Case study – cooperation with Ringier Axel Springer Polska
Ringier Axel Springer Polska is a leading media – technology company in Poland and a part of an international Ringier Axel Springer Media AG group in the CEE region. The enterprise’s portfolio includes over 20 press and digital titles such as: Onet, Fakt, Forbes, Newsweek, Business Insider and NOIZZ. Each month the company organizes dozens of events for their customers and business partners, as well as hundreds of smaller meetings. Ringier Axel Springer Polska also creates original conferences filled with professional content that build an engaged community around the company’s brands.
→ CHALLENGE
The outbreak of the pandemic and its consequences did not spare organizations such as Ringier Axel Springer Polska. The company had to suspend all planned stationary events overnight, thus losing the ability to contact many key business groups.
In the beginning of the pandemic, the company focused on classic webinars conducted with the use of videoconferencing tools. It was quite quickly revealed that the customers’ expectations were much higher than this. They wanted to actively participate in events, join a conversation with other attendees, express their opinions, and not only be passive participants of presentations. Webinars did not provide the attendees with the same experiences as in-person events. Ringier Axel Springer Polska started a review of online event tools available on the market in order to be able to fully transfer the experiences, impressions and effects of in-person events into digital. A large part of B2B relationships was built with the use of events, and the company also wanted to be in contact with customers during the pandemic, educate them, inform about its offer and activities and support them in this difficult time.
→ NEEDS
When looking for a technology supplier for organizing online events, Ringier Axel Springer Polska had clearly defined goals and needs. They were looking for a solution that would allow online events to be carried out as effectively as in-person ones. The company was looking for a tool / platform to conduct engaging meetings and events, offering wide networking options. An important aspect was also the ability to communicate with customers and partners before, during and after the event. The target solution was to connect and transfer the collected data directly to the company’s internal systems so that the employee of the business department could better understand the clients’ needs. For example, if a client says during an event that they are interested in reaching a group of seniors, an employee of the Ringier Axel Springer Polska business department should know about it and verify whether the offer is still valid for the client. This will allow you to maintain a relationship with them.
→ IMPLEMENTATION
The cooperation between Ringier Axel Springer Polska and Eventory started in May 2020. Eventory was selected from among other solutions due to its complexity – it offered both the possibility of conducting online broadcasts, which are also possible with Zoom or ClickMeeting platforms, but above all, it also offered tools for registration and communication with participants.
During their events, Ringier Axel Springer Polska usually uses several features:
- the possibility of creating event landing pages for each event,
- registration for events,
- communication features before, during and after the event via email campaigns,
- quizzes, votings, surveys and live questions,
- general chat available at every event,
- possibility to collect feedback and lecture rating from the attendees.
Moreover, the ability to independently create medium-sized events, without the need for support from the tech department, without event agencies and without Eventory’s technical support, has become one of the key factors for the company. It ensured the independence, autonomy and flexibility of those responsible for events carried out by Ringier Axel Springer Polska.
→ EFFECTS
After the first few months of the pandemic, there was a risk that attendance at the webinars organized at the beginning would start to be noticeably lower, as online space was flooded with such activities and recipients simply stopped responding to invitations to participate in them. Thanks to the cooperation with Eventory, Ringier Axel Springer Polska introduced a completely new quality of communication with attendees. Currently, the company using the Eventory platform, carries out even several online events and meetings per week. In total, from the beginning of the cooperation, we managed to build a community of over 10,000 participants who regularly attend the company’s events. Thanks to Eventory’s user-friendly interface, 80%-90% of work done on organizing events by Ringier Axel Springer Polska’s teams is carried out independently.
Other effects of the implementation – positive changes in the organization
It became much easier to run online events in the company. Last year, Ringier Axel Springer Polska used several different tools. Thanks to the implementation of Eventory, event marketing of Ringier Axel Springer Polska is now carried out within one platform, where all information about event activities (carried out as a whole and in a specific category) is aggregated. Simply put: events organized in the company using Eventory are now gathered in one place, and their quality and visual presentation have been unified.
Other effects of the implementation – project managers’ conclusions
→ Next steps
The cooperation of Eventory with Ringier Axel Springer Polska develops with each subsequent month. In the near future, it will be expanded with further networking options, and the Eventory system is to be integrated with the company’s CRM. In further steps, companies plan the organization of events in a hybrid form.
