We understand managing events in an education organisation can sometimes be tricky, as well as aligning your marketing and admissions teams. As education specialists, we see schools face many challenges when managing events, such as being able to track registrations and attendees for both the admission and marketing teams, create and implement pre and post event communications, nurture your leads, and track conversions.
Two event management systems that can help HubSpot manage events and overcome these challenges are Simple Events and Eventbrite. By integrating these systems with HubSpot, it allows for a seamless data sync into the CRM and uses HubSpot's tools to create a coherent event management process.
Simple Events is a free event management system that integrates with HubSpot and allows you to manage your events in one dashboard, whilst syncing data automatically to HubSpot.
We typically see Simple Events being used with HubSpot for managing taster days in the admission process and open events to attract any new prospects. Simple Events could also be used for free events or one off standalone events your school holds once a year for example.
When you create new events in Simple Events, an event dashboard will be created where you can track who has registered and attended the event. This is really great to see all of the event data in one place, also this data syncs over to a contact's record in HubSpot. Additionally, on the day of the event, you can use the 'Check-in' function to manually check contact's in who attend, which will also be recorded automatically on their HubSpot contact record. Therefore, you don't need to manually add this information on their record, saving time.
Every new event created in Simple Events, creates an event form automatically in HubSpot where you can go and add key information you want to capture using custom contact properties. This may be first and last name and email address, as well as a contact's phone number. Then you may want to add event specific properties such as if the contact has any dietary requirements or if they are bringing any additional guests. Once a contact submits this event form, they will be marked as registered in the event dashboard in Simple Events, created as a contact in HubSpot, and have their form data populated in contact properties.
Capturing all event data automatically on the contact record is great for admissions to store the contact's data in one place and view what events they have registered for and attended. The event data from the Simple Events dashboard will be stored under the 'Marketing event' filter in the record's activity section. This is where we can filter and keep track of what events a contact has registered for and attended, and who admissions deem as most engaged. The marketing team can then use this information to reach out to these engaged contacts to nurture them through the admissions journey, as well as identify who may need re-engaging.
Another tool that is great for managing events in HubSpot is the list tool. In the list tool you can build your criteria using 'Marketing event' properties which is where your event data is stored in HubSpot.
You can create lists based off who registered and attended each event by using the 'Event name' or 'Occurred at' list filter. The 'Event name' list filter is great to use if the event is a standalone event such as an end of term fate at your school for example. However, I would use the 'Occurred at' list filter if you have one event name with multiple dates, such as a taster day which happens throughout the year. Other list filters you could use are creating a list of contact's who cancelled their registration for an event.
You can then use these lists of contact's to engage with before and after an event using HubSpot's workflow tool. You can create a series of keep warm marketing emails that you automatically send before an event with arrival times and location, and then after the event to nurture them through their next steps in their admissions journey, or to encourage contact's to register for upcoming events such as open days. You can also re-engage contact's who didn't attend an event by sending them a personalised email featuring your upcoming events, which encourages them to register and stay engaged.
Once you have set up events in Simple Events, you can view these events in a dashboard in HubSpot under the 'Marketing Events' object. You can view on this dashboard your previous, current, and future events all in one place with details such as your event date and time, who has registered, cancelled and attended each event, and the type of event you are hosting.
Each event also shows what other tools in HubSpot your event features in such as the list, form or campaign tool. For example, if you have an Open Event campaign running in HubSpot, you can assign marketing assets to this campaign such as your Simple Events sign up form and registered and attended lists. Then once the campaign is completed, you can see how each of these assets contributed to the performance of your campaign.
Reporting on all of this synced data from Simple Events to HubSpot is coming soon so keep an eye out for this!
Eventbrite is an event management system that allows you to host all of your free or paid upcoming events in one place. By integrating Eventbrite with HubSpot, you can create your event in Eventbrite using it's detailed event creator. Then this information can be synced to HubSpot using Zapier, a third-party integration and display this information on a contact record using contact properties.
Eventbrite is typically used for managing events where you need a ticketing system such as a school music concert where contact's can buy tickets which feature seat numbers for example, or events such as Open Mornings for a specific year group. Each event will also have it's own unique QR code ensuring a seamless sign in process on the day of the event.
Eventbrite offers a granular event set-up when creating your events as you can add lots of details about each event to make them unique and personalised. You can add event information such as event name, date and time, organizer of the event, event type and location, whether the event is at your school or if the event is an online event for international prospects for example. Additionally, you can add whether this is a singular event or recurring event with multiple event dates and times. You can also create tickets for your event and copy existing tickets over from one event to another, which saves time creating the same ticket for various events.
Creating an event form in Eventbrite is super easy to do. You can use the default fields on the form and choose whether you want to include these and make these field required. There is also an option to create custom fields on your form which we can sync to HubSpot's contact properties using Zapier.
Top tip: When creating your custom fields make sure these match your contact properties in HubSpot to ensure a seamless data sync.
Once contact's submit the event form, we can use Zapier to create contact's in HubSpot and update their record with data from the Eventbrite form. Additionally, we can create automation in HubSpot to create deal records and associate them to the contact record.
It is key that you align your event form fields with your contact properties in HubSpot so the data syncs through using Zapier. You can also create event specific contact properties that feature your event names. An event property could be 'Open event registered for' for example with the property dropdown options being your different open event dates. These can then be populated on a contact's record using automation once a contact has registered or attended an event. Therefore, the admission team can keep track of who is attending what event and we can use these event properties in lists too to create registered and attended lists for each event throughout the year.
You can then use these event contact properties and lists to enrol into workflows in HubSpot to send our pre and post event communications. Before an event you may want to send marketing emails that include arrival times and location. Whilst after the event you may want to send out follow up marketing emails with next steps in a prospects admissions journey, or your future upcoming events. By creating personalised communications keeps contacts engaged and nurtures them from enquiry to enrolling at your school.
By using the custom contact event properties mentioned previously, we can then report on your events. Creating custom reports allows you to view how each event performed regarding contacts who registered and attended. This is really great if you have recurring events you hold at your school every year, you can then compare year by year on the performance of your event. Other reports that could be useful are how many contact's registered but didn't attend each event. The marketing and admission teams can look at what they could improve in terms of pre and post communication and advertising the event to improve the results the following year.
The admission team can benefit hugely by viewing what events a contact has registered for and attended in one central place through the 'Marketing event' activity filter, or by using the custom contact event properties. The list tool will also help the admission team keep track of how many attendees and registers each event has at a glance, by using the event specific list criteria's.
The marketing team can benefit from managing events in HubSpot by creating automated keep warm workflows to send out marketing emails pre and post event, which keeps contact's engaged and help nurture them better throughout their child's admissions journey. The higher their engagement rate and lead scoring, the higher chance they will enrol at your school. The campaign tool can also help the marketing team track performance of an event by adding event assets to a running campaign, as well as using the reporting tool to keep track of overall event performance year by year.
Therefore, using HubSpot to manage events, as well as using Simple Events and Eventbrite allows you to create a streamlined event management process. All of your data will be stored in one central place for all of your team to view and manage, then you can use this data to nurture and engage your leads before and after the event, which will allow us to create accurate reports.
To learn more about how you can manage events using HubSpot, watch our HubSpot User Group (HUG) webinar on 'Managing your open events in HubSpot using Simple Events and Eventbrite.'
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