EcoConnect

“We’re a small outfit and there is absolutely no way that we could have grown and managed our audience and all the events we produce without Cvent.”

Robert Hokin,CEO of EcoConnect

The Problem

Before coming on board with Cvent, EcoConnect didn’t have a very refined process for using its events to attract new members—even though it offered interesting and informative experiences. EcoConnect wanted to hold more events, expand its audience, and further engage its current membership base, but the organisation’s event management technology didn’t have the depth or flexibility to help EcoConnect reach its ambitious goals. That all changed when EcoConnect began using Cvent’s event management platform technology in 2009.

What They Wanted

• A better way to find venues for their conferences and reduce venue costs
• Automated event marketing and registration processing
• Increased engagement and communication among attendees, sponsors and exhibitors

The Solution

Membership Management

Hokin used Cvent’s invitation forwarding option to allow invitees to forward their registration confirmation emails to other people who might be interested in attending. He also used the online event registration pages built with Cvent to capture more referrals. This gave members the option to register up to five non-member guests per event. Once these new contacts were registered, they were automatically saved in Cvent’s database and catalogued in a prospective member contact group.

"Events are essential to EcoConnect. They are intimate experiences that demonstrate the value of our organisation to members and prospective members."

Robert Hokin,CEO of EcoConnect

Registrant Reporting

In order to increase overall attendance at events, EcoConnect implemented Cvent’s dynamic delegate visibility list, so invitees could see who was already registered to attend. This sparked a huge interest in attendance, since networking is a big a part of the appeal behind EcoConnect events. Another method for ramping up registrations came in the form of Cvent’s abandoned registration report. With this report, Hokin could see who had started to register but didn’t finish, and then he could set triggered emails to remind invitees to complete their registrations.

What They Got

• An all-in-one event management platform
• Robust analytics to increase event attendance
• A growing membership database

The Results

Centralized Contact Database

EcoConnect has experienced overwhelmingly positive results and feedback from delegates after switching to Cvent. The organization has increased the number of events produced from 12 per year to 30 and now regularly sells out most of its events. EcoConnect has greatly increased its membership from 2009 and substantially expanded its database of contacts. And the best part—it only takes a single staff member to manage all of EcoConnect’s event management processes in Cvent.