no need to rent computers or purchase any additional hardware, and they were able to ensure the completion of the survey in a way that was easy for all parties involved.

This was not only a huge timesaver for them, but also a great use of their resources to take advantage of the survey. It just goes to show that Cvent's post-event feedback feature, with a little creativity, is flexible and even fun!

One day a client who called into Cvent's Customer Care line had a question regarding emails. While we were fixing the issue, I noticed something strange on her settings for all of her event invitation emails: the automatic send time was set to be midnight on the date she designated for them to go out to her invitees.

When I noticed this odd choice of an automatic send time, I asked the client why she wanted her emails to go out at midnight. She replied that sending emails out in the middle of the night was actually intentional. She wanted her emails to arrive in her invitees’ inboxes at midnight because she wanted them to think that she was up working all night on the event. She thought that this fact would make the invitees feel pity on her, and therefore be more likely to register for her event!

I had to give it to her, it was a creative plan; however, I did have some advice for a better option. I explained a best practice tip that we always recommend: send out emails mid-week, mid-day. This way your emails have the best chance of being read by your invitees because the emails will arrive in a clean inbox, not overloaded from the weekend or the night before. Once I explained this, she was more than happy to change her send by date and time in order to get the best response rate from her invitees.

One year ago, Cvent Meetings & Events blog was born! We've certainly grown—we're now over 1,000 posts strong!

To celebrate, I decided to take a look back at some of the year's highlights with a recap of our 10 most popular posts. Enjoy!

• How to Add Attendees—Not Expenses—to Your Event You can roll out an expensive marketing campaign or turn to discounted event prices to encourage registration, but you don't always have to do so.

• 3 Benefits of Banquetology Usually you'd think that bigger is better when it comes to catering at meetings and events. But in fact banquetology's "less is more" concept can be quite beneficial to planners in a number of ways.

• What to Include in Your Invitation Reminder Emails What can you do to increase your invitation response rate? Reminder emails are the answer.

• 3 Centerpiece Ideas to Save the Environment and Your Budget One area of meeting spend that can definitely get out of hand quickly is that of decor. It's also one that can be very wasteful, especially when it comes to centerpieces. Can you really save on centerpieces and be eco-friendly?

• How to Create a Custom Meeting Request Form In your already busy world, handling multiple meeting requests can get overwhelming. That's why meeting forms can be an invaluable tool in your Strategic Meetings Management program.

• 3 Caterers Offering Gluten-Free Menu Options One growing dietary concern among event guests is the need for a gluten-free option. Luckily, event caterers are hearing the call from planners to offer gluten-free meals.

• Creating Name Badges Doesn't Have to Be a Pain The task of creating name badges can be a time-consuming one. Event registration software such as Cvent makes it so much easier.

• 3 Ways Team Building Events Benefit Your Organization and Staff While professional networking, training and education are all key facets to your events, the benefits of team building to your employees and the organization as a whole should not be overlooked.

• 2009 Top 10 Meeting Trends Benchmark Hospitality International has released its Top 10 Meeting Trends for 2009, as observed at 30 award-winning properties.

• 3 Reasons Why Michael Scott Needs Cvent for The Office It's great that Michael can use Evite to quickly create an invitation and get some data on who is attending and who is not. But a 0.2 percent response rate? He could do better than that.

We often preach to our event management clients the benefits of using the tool to schedule invitation reminder emails and event reminder emails to be sent out at a specified date and time. There are many good reasons behind our praise of this simple, but really useful, feature.

Let's start with invitation reminder emails. These can be set up to be automatically sent out to invitees who have not yet responded for the event. Why? Maybe they just forgot to respond right away, or the invitation got buried in their inbox. A reminder is a great way to give them another chance to RSVP, ultimately increasing attendance for your event and boosting revenue.

Additionally, you can also use the invitation reminder emails to encourage invitees to register before the early bird deadline hits. Knowing they only have a few days left to get the lower rate is always an extra incentive to register.

Meanwhile, event reminder emails are those that can be set up to be automatically sent out to only those invitees who have registered for your event. This friendly reminder is a great way to decrease your no-show rate. It's also an opportunity for you to provide important information regarding your event, such as weather information, driving directions, or what attendees should bring.

Planners themselves also benefit from sending automated reminder emails. As opposed to manually sending reminder emails, scheduling them ahead of time leaves the planner free to concentrate on other aspects of the event.

Automatic invitation reminder and event reminder emails can make both your event and you as a planner more successful. One client put our advice in action and was thrilled she would no longer have to worry about sending emails manually. The reminders decreased her event attrition and made her registrants very happy.

Everyone knows you can use Cvent for annual conferences, seminars, or even monthly meetings. Here are some ideas to unlock even more potential within your Cvent event tool, go above and beyond, and be a hero for your company or association! 

1. New Member Recruitment - Recruit new members and have them join online.

2. Membership Renewals - Existing members can renew their membership quickly and easily online.

3. Contact Updates - Get the most updated information for all your contacts and have the system automatically update your address book.

4. Newsletter/E-news - Send memos and newsletters through Cvent, or even messages from the President/CEO; customize them so each person feels like they are receiving their own personalized message.

5. Volunteer Positions - Post a list of positions that need to be filled so that people can sign up through Cvent, or simply collect a database of names of people willing to volunteer, their hours of availability, and what their interests are.

6. Information Submissions - Ideas for meetings/fundraising events, job postings, etc; any pieces of information you may need, you can have submitted through Cvent.

7. Opt-In Event - Put a link on your website for people interested in joining your mailing list (Great to use with number 4!).

8. Bookstore - Utilize Cvent's options for selling items in a quantity to sell books or other materials and collect shipping information.

9. Sponsorship/Advertising - Use the registration process to gain sponsors or sell advertising space.

10. Elections - You can use our event registration tool to nominate and vote for future board of directors!

By simply changing the terminology within an event and creating custom processes that fits your organization's needs, you'd be surprised at what tasks you can streamline with Cvent.

Be creative, explore, and maximize what you can discover within your Cvent account! Have fun!

One of Cvent's clients always jokes that her favorite thing about registering people on the backend of the Cvent system is being able to skip over all the fields she makes required for her invitees. If this sounds like you, do keep in mind your name badges! 

Fields such as company or title, which you may want to include on your badges, should be filled out during any type of registration. Otherwise your registrant will have a blank line on his or her event name badge.

Also, remember that the contact information filled out during online event registration will update your address book and reports, making them that much more robust. Though skipping a field here or there on the backend of event registration may save you time, make sure to think ahead as to what types of information will be used in other places. Don't let saving time now mean more work in the future!

The pressure on meeting planners to save money while producing great results is intense. To help them do just that, the Ontario Convention Center has released a new white paper, "15 Money-Saving Tips for Meeting Planning; A Guide to Frugal Planning for Meeting Professionals."

"We've pulled together a collection of creative money-saving ideas from some of the industry's top experts and trade publications and put them together in a simple, easy-to-read guide," said Amita Patel, director of sales for the Ontario Convention Center. "Whether you're planning a national, industry-wide event or an intimate gathering, you'll find ways to save money without sacrificing the quality experience of your event with our guide."

The tips cover the most costly areas of putting on an event, with ideas ranging from negotiating with hotels and venues to get the best deal to creative ideas for saving on one of the event's most important areas: food and beverage costs.

We at Cvent were shocked to see in some cities that a gallon of coffee costs $96! We thought milk was expensive at $6 a gallon.

"Not only is the Ontario Convention Center one of the most affordable alternatives to big-city venues in Southern California, we can help keep the costs of many aspects of your event under control," said Bob Brown, Ontario Convention Center general manager and CEO. "The guide also includes tips for identifying less-expensive locations for your events and a section on how to demonstrate its true Return on Investment (ROI)."

My favorite tip in their report is number 7 - take your event registration online. They mention to use an Online Registration tool that is Passkey capable. Just wanted to point out Cvent's travel and housing module is linked to Passkey.

"15 Money-Saving Tips for Meeting Planning; A Guide to Frugal Planning for Meeting Professionals" is available for download at www.ontariocc.com/planning/pdfs/White-Paper-15-Money-Saving-Tips.

I blog frequently about the benefits of using social media for event promotion. It's inexpensive, effective, and now, thanks to Cvent's new social media features, easier than ever!

As part of Cvent's August 2009 release, planners can allow event invitees to share event information to their social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It's great free marketing for your event, and all it takes is a few clicks thanks to Cvent's new customizable options for your event summary website page.

In the page setup, just click on the Share-Save link option.



By checking this option, the ShareThis logo will appear on your event summary page.



Invitees looking at your website can click on Share-Save and update their Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, MySpace, StumbleUpon, or Reddit networks with the news of your event.



And keep in mind, because Share-Save appears on the summary page, anyone—even guests who have not registered for your event—can spread the word to all their friends and contacts.

Last week, we announced Cvent's August 2009 release. This weekend, the release officially launched, bringing more features and functionality to help make your events with Cvent a success.

We'll be sharing the details of these new features in more detail over the coming weeks on the Cvent blog. In the meantime, Cvent clients can sign up for new release training, which will be held for two weeks beginning today, August 24.

Click here to register for the Event Management new release training.

Click here to register for the Supplier Network new release training.

And of course, should you have any questions or concerns regarding the new release or any other topic, feel free to contact Cvent client services via email at customercare@cvent.com or by phone at 866-318-4357.

So now you know all about invitation reminder emails and when to send them. It's time to move on to event reminders, which are send out to all individuals who have registered for your event and plan to attend.

Why send an event reminder?

It's important to remind your attendees that they've signed up for the event so they don't forget. In today's fast-paced world, your attendees are likely busy 24-7 with work and social commitments. It can't hurt to send them a friendly reminder about your event.

Sending an event reminder is also important to provide last minute details about the event. What's the dress code? Where should they park? What's the weather forecast? Once the details are finalized, it's helpful to pass them along to your attendees.

When should you send event reminder emails?

Once you have your reminder email created, Cvent recommends sending the reminder a day before the event takes place, IF no travel is involved. If travel is involved, send the reminder at least 10 to 13 days before the event takes place.

Sometimes all it takes to convince event attendees to register "Yes" is a little extra excitement. Your event agenda may be solid, full of educational seminars and networking opportunities, but what about activities outside the boardroom? An opportunity to visit a world-class museum exhibition, catch a football game, or sample cuisine from the hottest new restaurant may be just what attendees need as incentive.

Check out the current and upcoming San Antonio events. They're great activity suggestions for your meeting registrants and their guests. Plus, many of them double as San Antonio event venues as well, making it easy to bring the fun right to your attendees!

• Ten of the top high school football teams in the state compete August 27-29 at the Toyota Tundra Texas Football Classic at the Alamodome. This San Antonio event kicks off the football season for Texas high schools, and features schools that have played in 12 state championships. One of the top meeting venues in San Antonio, the Alamodome has over 160,000 square feet of exhibit space and can seat up to 77,000 guests. Ticket prices for the football classic have yet to be announced.

• The River Walk, a top San Antonio attraction, heats up September 10 for the Dos Equis Pachanga del Rio. This "Taste of the River Walk" features 20 participating River Walk establishments presenting their best culinary offerings from 5 to 8:30 PM. Live music tops of the evening's festivities. Tickets are $25 prior to the event; group rates are available.

• Fiestas Patrias is a three-day cultural and historical event celebrating Mexico's independence from Spain. Folkloric dancing, a street parade, exhibit booths, mariachi music and entertainment from popular Tejano, regional conjunto and ranchero bands will fill San Antonio's historic Market Square, the largest Mexican market north of the Rio Grande River. Held September 12-14, the celebration is free to attend.

Meeting planners know that sometimes it takes a little something extra to convince event attendees to register "Yes" for conferences and conventions. Your event agenda may be solid, full of educational seminars and networking opportunities, but what about activities outside the boardroom? An opportunity to visit a world-class museum exhibition, catch the latest Broadway play, or dine at the hottest new restaurant may be just what attendees need as an incentive.

Check out some of the current and upcoming Toronto events. In addition to being great activity suggestions for your meeting registrants and their guests, many of them are held at popular Toronto event venues, making it easy for planners to bring the fun right to their attendees!

• The Royal Ontario Museum, the largest museum in Canada, is hosting several once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions including Out of the Vaults: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (until October 18); Light & Stone: Gems from the Collection of Michael Scott (until November 15, 2009); and Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World (until January 3, 2010). Toronto event planners can host private functions  for 10 to 2,000 people against the backdrop of these priceless collections.

• One of the top luxury hotels in Toronto, The Drake Hotel is also a great Toronto venue for dining and relaxation for both hotel guests and visitors. From October 27 to December 31, 2009, The Drake's signature Lounge, redesigned in 2007, is the place to see and be seen for Cocktail Hour, held Monday through Friday from 5 to 7 PM. Specials include $5 draft beer, $4 mixed drinks and appetizers such as fried shrimp and pork belly sliders for $5 to $7. After your event attendees enjoy a few drinks, invite them to a evening dinner at the hotel's Room 222, which offers full audio-visual amenities, custom teak wood ceilings and walls, and Toronto private dining space day and night.

• A celebration of Canada's most beloved sport, the Hockey Hall of Fame is one of the most popular attractions in Toronto. On November 8, it will certainly be the place to go, serving as host to the Hockey Hall of Fame Legends Classic. Part of the hall's Induction Weekend, which pays tribute to its newest inductees, this game matches the Canada Legends versus the World Legends in a battle of all-stars. Held at the Air Canada Centre, tickets start at C$26.

One of the most common questions event planners ask us is, "Now that I've sent out my email invitation, what can I do to increase my response rate?" Invitation reminders are a great answer.

Invitation reminders can be sent to all meeting invitees who have not yet responded to your event invitation. In Cvent, these guests fall under the "Undecided" category. By sending an invitation reminder to these Undecided guests, you may see response rates increase by up to 50 percent.

So, what exactly should you include in your invitation reminder?

• Custom "From" and "Subject" fields. These are the two most important components of an email. After all, invitees evaluate whether or not to even read your email invitation based on these fields. Make sure yours are attention-grabbing and relevant to your target audience.

• Event registration link. Aside from your well-written copy about your event, which you've likely already created for your initial event invitation and event website, make sure to include a link to your event registration page. Without it, how would your invitees sign up for your conference?

• Event registration URL. Along the same lines, it's important to include the full URL of your event registration. This way, if for some reason an invitee cannot click on the link to register, he or she can copy and paste this URL into a web browser and still access your conference registration site.

• A "No" button. Let your invitees know that to prevent receiving any further emails about the event, they need to click the "No" button on the invitation. For example, write, "Click here to respond to this invitation. If you do not plan to attend this event, and would not like to receive any further emails, please respond 'No' by clicking on this link." By getting a definite answer from an invitee, you'll save both your time and theirs spent on further event-related communication.

So you've decided to start a Twitter account for your event. Great! In the past, I've given you some tips to how you can update your page, for example, by posting links to your event registration and asking for suggestions from your attendees.

It's important to keep in mind that these are just suggestions for how to update your Twitter page, and by no means are they a comprehensive list. You can, and should, be creative with how you use Twitter.

Consider the results of a poll conducted via Twitter by Kalena Jordan of SiteProNews. She asked, "If you represent a business using Twitter, what is your/their "main" reason for doing so?" The majority of respondents (37 percent) cited customer interaction, while 23 percent said driving traffic. Among the other reasons were news/product announcements (11 percent), branding (7 percent), reputation management (7 percent) and fun (9 percent).

Where do the updates on your event's Twitter page fall into these categories? Are your tweets all about the same thing, or do they encompass a wide range of types (e.g. @replies, news announcements, shared links, etc.)?

There's nothing wrong with having one key purpose for marketing your event on Twitter. However, it's important to keep in mind that if you don't vary your updates, your Twitter page will appear spam-like and unappealing—neither of which will go a long way in gaining followers. So make sure to create some interest by changing up your updates!

Cvent is excited to announce a strategic partnership with Pathable, the leading provider of social networking and online communities for meetings and conferences. Through Cvent’s new social networking features, planners can increase attendance at their events and improve the networking and communication among attendees.

"Social media allows attendees to schedule more private meetings during conferences and build better relationships with other attendees," said Brian Ludwig, Cvent vice president of sales. "Planners can now easily create an online community that is integrated with their event registration process."

Among the features included in the social networking offering are:

• Attendee directories with photo, links and bios
• Blog and Flickr feed display and aggregation
• Rich integration with Twitter
• Conference calendars with multi-track support and attendee-printable personalized schedules
• Customizable host-to-attendee invitations and messages

"This partnership delivers what event planners and attendees have been asking for: a best of breed event management and registration solution combined with a robust social networking platform," said Jordan Schwartz, CEO of Pathable. "Now attendees can be confident that when they register for an event, they'll have the tools to make the valuable business connections they're counting on."

Learn more about Cvent’s social networking integration.

Last night, 1,500 attendees gathered at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC for one of the most talked-about events in town: Verizon Wireless and Washingtonian's "Best of Washington Party." Featuring the winners of Washingtonian's annual "The Best Of" awards, the sold-out event featured over 50 top Washington, DC restaurants and bars offering samples of their finest fare.

Celebrated chefs such as Michel Richard of Citronelle, RJ Cooper of Vidalia, Travis Timberlake of Art and Soul, and Tony Conte of Oval Room were among those in attendance. The seemingly-endless tasting options ranged from tuna tartare being offered by BLT Steak to cupcakes in all flavors from Georgetown Cupcake. Plenty of drinks, such as the watermelon rum cocktails from Liberty Tavern, were also available to round out the culinary experience.

Among those in attendance were well-known DC locals including Congressman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), University of Maryland President C. Dan Mote, Jr., and Washingtonian publisher Cathy Merrill Williams, along with several fellow Cvent-ers! In fact, Cvent was proud to power the online registration services for this sold-out extravaganza. 

Here's the event registration page, updated to according to its closed status:



Attendees could choose from two ticket types, Vice Presidential and Presidential:



A portion of the proceeds from the DC event benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.