The key to successful events begins by building a portfolio of events that support company objectives.  Each proposed event within the event portfolio should fit into your company’s strategies and meet management’s criteria.  

Technology plays a crucial role in the planning phase—from the time events are proposed for inclusion in the portfolio of upcoming events, until the participants arrive at each physical or virtual event. 

RECOMMENDATION

Your organization sets objectives for what you want to achieve with a portfolio of meetings and events.  For a proposed event to be included in the portfolio and enter the planning cycle, your management must first review and approve it.  The event owner must show that the proposed event has realistic goals and doesn’t conflict with other events.

• Sponsor perspective:  “When we plan our portfolio of upcoming events, we require every proposed event to meet specific criteria—including attendance and ROI estimates.”
• Set up all proposed events in Ontrac Portfolio, making sure that each contributes to objectives you have established for the overall portfolio.  In this module, you'll be able to create, integrate, track, and report everything that's vital to the success of each event.  

PROMOTION

Sales and Marketing work closely together to segment the target audiences and define tactics for generating interest and registration.

• Attendee perspective:  “Hmmn, this event looks interesting. Wonder if the boss will let me attend?”
• Sponsor perspective:   “We’re totally focused on getting the right people to attend.”
• Your marketing automation system, such Eloqua, can link directly to Ontrac Registration

REGISTRATION

You have the tools to create an event website with everything needed for participants to register, including the location, hotel reservation page, session descriptions, and payment.

• Attendee perspective:  “Registering online is fast and easy.”
• Sponsor perspective:   “Technology helps us give every attendee a great experience, even before the event starts -- when they register for the event, reserve rooms, set their agendas, and check into the hotel.”
• Set up meetings faster and manage them easier with Ontrac Registration. Define levels of control, including the degree of access event managers, event owners, participants and attendees can have. Then use Ontrac Session Planner to manage session proposals, scheduling, and content. When a session is finalized, it is viewable by potential registrants and attendees with Ontrac Agenda Builder.

AGENDAS

At the event registration website, attendees can select individual sessions to attend and share their agenda with management to get approval to attend.

• Attendee perspective:  “This is cool.  I can build my own agenda before the event, and make changes on my smart phone during the event.”
• Sponsor perspective:  “By letting potential registrants create a personal agenda of sessions they want to attend, we’re paving the way for greater attendance.”
• When prospects register for the event, their agenda has been saved in Ontrac Agenda Builder, allowing them to streamline the registration process.