Event Planning and Management Features Within Dynamics 365 for Marketing
The planning and management of live events and webinars are a strategic activity for most sales and marketing departments. One of the most impressive features of Dynamics 365 for Marketing is how events and webinars are created and managed centrally within the system. Everything from initial event planning and budgeting through to promotion and publication, attendee registration, webinar broadcasting, final analytics, lead generation, and evaluation of ROI are all contained within the system.
Key event-management features include:
- General event information
- Agenda information
- Registration and Attendance
- Additional Information
- Post Event follow-up
- Event Live Web Page
This blog will review the event management feature of Dynamics 365 for Marketing and go through each of these features in further detail.
General
The General tab allows you to see and edit your basic event information such as Event Name, Event Type, Format, Event Start Date, Event End Date and many other information that can guide you through each step of event-planning process.
Through the General tab you can also define the Maximum Event Capacity and whether your Event will have Waitlist or not.
This information will help you to control and manage how many contacts can register for your Event and once the maximum capacity is reached contacts can be redirected to the waitlist. If and when a contact cancels their registration, contacts within the waitlist can be automatically registered for this event.
Agenda
The Agenda tab allows you to see and edit the details about your schedule of sessions happening during your event. Through this tab you can manage the following key elements:
- Section: Each session is typically a single presentation, class, discussion, or webinar.
- Section Tracks: Essentially this is the collection of sections. It can be used to create for example a collection of morning sections and afternoon sections.
- Speaker engagements: List of speakers who will speak for a certain section or more than one.
- Sponsors: Companies who are sponsoring the event.
Registration and Attendance
The Registration and attendance tab allows you to see and edit who is registered for the event, who attended, and who canceled their registration. For those who attended the event, it is possible to create check-ins records. Through this tab you can manage the following key elements:
- Passes: List of available tickets for the event such as Early Bird, Premium, Golden or Silver tickets. Each one can have different set ups with different prices and available quantity.
- Event custom registration fields: There is a default event form registration. However, you can include extra fields if more information is required.
- Event registrations: List of contacts registered for the event.
- Event check-ins: List of contacts who attended the event.
- Waitlist: List of contacts waiting for an available slot to register for the event.
- Contacts who canceled: List of Contacts who have cancelled their registration.
As an output of this tab it is possible to obtain at least 4 very important lists that event managers are always keen to have.
- Who is registered for the event
- Who canceled their registration
- Who attended the event
- No show registration information
Additional Information
The Registration and attendance tab allow you to see and edit your event team, record general information, goals, and financial details. Through this tab you can manage the following key elements:
- Additional information: The expected outcome, primary goal and description for the event.
- Financials: These values can be used to be presented within dashboards and helps with evaluation of ROI.
- Event team members: List of members of your company who were assigned to work on the event.
Post Event
The Post Event tab allow you to see and edit your post event actions. Through this tab you can manage the following key elements:
- Event Survey: After the event it is possible to send a survey to the contacts who attended the event to evaluate their experience.
- Survey Responses: Once the contact answers the survey it’s possible to obtain their responses and cross the information with all responses.
Event Live Web Page
One of the most impressive features available in Dynamics for Marketing is the integration with Dynamics Portals. This integration allows you to publish Web Page online with a simple click on “publish” button or in the case of an event you only need to change the status to Live.
Once the event is live, Dynamics for Marketing provides you an URL which you can send to your contacts through email marketing or host on your website.
The event web page is automatically created based on the information provided within the event record, so your contacts can see event date, sections, section track, speakers, passes, sponsors and register for the event. The whole page is literally built automatically with the event information!
Top page with Event Image and Register Now button.
Middle page with Sessions, Session Tracks, Speakers and Pass Information tab information.
Bottom page with sponsorship list
Event Registration form.
Conclusion
Dynamics for Marketing Event Management is a powerful tool that helps you to plan and manage your event. It provides superior features to improve quality and productivity by centralizing the information in one place that can be shared with the whole company and easily distributed for the target audience.
Easy, clean and accurate way of plan and manage events!
Want to Find out More about Dynamics 365 for Marketing and how it can transform your marketing efforts? Register for our upcoming webinar on 26th June – “Introducing Dynamics 365 for Marketing”, hosted by Dynamics CRM consultant, Miquel Alves.