If you’re an event organiser and you don’t know what CRM stands for, it’s time to get familiar with these three letters.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and, at its simplest, CRM is a system that allows businesses to manage customer relationships and the data and information associated with them.
What’s that got to do with events, you ask? CRM software for event organisers can help you gather valuable analytics; pinpoint attendee trends, see event performance metrics in real-time, and track attendee engagement.
Utilising a CRM system, especially one that integrates with Eventbrite, can help you take your event business to the next level, to develop and grow your customer relationships and professionalise your operations.
Read on to find out how to get started…
Selecting CRM software for event organisers
There are a large number of CRM software providers, however you can narrow the search by choosing one which supports integration with Eventbrite. The benefit of this is the ability to import attendee details and other data automatically as tickets are purchased from your Eventbrite event page.
Additionally, some allow you to carry out event planning tasks directly inside the CRM system, from designing and setting up your Eventbrite event page, to sending out invitations and email campaigns. Here’s an overview:
Microsoft Dynamics is a CRM offering seamless integration with all-things-Microsoft. It also features a comprehensive solution for event organisers through its Event2CRM extension. You can plan, promote and track all of the key components of your Eventbrite events entirely within the CRM system, creating the event page, sending out invitations to your existing database and tracking who has and hasn’t registered. Pre- and Post-event mailings or outreach programmes can also be created using the marketing list functionality inside the CRM.
Sugar helps you get to know your attendees personally by providing a complete customer overview as well as the contextual intelligence to see opportunities. With the Eventbrite integration, you can turn your event attendees into sales leads or target lists for post-event marketing.
Infusionsoft is a small business CRM that enables you to record key details about every customer—right down to their last purchase or conversation with you – and segment them for personalised targeting. The Workato tool enables easy integration with Eventbrite so you can automatically sync events, contacts, attendees and orders.
Salesforce is a CRM that offers the full range of features and functionality, with a scalable pay-as-you-go model. It allows you to transfer information from Salesforce to Eventbrite, to quickly create events associated with marketing campaigns and helps you track and manage your events with all your other marketing, sales, or support activities.
HubSpot
HubSpot can work as a simple stand alone CRM, or it can connect with HubSpot’s other sales and marketing tools to provide enhanced insight into every customer. See what marketing content attendees consumed before they bought a ticket, see when leads open your emails, test the effectiveness of email templates and much more. With Eventbrite integration you can understand how your customers have engaged with you before they show up at the event.
Zoho
Zoho enables you to bring all of your customer conversations into one place and see a full history of correspondence covering all mediums. The Eventbrite Extension for Zoho CRM syncs events and ticket data in real time. Connect with attendees by means of mass email campaigns or by sending feedback requests directly from within Zoho.
Gold-Vision
Gold-Vision is a fully featured CRM solution that comprises of Sales, Marketing, Support, Projects and Events. Additional modules include Lead Management, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation. Meanwhile, Eventbrite attendee information is automatically imported to Gold-Vision, allowing you to create follow-up marketing campaigns directly within the CRM.
Batchbook
Batchbook is a CRM specially designed for small businesses. Centralise all customer communications, storing everything from call notes, important emails and tweets to customer profiles. The Eventbrite integration includes a full, searchable history of event participation by attendee or company. Also works with MailChimp, Survey Monkey and Hootsuite to assist with the cross promotion of events.
The Raiser’s Edge
From finding the best prospects to supporter engagement and cultivation to goal analysis and reporting, The Raiser’s Edge is a simple, scalable fundraising solution. The Eventbrite tool pulls data directly into the CRM and ensures no duplicates are created.
Kinfdul
Kindful is a cloud-based nonprofit software platform optimising fundraising and donor relationships. The integration with Eventbrite tracks each unique interaction your donors have with the ticketing process, automatically creates new donor profiles, or attaches unique historical data to profiles that already exist in your system.
Neon
Neon is a cloud CRM database specifically for non-profits, with features such as ‘smart householding’, which provides an aggregate household view of combined household contributions, event activity, membership, etc. Event registrations sync with Neon and create new constituents or let you know if they’re already in your system.
Many of these CRM systems offer free trials so you can test them out and see which interface you find most intuitive or best suited to your purposes.
Key things you can do with data captured by your CRM
Whichever CRM software you go for, you can start to build a complete database of anyone who has ever interacted with your business or events. Import not only past and current event attendees, but also email lists of anyone who has registered on your website and other databases of customers and prospects.
Once you have all this intelligence in one place you can segment the data and create groups to target with:
- Event invitations
- Tailored marketing campaigns
- Discounts and offers (or upsells)
- Post-event follow-ups
- Surveys and feedback requests
Track any interactions and get a clear picture of your customer relationships as they develop.
You’ll also be able to get insight into per-customer revenues, event no-shows, customer geolocations, customer feedback and lots more.
Conclusion
Equipping your event business with a CRM system is like gaining a sales and marketing team, making your operations as professional as a big company’s – even if you’re just a one-man band. Don’t let your valuable data go to waste – get started with a CRM today!
