CallidusCloud Success Story
The company’s C3 Conference draws over fifteen hundred customers, prospects and partners each year, and according to Wendi Wang, Vice-President of Marketing Events, live events are an integral part of CallidusCloud’s marketing strategy. “[C3 is] where we get our prospects and customers together to share our customer story with our prospects and upsell and cross-sell to our customer base. Our ultimate goal for C3 is to drive more pipeline that would end up as revenue.”
Problem
Early in their events program, the CallidusCloud team used a mix of homegrown systems and manual processes to manage registration, speakers, check-in and badges, and attendee engagement.
But as their events program grew, the team quickly noticed the limitations to their in-house registration system. “It was not very intuitive,” says Wendi Wang, “[and] we couldn’t get the data out to show ROI from the event.”
The larger crowds began to put stress on their onsite staff, who were responsible for sorting through piles of pre-printed name badges, directing attendees throughout the events space and keeping them informed of last-minute changes to the agenda.
The attendee and lead data that’s captured at events is extremely valuable for sales and marketing organizations. And without an integrated events management system, the CallidusCloud team had to manually gather and deliver their event data, which was both time- and labor-consuming and limited how quickly their sales team could act on opportunities created at their events.
Solution
Solutions that Scale with Your Events.
The CallidusCloud team has integrated the Cvent Event Management platform into their sales and marketing tech stack, and in doing so they’ve empowered their account executives to see who’s registered for their events, who hasn’t, and what products they’re interested in learning about.
“At CallidusCloud, we actually have about thirteen different product platforms. We ask the customers what they are using and also what they are interested in learning. This way it helps us gauge how to personalize the messages to them and take them to the right sessions, to the right places, and to meet the right people.”
A Streamlined Onsite Experience
Onsite, the events team now uses Cvent OnArrival to get attendees checked in and badged quickly and efficiently – without the hassle of sorting through piles of pre-printed badges.
And as a recent breakthrough, the CallidusCloud team has begun to offer Cvent’s lead retrieval system to their event exhibitors, sponsors and partners.
“Last year was the first year we used a lead retrieval within the Cvent system. [Now] our partners are able to better track the attendees that they meet with and track ROI.”
Mobile Attendee Engagement
In addition to eliminating pre-printed name badges, the CallidusCloud events team has also eliminated paper agendas by implementing a mobile event app from CrowdCompass by Cvent. And their attendees have responded enthusiastically.>/p>
“We’ve seen a large growth in the mobile app adoption. It guides [attendees] through the agenda to see what they want to see on a day to day basis. There is also a map, which is amazing, so now people don’t get lost.”
Results
Why Cvent?
The CallidusCloud events team chose Cvent, because only Cvent could offer a comprehensive event management platform that integrated with their sales and marketing tech stack.
“It helped our team automate the process for registration and also speaker management, and the mobile app. So rather than using different siloed products, we are able to just use Cvent to manage all of these things together, which gives our team time back to do other things that they need to do.”
And the power of the Cvent platform is backed by an ease-of-use that is unmatched in the event tech industry, which empowers the CallidusCloud team to be more done in less time, with less effort, and without relying on outside tech support.
“We liked the fact that our internal team can use [Cvent]. They are able to create an event, draft emails, get registrations, pull reports all within minutes rather than having a professional team that helps the entire process.”
“We ultimately decided with Cvent because of ease of use.”
Increased Visibility into Event Data
“Ever since using Cvent, we’re able to better track ROI from C3 as well as from our road shows.”
“Rather than having to ask our vendors to pull reports for us on a daily basis, we set up reports, so our C level folks can see – if they want – on a daily basis, where the registration is.”
I travel a lot; it's great that I can pull up my mobile app and see exactly how many registrations I have real-time, when you are standing next to the CEO and he is asking “hey, how many people are checked in?” You know, rather than say “okay, give me a second and let me call somebody”, I can pull it right on my mobile app, so it's been fantastic.
Thinking Like Event Marketers
There’s power in live events. As a marketing channel, events are unique in the immediacy of their impact, so long as you have the strategy and the tools in place to harness that power.
By partnering with Cvent, the events team at CallidusCloud discovered just how much of an advantage they could gain with an integrated event management platform.
“Ever since we integrated our Cvent to our Salesforce instance, we can very easily pull reports to see how much pipeline our C3 Conference has influenced and, ultimately, close on those deals.”
And by thinking like event marketers, the CallidusCloud team has taken advantage of the registration data they capture to optimize their event promotion for increased attendance. “We have seen an increase in registrations and also in attendance. Previous to Cvent, we had about 70 to 75% show rate, which is okay for industry standard. In the last couple years, we started bundling our conference pass with hotel, and now we are seeing about a 90-90% plus show rate at the last two C3 [Conferences].
And ultimately, harnessing the power of live events empowers the CallidusCloud sales team to drive more revenue for the company.
“It's always really exciting to me when a sales rep or a sales VP come to me and be like ‘hey, we have a conversation with so and so onsite, we are getting ready to get a contract signed next week.’ It's just an amazing feeling. Ultimately, you know, we’re marketers.”
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