How to get more exhibitors to your events Technology Marketing Showcase White Paper FibreCRM

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1 How to get more exhibitors to your events Technology Marketing Showcase White Paper FibreCRM

2 How to get more exhibitors to your events Technology Marketing Showcase White Paper FibreCRM Overview This paper explains how an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution can pay dividends to an events organiser. From initial cold calling by the sales team through to generation of offers, contracts and invoices, a good CRM solution will: increase sales revenues and profit create a happy events team who are better armed impress exhibitors and generate loyal advocates The Sales Process Many event organisers run repeating events such as a vertical market annual exhibition. The sales team s job is to find potential exhibitors, offer and sell stand space and to hit meterage/revenue targets. It s obvious that the more calls made by a salesperson, per hour, the more people a salesperson will get through to, the more stand sales are potentially made. But for the sales team, they need a good support system that helps them identify the right people to contact and a system that helps them process each call efficiently. Making it easier for them to know things like: Who should be called? Who shouldn t be called? Who s already been called? Who s been called but needs a follow up? A salesperson needs to know how effective they are being and be able to see where to focus their efforts. Are they calling the right audience? How old is the list? When was the last time we contacted this company? Or, they might want to see this week s conversion rate from cold call to sale? FibreCRM has developed enhancements to SugarCRM by adding a range of time saving features to overcome these common issues found in an event management organisation. The remainder of this document walks through the stages from the initial prospecting of leads and enquiries right through, updating the management accounts and onto to re-bookings for future events. For instance, SugarCRM comes with an Opportunities module and a Target List module. Opportunities are stand bookings/offers which are at various stages in the sales pipeline. For example, one potential exhibitor may have shown a bit of interest, another may have signed contracts and a third has said they re unable to exhibit this year.

3 The Target List module is a way to segment the data and use the segments for targeted calling campaigns. For instance, create a target list called Prospects for the Annual Widget Show and add companies to this list if they are a potential to exhibit at the show (e.g. ABC Widget Ltd) Both modules on their own store information however out of the box they work independently of each other. This means that it becomes less useful for a busy sales person who wants to ensure they don t call companies that might exist in a Target List but have already said they are unable to show this year (You may not want to remove them from the actual Target list because they could still be a target for next year s show). Data Marketing So the CRM nearly works but not quite. Here, FibreCRM developed an integration so that the salesperson can see a filtered view of companies based on the status of each company in BOTH the Target List and the Opportunity stage. Exhibitors Suppliers Press Business Intelligence Reporting Dashboards Social Website E-marketing Finance Integration Invoicing For example, from a list of targets, the salesperson accesses each company, opens a window to log a call. Saves it and opens the window to create a follow up call. Saves it. Then navigates back to the list to make the next call. This is clunky even when the CRM is installed on the salespersons PC let alone over the web, where Internet speeds and page load times affect performance and reduce the call rate significantly. FibreCRM built an add-on for SugarCRM called Quick2Call. This module enables the salesperson to log a completed and a follow up call directly from the list of companies being called up. The MS Office Outlook integration Mailmerge Telephony Outbound Click-to-dial Inbound list remains open in the background for fast access and saves vital seconds per call. Ok, now we get to the interesting bit. The sales team know who to call, can make a lot more calls per hour now but that s not the end of the salesperson responsibilities. There s still the call outcome to deal with... So now, the salesperson has a clean calling list. The next bit is to ensure they can with minimum fuss - make the call, log the result and potentially book a follow up call. When it comes to outbound telemarketing, many CRM systems on the market are good all-rounders but few specialise in telesales. Which means the calling process can be less efficient. If they do specialise in telesales, then they more often than not lack features in other areas. SugarCRM sits in the first camp. It s a good all-rounder but when it comes to call rates - out of the box - it underperforms. How to manage the interest? What information to send? How to create a contract and send it to a potential exhibitor? How to book the sale? And how to keep an eye on what to follow up? Golden Hours / Prime Time Many sales teams have times in the day when phone activity should be their focus but there are times in the day when it is less productive to phone and therefore administration activity could be handled. Actually all Sugar needed was a few real-world tweaks to turn it into a highly efficient and effective calling solution.

4 The FibreCRM solution provides the team with a dashboard showing who to send information to, who to send a contract to and what inbound messages or contracts need to be processed. To send information or a contract, the salesperson picks the company that requires the information, picks an template and attaches any supporting files. In fact it goes a little further than that and produces a merged contract pulling in all the contract related information such as stand size & dimensions, cost of stand and key contact information you have on file for the exhibiting company. The Admin Process Typically an event management company will employ administrators to coordinate the delivery of the events once a contract has been handed over from the sales team. Typically this involves: Set up and coordination of events Keep exhibitor information up to date Check paperwork and raise invoices at the appropriate times Keep contractors informed of stand bookings and alterations The FibreCRM system comes with an event management component enabling administrators to create events, set key dates and view all the stands/offers that are in place. For each event, a set of show brand templates can be defined. These are used by the team to ensure that communication is consistent across the team. For example, when sales send out contracts the system will ensure the right branded contract template is applied. We found the process from initial consultation to delivery a wellstructured and very exciting process that enabled us to clearly view and analyse all of our business processes and improve how we communicate with our customers. What was achieved could not have been done had FibreCRM not clearly understood our needs and culture. The possibilities for the future management of our data and processes is now so much more flexible than it has ever been and limited only by our imagination! Mike Anderson Managing Director Hale Events The admin team are able to keep track of key contact details such as who the primary point of contact is, the finance contact and the exhibitor s admin contact. Communication of a lot of information is needed and therefore the CRM system needs to support this process. For example: Mass all exhibitors information about their particular stand and send it to the designated admin contact Mass all invoices to the finance contacts Send a weekly list of stand alterations to contractors With FibreCRM, these activities can be completed simply and efficiently and ensures everyone in the team has complete visibility of what s been sent or said to whom by whom and when. Finance Integration Invoice or Sales Order generation is part of the CRM solution. Each stand booking can record many invoices. For example, a deposit invoice and final balance invoice. If a stand is cancelled or altered, credit notes can be generated. All invoices or sales orders are automatically added to the Sage Accounts system or exported to a file, such as Excel, for other accounting systems to import.

5 Website Integration So far, we ve described the back office CRM capabilities or in other words the non-customer facing system however there is information an events company is going to want to glean from each exhibitor, including: What blurb does the exhibitor want printed in the show catalogue? Who are the key points of contact? Uploading on images Which categories should they be listed under in the catalogue? The CRM has a connection to WordPress enabling exhibitors to log into a secure website so that this information can be added or updated by each exhibitor and the information seamlessly passed to the CRM system. Each event in the CRM can be linked to a different website which means that shows can be branded to suit the show theme. This means that one exhibitor might have many logins to different show websites without you creating duplicate customer details in your CRM. The Marketing Process The marketing department has a responsibility to build a presence and create brand recognition to help drive enquiries into the company. They need a database of potential targets as well as be able to market to existing known contacts. Using the CRM s inbuilt marketing tools, marketers are able to segment data and build & execute marketing campaigns. The CRM system includes the following out of the box features: Social media integration Marketing Automation Press contacts The database of names and addresses can easily include press contacts and suppliers. Not just exhibitors and potential exhibitors. Press contacts can be linked to Event to make the daily communication process easier to manage. A Sound Return on Investment For one client, the analysis showed that their average call to conversion rates increased as follows: Increased number of calls per hour from 9.5 to 11.3 Averaged 1 sale for every 23 calls made (remained consistent) Average stand size sold was 9.78m 2 (remained consistent) Reduced admin time increasing calling time by ½ hour per day Based on this analysis, each salesperson was able to increase the number of calls per week from 237 calls to 310 calls and increase sales from 100m 2 to 132m 2. marketing with autoresponders Mail merge

6 Pricing The running cost for a fully implemented solution, integrated with WordPress sites and Sage 50 starts at a monthly running cost of 500. This operates in the cloud and is hosted in the UK behind robust firewalls and SSL 128-bit encryption. Users simply log into the CRM via a web browser on any device. For a 25-staff firm, the monthly running cost works out at just 20 per employee. For 200 users it works out at just 2.50 per employee. The following is a typical shopping list that you might want to consider when planning the overall budget for a new system such as this. Monthly hosting fee 500 Existing data load If you have existing data you ll want to import it. We can help. Change management Staff take time to adapt to new systems. Careful planning and execution is required. Particularly when it comes to new invoicing processes Customer-specific changes Everyone has a sales process but all have subtle differences in how they operate and therefore processes need to be adapted to suit specific needs. FibreCRM will adapt the system to suit you. Testing Before a system can be put into live operation it needs to be tested. Thoroughly. This takes time and requires careful planning and detailed testing. No shortcuts, this is time and money well spent. Project meetings/discussions Coordination of effort needs to be managed by a central figure who takes ownership of the project. They work with the client on a daily basis, usually by phone and , to build a picture of the solution, coordinate the delivery team and show the client. Third party integrations Whether it s marketing integration you need such as connections to MailChimp or Inbox25 let us know what you need. It might be a finance system, existing website or phone system you need connectivity to. FibreCRM has the knowledge and skills to make this happen. Training services Staff need to be shown how to get the best out of the new system. Our training department will work with you to put together onsite meetups, online webinars and offline video clips Next Step For a free no obligation trial, complete the online free trial request form go to Let us know a little about the areas that interest you and when you are likely to need a system. If you already have information held in another system we can help you move it across to the new CRM as part of the implementation process. FibreCRM works with a wide range of databases and transformation solutions so no job is too hard! Any questions regarding this white paper should be addressed to the FibreCRM director, Simon Leek either by calling +44 (0) or ing simon@fibrecrm.com. About FibreCRM Building smarter relationships for 25 years. Our founder, Simon Leek, sold his first sales and marketing system in Since then FibreCRM has worked with businesses across all industries, large and small, learning what works well and what doesn t. FibreCRM was established in 2007, and now has a growing team of experts dedicated to finding the best CRM solution for its customers. Working in partnership with specialist CRM providers, we can be sure that we re offering you an innovative, intelligent and cost-effective product that we re proud to recommend. Choose to work with us and we ll be there every step of the way, from the initial consultation and strategy development, right through to implementation, training and check-ups. To talk about what your business could achieve with FibreCRM, please call Simon and his team on +44 (0) Copyright 2014 FibreCRM.