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Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

Lawrence Stevens (NO LONGER THERE)

Lawrence Stevens (NO LONGER THERE)04-22-2020 12:20

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  • 1.  Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-15-2020 18:02
    Edited by Daniel Marotta 03-01-2023 09:37
    No replies, thread closed.

    Hello Cvent Community!

    Next week Wednesday, April 22, at Noon-1:00 ET, we'll be hosting a real-time Ask the Expert right here in the Community to answer your questions about using Cvent to move your events virtual.   

    Vicky Huang, who is a Senior Meeting Technology Advisor with over 8 years of Cvent experience, will be here in the Open Forum to answer your questions. Vicky recently worked with a client to move their educational breakfast seminar to a webcast and had the attendee list grow exponentially once it moved virtual.   You can learn more about Vicky's event in her virtual events success story

    As questions arise other Cvent staff who have assisted moving events virtual may chime in with their relevant experiences as well.

    Here's how it works:

    This thread will reopen April 22, at Noon-1:00 ET, and you can reply with your questions.  If you are not sure if you can make it live, please send your question for Vicky to communitymanager@cvent.com. I am happy to post it on your behalf in the community.

    You can stay connect to this discussion by clicking the star at the top of this post to follow it. Following the discussion means you will get notified when the event is live and see the questions and answers (you can always unfollow it after.)

    We look forward to reading your questions!


    #Classic-Creating/ManagingEvents
    #Creating/ManagingEvents
    #Miscellaneous

    ------------------------------
    Jodi Meier
    Online Community Manager
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 11:58
    Edited by Kameron Kidd 01-18-2024 14:05
    No replies, thread closed.

    Hi everyone,

    My name is Vicky Huang and I am a Senior Meeting Technology Advisor. As we all know, a lot of events facing cancellation due to Coronavirus outbreak. Event planners are in urgent need to save their event budget and find virtual event solutions. I wanted to share my story about how my client hosted a successful Cvent-Talkpoint integrated registration website can secure your event by going virtual, and how it grew their attendee pool when we changed from in-person to webcast.

    So, what happened? Our educational breakfast seminar was expecting 80+ top clients from the Finance industry to attend in person on 26 March 2020. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, 2 weeks before the event date, the event host made a tough decision to cancel the venue, converting the event from in person to deliver via live stream. 88 invitees had already registered in Cvent for the in person event at this point.

    Fortunately, this Cvent account already had in place an API integration between Cvent Event Cloud and Talkpoint webcasting system. This allowed the Events team to react immediately using the same platform – Cvent – on event marketing and attendee communications. Within the same day, the Cvent registration website was updated with content relevant to the webcast; an email notification was sent to the existing 88 registrants about the event format change to live stream. All the registrants needed to do was re-visit their personalized Cvent registration confirmation page and 1 click on the "Access Webcast" button to see the webcast live. The next day, the event host team blasted another invitation email from Eloqua to the no-response invitees, within a week, 300+ new registration for the webcast. 24 hours prior to the event, a webcast reminder with login instructions automatically went out from Cvent to 400+ registered. Eventually 200+ attended the event online, 3 times higher than initially planned turnout!

    This is a strange time to be an event planner, and I am so excited to be able to answer any questions you might have on my story. Please post any questions you have below, and I will be online until 1pm!



    ------------------------------
    Vicky Huang
    Senior Meeting Technology Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:07
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi - thank you for your story. We are interested in doing something similar, or at least a hybrid of that come August. Can you tell us more about the Talkpoint system - is it similar to GoToWebinar?

    ------------------------------
    Jennifer Blumig
    Owner
    Eventfullyyourz
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:19
    Edited by Kameron Kidd 01-18-2024 14:09
    No replies, thread closed.
    Talkpoint is part of GoToWebinar, the most common feature we use - attendees can submit Q&As during the sessions. The platform also offers registration website and emails, and the ability to integration with Cvent via a SOAP API set up. So if your registrations are in Cvent, via the integration, you can tell Talkpoint to use a referral checking feature to limit the the webcast link available only from those clicking from Cvent registration page. Make sure they turn off the emails from TP side so you don't have 2 sets of webinar confirmations sent from 2 systems! :-) Some of the events use pre-recorded sessions and display via live sessions on Talkpoint. Replays are available too. I'd recommend speaking to Talkpoint what they can offer based on your event needs.

    ------------------------------
    Vicky Huang
    Senior Meeting Technology Advisor
    Cvent 
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:26
    No replies, thread closed.
    Does Cvent integrate with Zoom?  I have been moving registration from Cvent to Zoom which has far fewer options. 
    Does Cvent integrate with any other meeting/webinar platforms besides GoToWebinar?

    ------------------------------
    Candace Anderson
    Conference Planner
    California State University - Sacramento
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:35
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Candace, 

    Thank you for your question! While Cvent does integrate with Zoom, we have partnered with other virtual platforms as well. Some Out of the Box (OOTB) integrations that Cvent currently works with are ON24, WebEx, TalkPoint, Adobe Connect, GoToWebinar, and GlobalMeet. If you would like more information on these integrations, you can find it here: Virtual Event Solutions

    If you currently work with another provider, I encourage you to reach out to your Account Manager to learn more about these solutions. 

    Best,

    ------------------------------
    Robin Schoenfeld
    Cvent Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:11
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Vicky,
    Was the event built in Flex? and if so, were any pages or "steps" eliminated? I need to pivot an upcoming event to virtual, but I get a lot of push-back about using a Flex event because there are so many pages to go through during the registration process for what is essentially a webinar. The ideal is a simple registration similar to Express, but the event that I'll be pivoting is already built in Flex. 
    I guess my question is, did you continue to use Flex to take the event virtual, and were there any complaints about the registration process being too long for a virtual event? 
    Additionally, were there any fees and were they dropped or kept the same?

    ------------------------------
    Miranda Allen
    Event Operations Manager
    MasterControl
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:41
    Edited by Kameron Kidd 01-18-2024 14:09
    No replies, thread closed.
    The event was built in Classic. Though I believe Flex also supports SOAP API integration, which is what we use to integration with Talkpoint. 

    I completely agree with you that the webinar registration should be just a registration page with least details. I'd suggest to explore building 2 pages + emails - below set up is in Classic, but you must be able to do it in Flex too:
    1. Use "Identity Confirmation" as your home page, i.e. 1st page asking nvitee name/email contact fields;
    2. Registration Confirmation page: launch your event regiistration first with a sentence "Details to login webinar will be available 24hrs before the event, please refer back". Then you can work with your webcast team to create event ID in the virtual platform, once the link to access is ready, you add this link to the Registration Confirmation page just before the event. 
    Emails: a) Auto Registration Confirmation emails + b) Webcast login reminder scheduled to send 1hr prior:  only include verbiage to login to Cvent registration confirmation page on step 2 above.

    We are in the process of moving onto Flex. I'd suggest you call Cvent Support hotline, ask them how to build a registration page and create a standalone link there. 

    Fees: this event didn't have any fees for attendees. My colleagues can follow up more on this.

    ------------------------------
    Vicky Huang
    Senior Meeting Technology Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:46
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Miranda, 

    In terms of fees, I have seen this done in several ways, but it will depend on your organization and event. I have seen organizations drop the fees for their event completely, but have also seen organizations charge the same amount when going virtual. I have also seen organizations drop the prices slightly, as the event is no longer live. 

    Again, this will depend on your organization, but we have seen fees be handled in many ways. 

    Best,

    ------------------------------
    Robin Schoenfeld
    Cvent Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:18
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Vicky,

    Thank you for providing your expertise during this chaotic time. It's very much appreciated. My company's client conference is going virtual this year and I had a few questions in regard to CVent/CrowdCompass that I'd like to ask you:
    1. We'd like to create a "Virtual Vendor Showcase" on CrowdCompass for our attendees to reach out to vendors directly in order to schedule one-on-one meetings. In this "showcase" it would be great to provide biographies and logos for each vendor. Do you know if there is an interactive capability within CrowdCompass that can do all of this?
    2. We'd like to provide sponsorship opportunities within CrowdCompass. What are some ways that you have involved sponsors in the past either through CVent or CrowdCompass?

    Cheers,
    Lawrence

    ------------------------------
    Lawrence Stevens
    Corelation Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:31
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Lawrence,

    Those are two great questions! Since Vicky is focusing a bit more on the above Case Study, we do not have an immediate answer for this at the moment. We are contacting the CrowdCompass team to find you an answer to both questions and reply back to this thread. 

    In the meantime, take a look at this thread for some more sponsorship ideas, as well as our article called Creating and Updating CrowdCompass Banners. You can use Banners to advertise your sponsors. Another thought is using a Navigation Icon to create a specific page for your sponsors, where attendees can click in to get more information about those sponsors. 

    Finally, you could utilize our Click Games in order to have your attendees engage with the sponsors. For example, you could have them go to the sponsors website and take a picture of it to gain points!

    Hope this helps while we look to find more information.

    ------------------------------
    Dan Tobin
    Client Success Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:48
    No replies, thread closed.
    Thank you, Dan! I'll look into those articles you sent over and will await a response in regard to the "Virtual Vendor Showcase" question that I posed.

    ------------------------------
    Lawrence Stevens
    Corelation Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 12:59
    No replies, thread closed.
    Not a problem! This session is about to close, so I am reaching out to your Cvent account team to help out. Be on the lookout for an email from them!

    ------------------------------
    Dan Tobin
    Client Success Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:20
    Edited by Lawrence Stevens (NO LONGER THERE) 04-22-2020 12:21
    No replies, thread closed.


  • 15.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 12:48
    No replies, thread closed.
    Hi Vicky,

    Nadine Demyano reached out to the Community Team regarding your case study and how you kept the webcast secure.

    To confirm, in the screenshot, the E-Custom: TalkPoint Join URL is an event custom data tag, correct? They only included the one URL that was then linked to the email which allowed access to the website? Do you know if anyone could access the website or was the email used as a unique identifier?

    Thank you!

    Danni

    ------------------------------
    Danni Czark
    Lead Client Success Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Cvent Staff
    Posted 04-22-2020 13:00
    Edited by Daniel Marotta 03-01-2023 09:37
    No replies, thread closed.

    Thanks Danni. 
    To Nadine's question:
    To confirm, in the screenshot, the E-Custom: TalkPoint Join URL is an event custom data tag, correct?
    Correct. The Talkpoint Join URL is placed in a custom data field on Event Information page, 1 URL / 1 ID per event. 
    As required for the Cvent Talkpoint SOAP API Integration, 3 custom event fields were created - see screenshots in the case study PDF - then you can use the value entered in these fields for the hyperlink to the webcast link on registration confirmation page. 

    They only included the one URL that was then linked to the email which allowed access to the website?

    Under current integration, we can only have 1 Cvent event ID to 1 Talkpoint event ID (followed with 1 webcast join URL). This webcast join URL is placed ONLY on the Cvent personalized registration confirmation page, not in emails. The only link we include in the emails sent from Cvent - is the personalized registration link {[E-MY REG URL]} to login the Cvent registration page - the idea is to limit webcast access to those who click on the TP webcast join URL from a Cvent reg page. 

    Do you know if anyone could access the website or was the email used as a unique identifier?
    Talkpoint can offer a Referral Checking feature to limit accessibility to the webcast join URL to 1) only those registered in Cvent & synced over to TP database; and 2) those clicking on the webcast join URL from Cvent registration page, i.e. if someone copy and paste the webcast join URL to a new browser tab, they will get an error message. 

    https://www.cvent.com/sites/default/files/files/2020-04/Virtual%20Events%20Case%20Study%20PDF.pdf

     



    ------------------------------
    Vicky Huang
    Senior Meeting Technology Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Ask the Expert: Pivoting to virtual events during times of crisis!

    Posted 04-22-2020 13:05
    No replies, thread closed.
    Thank you all for your contribution to our first virtual Ask the Expert, and thank you to our expert, Vicky, for your great insight and best practices!

    We will be closing this thread, however if you want to continue the conversation feel free to post a new question through the discussion in the Open Forum. There are many great discussions surrounding virtual in the Cvent Community, as well as great resources through the Knowledge Base and Cvent events/webinars.

    Best,

    Danni 


    ------------------------------
    Danni Czark
    Lead Client Success Advisor
    Cvent
    ------------------------------