Event Planners: Say Yes To Automation

This is a sponsored post written by Sejal R Dattani, Product Marketer for Zoho Creator. More information about Event Manager Blog’s sponsored posts.

Great events just don’t happen. Whether it’s a trade show or a graduation party, a lot of hard work goes behind every event. As an event manager you have a lot of people to collaborate with, a long list of tasks to check off, and on top of it all you need to increase registrations as well. Sometimes it can drive you crazy.

But, nowadays, technology has made event management a lot easier. From attendee registrations to post-event surveys, there are literally hundreds of ready-made solutions to handle different aspects of your event. And, it has become very common for event managers to depend on five to ten different tools to manage their events.

Does the following scenario sound familiar?

You’re hosting an event and you want to notify your attendees about an important change in the agenda. You start by logging into your ticketing platform to download your latest attendee list. Then you log into your email automation system, upload the file, draft a message, and then schedule it.

I’m sure you can think of plenty of other scenarios where you had to shuffle between ten different tools to get work done. Such redundant processes make event management frustrating. And, frankly, you’re wasting time going through so many steps to perform a single task.

3 Ways You Are Wasting Time By Not Automating

Don’t take the long route to event management. Read on to find out how you can save a lot of your time (and your sanity!).

• You don’t have a centralized database to store all your data. With reports in one place, attendees in a spreadsheet, and their preferences in a survey, you need to sift through all these apps and sheets every time you need any information.

• Your productivity apps are not connected. When your applications are not connected, you are forced to move data from one to another or complete a series of tasks manually – unless you use a separate tool to automate these workflows. In that case, you are introducing yet another tool into your system and your teams have to spend time learning it.

• You have multiple tools to update and maintain. Be it a web application or a mobile app, you need to update and maintain them regularly. So that’s 10 different versions and 10 different subscriptions. Thus, you end up managing the tools you use to manage your tasks.

Is There A Better Way of Doing Things?

There is. No, it’s not one of those ready-made solutions templated to fit “most people.”

1. Build apps that meet your specific requirements

Fortunately, there are a few low-code platforms offering a drag-and-drop interface, so you can build a fully functional app in as few as ten days – even without technical expertise. With such platforms, you have the flexibility to create your own event management systems that work in line with events of any kind. And since the app is completely custom, you’d know its every nook and corner and, therefore, experience more control over your events and be the hassle-free host.

2. Configure workflows to automate repetitive tasks

Your team has deadlines to meet and do not like being bogged down with mundane tasks. Give your team the power to automate even the smallest of tasks and let them focus on what’s important. Be it scheduling emails to attendees or generating invoices, it can all be automated on a custom app. At work or at home, your teams can access information, follow up on tasks, and collaborate with their coworkers at any time of the day.

Look at Napa Valley Film Festival, for instance. Before they learnt about the power of low-code app development platforms, they worked the traditional way: with tons data scattered across versions and versions of spreadsheets. Now, though, the team at NVFF uses Zoho Creator, a low-code platform, to manage their entire film festival – from pre-event tasks like registrations, reminders, and event marketing, to post-event surveys, evaluations, and follow-ups. Now, every year, NVFF accommodates wines from 160 wineries, 30-50 restaurants and chefs, hundreds of lodging partners, and over 400 renowned filmmakers with a single application.

3. Make your apps talk to each other

Here’s the best part: These platforms enable you to build a customized app specific to your events. But they offer more; they help you build a central nervous system that integrates with other business platforms like CRM, accounting, and marketing automation so that your data flows automatically and your work flows smoothly.

And no, it won’t cost you a fortune; just a fraction of it.

In Conclusion

The adoption of low-code application development platforms is picking up as a new opportunity to meet changing business needs. If you are someone looking for an easy, affordable solution to manage your events, a low-code platform is your go-to solution.

Zoho + Skift Meetings

January 12th, 2017 at 10:00 AM EST