How To Create A Reliable Infusionsoft Event Setup To Launch Your Next Event In Less Than 10 Minutes
Infusionsoft is a powerful tool – but it can be labour intensive and restrictive to manage your events.
Not only that, one setup error and your event can be a flop – along with your credibility as a Speaker 🙁 We totally get it.
Thousands of Infusionsoft users run events and share the same frustrations and concerns.
In this article, you’ll learn how one business transformed their setup to generate more results and launch their next event in less than 10 minutes, and how you can do it too.
CASE STUDY – Education Business Running Live Preview Events
To get started, let’s set the scene.
This case study is based on an Infusionsoft user who is a Speaker in the Property Education space that runs live events. This education business had Infusionsoft for a number of years and run a range of events. This varied from live free/preview events, paid client afternoon sessions, high level multi-day client masterminds and webinars.
Check out the Case Study recording where Mandy discusses the event requirements and what happened with this business:
BEFORE STATE – Managing Live Events Solely In Infusionsoft
Before this business implemented DynamicSync, there was a fair bit of work required to setup the campaign structure, however more work involved in ongoing maintenance. This was painful, labour intensive, costly and prone to human error. Plus using only Infusionsoft had other restrictions as we’ll go through further.
INITIAL EVENT SETUP – INFUSIONSOFT ONLY
In order to utilise Infusionsoft as much as possible, the setup in Infusionsoft was complex. The process for each of the 7 events were essentially the same. However, because the specific details of the event was different AND the client wanted to track via tags each event, the setup was duplicated 7 times for each specific event date. This took time to setup.
ONGOING EVENT MAINTENANCE – INFUSIONSOFT ONLY
Once a campaign setup has been created and the first lot of events have been run, we then move into ongoing event maintenance mode. As anyone in events knows, you typically want to be able to launch an event quickly. Unfortunately this was NOT at all possible with just using this Infusionsoft setup.
The process to update was very manual 🙁
- Landing pages with new event dates and venue details displayed
- The registration form needed to be updated so registrants could select which date/location they’d like to attend
- The campaign decision nodes needed to be updated to reflect the new date options selected to ensure the contact was moved into the right confirmation & reminder sequence
- All the tagging to track each unique event date had to be setup and then updated in the campaign. This included tags for who registered, who attended and who was absent for each individual event date.
- All event details needed to be updated in the relevant sequences and emails, including the Event Date, Event Times, Venue Name, Venue Address, Venue Map, Event Contact Name and Event Contact Phone details
- Event tagging after each event a staff member would need to do this. Firstly going through to find and select all the people who attended and tag them. Then find all the other people who did not attend and tag those individuals.
This incredibly manual process in this business took a qualified person (who built and was familiar with the setup) one full day consulting time. This is not ideal for any small business.
DOWNFALLS
Although there are benefits of using Infusionsoft only for managing events, there were obvious downfalls of this setup.
- Time To Launch – as it took so long to manually update EVERYTHING and depending on team availability, the ability to launch an event and promote to market fast was not possible.
- Increase Chance Of Error – doing anything manually increases the chance of human error. Due to the volume of updates, the likelihood of one tag not being updated correctly or that one email having the wrong venue address details because it was accidentally missed was a lot higher. As you can probably appreciate that could mean the difference between people show up or not at your next event.
- Longer Check In Process – managing registrations can be an incredibly stressful time for event staff as well as registrants. By checking in people via spreadsheets required more patience by everyone involved as it took longer. The increased time spent in the check-in process can impact the tone/mood of the day if not done efficiently.
- No SMS – Infusionsoft does not have SMS capabilities built in, therefore without another tool, then the ability to use Infusionsoft to trigger SMS to help get more bums on seats was not possible.
AFTER – Implementing DynamicSync & Infusionsoft
After doing a few rounds of preview events and after some accidental manual errors, it was evident that this business needed to look for alternatives to make the process faster and more reliable. Also to enable more functionality to manage the event better and focus less on the admin and more on the actual event.
INITIAL EVENT SETUP – DYNAMICSYNC AND INFUSIONSOFT
DynamicSync provided a free live event campaign that we imported into the Infusionsoft application. From there we integrated the event plugin, we setup the event and updated the campaign. We also did some customisation to the campaign to meet the specific needs of this education business (this is not required but was requested by the client).
ONGOING EVENT MAINTENANCE – DYNAMICSYNC AND INFUSIONSOFT
One of the BIGGEST benefits of using DynamicSync is the low level of ongoing event maintenance.
After the initial event setup, it would take this business less than 10 minutes to load up the new dates (depending on how many dates your running, this could take just 5 minutes!).
The ability to launch an event SUPER FAST was a game changer for this education speaker.
It went down from one FULL day consulting, to the client being able to manage this themselves in less than 10 minutes!
As EVERYTHING else related to the campaign stayed the same, except the specific date, time, venue details and contact details of that particular event.
How was this possible?
Not to get too technical on you right now, but here are the features in DynamicSync which made it achievable:
- DynamicSync App – this backend event management system allows the user to add a date to an existing event – this is the only thing that needs to be updated each round or each time you add a new event date.
- DynamicSync WordPress Plugin – once the dates are loaded in the backend system, it will AUTOMATICALLY flow through to the event page when using the WordPress Plugin. Therefore you add a new date and then refresh your WordPress landing page and the dates will automatically appear. No need to update the landing page or registration form, it all feeds directly from the backend of DynamicSync that you control. Click here to view more examples on the WordPress Plugin and layout options.
- Infusionsoft Event Campaign – The campaign is structured in a way for re-use, no matter what date the registrant chooses, so there are no updates needed in the campaign. Therefore as soon as you load up a new date, then it will appear on the website and registrants can enter the campaign without you worrying that they’ll receive wrong event information. Before each email, Infusionsoft will check the latest details about the event in DynamicSync and then send out the most up to date details about that event.
- DynamicSync Automatic Create & Apply Tag Feature – it was critical for this client, as with many business who run regular events to track key event metrics. How many people registered, how many people attended and how many people did not show up (and finally more advanced businesses who run events – how many people took up the offer at the event). DynamicSync automatic create and apply tag feature allows this to happen automatically for you. This no longer needs to be a manual activity or setup that you need to do AT ALL. For example, upon a successful registration to the “Supercharge Your Event Demo” event, when setup a tag will automatically be created via campaign builder and assigned it to all registrants of the 5th May event as “Supercharge Your Event Demo – Registration – 05/05/2018”. This allows you to create saved searches or easily identify who is registered for particular events.(This feature then allows you to use tools such as Graphly to track conversions of a particular event and then you can easily compare against other event dates. You can use this information to identify what’s impacting conversions and how you can generate more from your events in future)
- Faster Check In Process – By two key functionality available in DynamicSync allowed for a faster and smoother check in process for all involved.
Printable Tickets – The client was able to utilise the ticket creation feature and automatically email that ticket to their registrants. Not only did this have key details of the event, but also had a unique QR type code that can only be read by the DynamicSync scanner, allowing for faster check in at the event.
Check In Screen – The client also had access to the backend system that lists all registrants (including guests), so if they didn’t bring their ticket or if staff had to manually check someone in, they could sort by first name or last name and tick one box to indicate that they were present.
- Automatic Tagging Post Event – The client no longer had to find relevant contacts individually in Infusionsoft and tag if they were there or not. By clicking one button in DynamicSync, the system will talk with Infusionsoft and tag all contacts based on their check in status – whether they were present or not and then kick them off into the relevant post event follow up. Making it faster to get important post event material out to attended and absent registrants. (Particularly if they didn’t sign up at the event for the offer, they could get the follow up material faster which would no doubt boosts conversion rates).
- SMS To Improve Show Up Rates – DynamicSync has SMS functionality included in its platform. This allowed the business to reach out to registrants and help get more bums on seats for those who may have been sitting on the fence and needed that extra boost on a different channel that they are on all the time.
- Identify Total Registrants (Including Guests) – For the event staff, knowing how many people to expect in the room is critical to get right to setup the seating plan, handouts, organise catering and other logistics. In the backend of DynamicSync the platform provided a total number of people that are registered at the event. Not just the main person registered, but if you also have guests that your registrants are bringing along (whether they are in Infusionsoft or not), they will also be counted). This was the case for the property education business as they had people registering with their partners however they didn’t want to treat them as two separate contacts in Infusionsoft, they were happy to have them as only one.
CASE STUDY – What Else Is Possible…
As you can tell from the before and after state, by implementing DynamicSync for this particular business has proven to generate faster launch times and a thorough and reliable setup that generates more results from their events.
As the focus has been on this introductory event it’s important to highlight that many other users (including this business) use DynamicSync for the following types of events:
- Introductory/Free/Preview
- Workshop
- Breakfast
- Product launch
- Networking function
- Seminar
- Masterclass
- Online training
- Webinar
- Mastermind
- Ticket Levels – for all of your live events, you can also setup different ticket levels that registrants can sign up for. Including offering a free ticket for an event, and also allowing registrants to update to a paid VIP ticket option.
- Webinar Integrations – DynamicSync integrates with popular webinar platforms including GoToWebinar, GoToMeeting and Zoom. Whether you’re running a free sales webinar or ongoing weekly/monthly client webinars – you can also utilise the plugin for online events
As an Infusionsoft user, we all know that the tool alone is incredibly powerful, but it does have its limitations when managing and running your events.
We understand the success of your event setup and communication with your registrants is a direct reflection of you as a Speaker and your business.
If you want to get more bums on seats, convert additional sales and save hours automating your next event, so you can focus more on the event and less on the admin, then access your Free Trial today.
Invest in the right setup so you can take your events to the next level and generate more results from your events and your business.
Schedule Your Events
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