On this episode of Event Experience by Bizzabo, host Rachel Moore sits down again with Samantha Arth, Project Manager of Marketing and Events at Axon, to tackle the often tricky world of event registration.
Samantha dives into the real challenges event teams face, like last-minute signups, inaccurate data, and scaling personalized support. She shares hard-won insights on designing flexible registration flows, collaborating across departments, and using platforms like Bizzabo to improve both operations and attendee satisfaction.
From navigating the differences between B2B and B2C audiences to handling free vs. paid events, this conversation is packed with actionable strategies. Discover how to:
Whether you're planning large conferences or niche webinars, Samantha’s advice will help you rethink and elevate your registration strategy.
Enjoyed this content? Subscribe to our emails and get insights like these delivered straight to your inbox.
[00:00:09] Welcome to Event Experience by Bizzabo, the podcast where we bring the best and brightest event experience leaders together to share stories, tips, and lessons learned from creating some of the world's biggest events.
[00:00:21] I'm Rachel Moore, your podcast host. In this episode, a welcome back, Samantha Arth. Project Manager of Marketing and Events at Axon to take a deeper dive into the realities and rage worthy experiences around event registration.
[00:00:38] We vent a little and we solve a lot as we reveal actual out of the box ideas and tactics you can try with your event planning.
[00:00:47] Oh, and B2B or B2C, free or paid? How about all of the above?
[00:00:52] This episode is your registration catharsis for Event Experience.
[00:01:05] Rachel Moore: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Event Experience Podcast sitting across from you today, we are welcoming back one of our webinar panelists, which we love to do around here because just gives us a little extra time to dig into some topics that we cover in Bizzabo's webinars.
[00:01:21] Rachel Moore: I'm very pleased to welcome the Project Manager of Marketing and Events at Axon.
[00:01:26] Rachel Moore: Our guest has spent the last four years helping scale the company's event program exponentially. Who doesn't want that in their resume? That's exactly right. The kind of career experience we're looking for.
[00:01:37] Rachel Moore: She owns the end-to-end event registration process from backend setup all the way to onsite execution. And she's also, I'm happy to say, super passionate about finding innovative ways to utilize registration tools to meet the unique needs of every event.
[00:01:52] Rachel Moore: Could we ask for a better guest, uh, for today's day and age and events? I think not. I'm really happy to welcome Samantha Arth.
[00:01:58] Rachel Moore: Samantha. Welcome to Event Experience.
[00:02:01] Samantha Arth: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:02:03] Rachel Moore: Me too. Um, and especially, uh, if anyone hasn't yet watched the webinar either live or on demand, you should go, go do that because we're gonna extend this discussion. But we're gonna go on to some questions here. One of these will be a familiar question 'cause we asked of you in the webinar, but then there's a couple newbies.
[00:02:19] Rachel Moore: So, uh, when you have to spend a whole day, uh, on the ground for an event, uh, what shoes are you wearing to get yourself through?
[00:02:27] Samantha Arth: I'm a huge fan of Hokas. That is, that is my go-to. Uh, but my teammate gave this piece of advice, uh, you know, when she joined the team, that I thought was groundbreaking, I'd just never heard of it before: to wear a different shoe each day of the event.
[00:02:44] Samantha Arth: Because, you know, on day three, your feet might hurt just from being in the same shoe, even if it's the most comfortable shoe in the world. So, if you have a couple different comfortable shoes, I've found that, you know, switching them up every day, game changer.
[00:03:00] Rachel Moore: That makes all the sense in the world, oh my gosh. I've never gotten that, this is great too, 'cause you're, we've never gotten that answer on this podcast, so I, that's awesome.
[00:03:11] Rachel Moore: And hopefully all of us have at least two pairs of shoes that are comfortable for those all days. But once you nail those down, then yes, cycle 'em in. Just make sure they fit in your, in your carry on or check but that's great.
[00:03:23] Samantha Arth: Shout out to Hannah for that, for that piece of advice.
[00:03:26] Rachel Moore: Thank you Hannah, for bringing that in by proxy of Samantha. That's awesome.
[00:03:29] Rachel Moore: Is there anything that you're listening to or watching or reading these days that you can't put down? And it doesn't have to be events or work-related?
[00:03:37] Samantha Arth: I am a total Broadway nerd. I love musicals. Uh, and I've, I've really been back on the Hamilton train recently, these last few weeks. Cannot stop listening to it. And now I'm familiar enough with it where I can just put it on in the background. It's kinda like my work jam playlist.
[00:03:57] Samantha Arth: And now I'm subconsciously just learning more of the words from, from having it on in the background. So, that's definitely, that's been, that's been my thing lately.
[00:04:05] Rachel Moore: Do you have a favorite song?
[00:04:06] Samantha Arth: Oh my gosh.
[00:04:07] Rachel Moore: It's gonna be hard. There's, I know there's a couple in there. I'm like, I don't know if I'd be able to choose if I had to.
[00:04:11] Samantha Arth: Oh my gosh. I'm, oh my gosh, what's the name of that song? I was just listening to.
[00:04:16] Rachel Moore: I'm gonna do this too. 'Cause I did this one time, I'm like, oh, I love this song. And someone's like, that's not the name of it. It's this. I was like, okay, well I didn't go look it up, I'm sorry.
[00:04:23] Samantha Arth: Now I'm actually, I wanna just look real.
[00:04:25] Rachel Moore: Yes, she's gonna find it. We're gonna take this moment. 'Cause it's important.
[00:04:28] Samantha Arth: Oh! Yorktown.
[00:04:30] Rachel Moore: I love that one too.
[00:04:32] Samantha Arth: The Battle of Yorktown song. I love that.
[00:04:34] Rachel Moore: Battle of York, 1776.
[00:04:37] Rachel Moore: Yes, I think I, when Hamilton, like, when it came out on Disney Plus and I was able to watch it, and then I just started listening to it all the time. And now, I'm, I'm sharing this and y'all audience, you get to, we're gonna keep this in because some of you may, may, uh, relate to this.
[00:04:51] Rachel Moore: My husband, he, he, he cooks dinner, uh, for us. And so, he will tap one of the utensils to kinda, like, tap the excess food off it, and he does it to the dun dududun dun dun.
[00:05:01] Samantha Arth: Yes.
[00:05:02] Rachel Moore: He doesn't know doing that. I recognize the rhythm, and so I immediately am like, "It's Hamilton." And he's like, "Stop."
[00:05:09] Samantha Arth: I love that. I, I agree. Even if he doesn't realize it, he's, he's doing it subconsciously.
[00:05:15] Rachel Moore: That's right. I, I, I, now I just internally relish it a little bit. I don't say it out loud 'cause if he hears me talk about Hamilton one more time, he's gonna be like, I, I am, I'm turning off the internet. Stop.
[00:05:24] Samantha Arth: I love it.
[00:05:26] Rachel Moore: But, Samantha, I want to give our listeners an audience here an opportunity to know a little bit more about you than the two sentences I spent describing you. So, 'cause you are way more than that.
[00:05:35] Rachel Moore: Can you take us a little bit more into what is your day-to-day role experience at Axon? What do you do? What's your world like there?
[00:05:41] Samantha Arth: Absolutely.
[00:05:42] Samantha Arth: So at Axon, my role has a couple different facets. I am the project manager for our bigger events that we throw, so customer events, uh, and also internal events.
[00:05:53] Samantha Arth: Also, with my role, I manage the operations and the, the tools and the processes that the entire events team uses. So, you know, exactly something like Bizzabo trying to, to find the best tools and create the handbooks for our team and how to use the best tools, and, and really work with these vendors to, to make sure that our team is using them to the best of our ability.
[00:06:15] Rachel Moore: Wow, you're kinda like the index. The, uh, Wikipedia then for your team. For like, "Here's how we use all these tools together to be successful." Wow.
[00:06:24] Samantha Arth: Yep, exactly.
[00:06:25] Rachel Moore: I'm super impressed with that. 'Cause, uh, for anyone who's not worked in marketing or operations side of marketing, that can be a, a big, um, that's a lot of knowledge to carry and make sure people have.
[00:06:35] Rachel Moore: But, um, As I mentioned, we're really excited to have you back. We do these, uh, kind of webinar 2.0 interviews with some of our panelists, uh, when they can come back with us. Because, you know, in a webinar, we always have a, a limited amount of time. You know, we, people have to get back to their day. We totally get it.
[00:06:50] Rachel Moore: Whereas in a podcast, we get to play around a little bit more, and we get to have some more, you know, we're in your earbuds right now, you're listening to this, watching this, and you're like, we got more time here.
[00:06:58] Rachel Moore: So I'm really excited that you are back to talk about, uh, every event prof's favorite topic, favorite metric, and favorite challenge. And I'm being completely sarcastic when I say that, Event Registration.
[00:07:10] Rachel Moore: We want this opportunity to dig more into this with you, we're excited about that. Let's start now with how we started in the webinar. I wanna hear your venting. I wanna hear your vents, your complaints. Let, let's let loose here.
[00:07:24] Rachel Moore: What are your frustrations about event registration today that you, you know, are probably going to be very understandable and relatable by our audience?
[00:07:32] Rachel Moore: Let loose. What are we venting about with registration today?
[00:07:34] Samantha Arth: Oh yeah. So there's, there's three main things that we need to vent about here. A couple of them we, we touched on a little bit in the webinar, but just to expound further, um, I know this is something that a lot of people struggle with. The last minute registrations, those are always, always, uh, you know, difficult.
[00:07:50] Samantha Arth: You wanna have certain deadlines or, you know, certain metrics that you wanna meet for different, uh, parts of the planning process. Of course, there's always the, the stragglers.
[00:08:00] Samantha Arth: And even worse is when you sell out or you run out of venue space and then everyone comes outta the woodworks a week before the event, "What? It sold out? What do you mean?" So, that's, that's definitely one of them that we always, that we always deal with.
[00:08:16] Samantha Arth: And also, just the biggest thing for our team that we're really just trying to nail down and, and get into a place where we can scale, uh, is the registration management.
[00:08:26] Samantha Arth: So, talking to people when they reach out to us, asking questions about the event, asking questions about their registration. They want certain changes. They have questions about, uh, you know, if they should attend or shouldn't. And that's such a, a key, important aspect of the event because this is our time to give the attendee a really personalized, good experience.
[00:08:49] Samantha Arth: And it's so, it's, it's a little bit harder to automate, um, and scale. And we wanna be able to look at each person's inquiries in, in a thoughtful way, and that takes a lot of time. So that, that's always something, that we struggle with a little bit especially as the event approaches and gets closer and closer.
[00:09:10] Samantha Arth: And the last venting note is, uh, you know, we love everyone that wants to register for our event, and we love getting, uh, all of the amazing registrations. And everyone is so busy, we can't expect everybody to be super, super meticulous.
[00:09:26] Samantha Arth: But, we also end up with some registrations that, you know, have wrong email addresses or, you know, if, if one teammate is registering for a group of people, they use the same email address or similar job, you know. Just more like placeholder information that, that ends up with, uh, with not as, as clean of reporting as, as, as we would like and, uh, not as much information as we'd like.
[00:09:51] Rachel Moore: I love the way you answered this question too, because it's such a great demonstration of, like, all the things that event planners do that people may not realize, you're absolutely right, there's, you're humans. Humans are registering for these events. You might have a typo in your email. And guess what? If you do that, you're not gonna be getting any confirmations, you're not gonna get any updates, and you're gonna wonder, "What the heck, you guys aren't sending me anything?" It's like, "We... Let's, let's fix this." And, and then, um, who hasn't run into that too?
[00:10:18] Rachel Moore: I think we're like, we're, we know we have to register a group. And then, "Oh, I'll just do everybody." No, you better do everybody else's emails. And, I think there are so many great ways that you just vented in the way that, you know, event pro professionals out there are like, "Yep, that's my day to day, that's what I deal with.
[00:10:34] Rachel Moore: If any of you out there listening want to play that clip back for your superiors and be like, "This is what I spend my time on." You, you are welcome to please use these as receipts.
[00:10:44] Rachel Moore: And of course, you know, I, I know there's so many other ways and I appreciate you keeping it to three. There's other ways that, you know, people can vent about the registration experience these days and, and how, what a challenge it is. Yet it's something that we all have, we care about. You know, it's, it's a major way we, we use and need to be able to tell if a event is successful or not.
[00:11:03] Rachel Moore: In looking at venting there, that's, those are pain points.
[00:11:07] Rachel Moore: Then the next part is, well, how do we ease that pain? And so, that takes me to my next question for you. Anything's easier to tackle when you have a little help, maybe a little more than the, a little help.
[00:11:17] Rachel Moore: During the webinar, you mentioned that Bizzabo often, uh, makes registration challenges easier for you and your team, which is music to our ears. Obviously, this is a Bizzabo podcast. But hopefully, everybody out there has got tech and if you don't, you know, find it right. And we're hopefully gonna help you find it with this podcast.
[00:11:34] Rachel Moore: But could you tell us a little bit more what, what is like your favorite feature or tactic that works for your team when it comes to, uh, executing event registration with, with the Bizzabo platform?
[00:11:45] Samantha Arth: Absolutely, and we love Bizzabo. There are so many components of Bizzabo that make our lives easier. The couple main things that come to mind are the customization of Bizzabo.
[00:11:57] Samantha Arth: Really, it's not a tool that you just kind of fill out the, the different parts of the template and, and launch it. There are, the components are very, very customizable and they can really work for so many different types of events.
[00:12:10] Samantha Arth: And even more important is, uh, our CSM, the collaboration with our CSM. And the, the team is just so amazing to work with. And what we're able to do in our sessions is, talk about an event and then we're able to kind of say, "This is kind of how we're thinking about it and this is how we were kind of thinking about using the tool".
[00:12:30] Samantha Arth: And we have that collaboration to, you know, get some feedback from them of, "Oh yeah, you are thinking about that differently." Or, you know, "Maybe think about this in a diff, in a different way." And, and it allows us to really have that custom approach to each event. Um, but also, you know, have, have some help along the way.
[00:12:47] Rachel Moore: A, we love hearing that too. Who doesn't want that too, right? It's, it's always, as we mentioned, help is always, um, helpful. Haha. Uh, but, uh, to know that there's some collaborators there on the outside, that, that be like, "Hey..." even just to bounce ideas off of I think that's super important too. You know, and that whole point of this podcast is you give people ideas as well. Like what are some things you're not thinking of?
[00:13:09] Rachel Moore: Also, the fact you brought up that, that CSM tie-in, uh, or that, you know, the way that the tool integrates with other super crucial tools that your team uses to be successful. And I think that doesn't that tie in a bit. I wanna ask. You this too, just 'cause of a pivot question.
[00:13:26] Rachel Moore: What other teams does your team work with, you know, internally? I mean, I would imagine that those integrations are super key when you're working with some of your sister teams, uh, in the company to, to make sure you bring these, these things off. Like what are some of those other teams?
[00:13:38] Samantha Arth: Yeah, absolutely. Great point. And something I'm glad that we're able to talk about a little bit more. We collaborate with a lot of different teams. Largely for, you know, our customer facing events. We work very closely with the sales team um, and our own, uh, you know, CSM team on, on our side, um, when, when we're, you know, using these events to really connect with customers.
[00:13:58] Samantha Arth: And also our digital team and, you know, the Salesforce team, uh, just to make sure that we're getting that reporting and we're able to measure pipeline and just get an idea and have that reporting of who's attending our events? Who's registering, um, and Bizzabos connection to Salesforce, the automated connection, uh, has been a game changer and has saved our, our team, you know, many, many, many hours of time.
[00:14:25] Rachel Moore: Just a wild, a wild, uh, fact out there for all of you who might be listening to this, maybe you're new to your event, professional career, but, uh, you've got to make sure that that platform you're using is talking to your customer management system to whether if that's Salesforce or whatever you're using, the two must talk together. They need to hold hands, they need to be joined at the hip or whatever other analogy we wanna, or euphemism we wanna use.
[00:14:47] Rachel Moore: And super important, like you said, events don't happen in a microcosm, and they don't happen just because of one team, and they don't just impact one team. Obviously, you know, you're doing these events for a reason, to, to bring about success for your brand, but also for the attendees.
[00:15:02] Rachel Moore: I appreciate you highlighting how It's not just your team doing this that you have to be partnered up with, with these other teams too, and great to have a platform that lets you help to do that right? To, to kinda, um, make those connections automatically that you don't have to go manually do, right?
[00:15:18] Samantha Arth: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:15:19] Rachel Moore: You know, you just mentioned something too custom, customizable registration flows. I have a feeling, I think we can all think of like, "Yes, you know, I can, I can customize, you know, maybe I've got a couple of tiers of, of, you know, tickets, types and stuff like that."
[00:15:35] Rachel Moore: But, you kind of, uh, we kind of got the sense in the webinar, I'm getting the sense today that there might be a little bit more of a, a better, maybe more intricate example that you could offer.
[00:15:44] Rachel Moore: So I wanna give you opportunity. Is there, is there like a good example you have of, of man, we customized the registration flows for this event and, and did it to the hilt. What do you have?
[00:15:55] Samantha Arth: Oh, yes, I have just the example for this. One of the biggest programs, the biggest event programs that we put on every year, uh, is, is a tour type of event program where, you know, it's set up as one event in, in Bizzabo, but it is a year round tour where we have day, one day events that just kind of happen in multiple days in cities, uh, throughout the year.
[00:16:20] Samantha Arth: It's a very, very fun program, but also, you know, the setup is kind of a beast, you know. There's hundreds of, of stops in this tour. This is a huge example where these customizable registration flows. Have been life changing.
[00:16:34] Samantha Arth: So, how we set that event up is we have different ticket types for each, you know, stop of the tour, and then we actually have a separate registration flow for every US state. So, you know, we have, uh, in each registration flow for a certain state we have exactly, you know, those stops in, in the, the tour dates for that, that, that are happening in that state.
[00:17:01] Samantha Arth: And so, that provides a super, super custom registration experience. The attendees, you know, when they're going to register for the event, they don't have to scroll through hundreds of stops. We have set up kind of a dropdown where they say: "What state are you in?" And then it'll pull up the registration flow for that state and they can, it, it makes it much easier to, you know, select five different options rSamantha Arther than hundreds.
[00:17:25] Samantha Arth: So, that's, that's definitely one that, that is a huge priority for us and also gets, gets us, you know, able to, to flex our, our Bizzabo skills.
[00:17:36] Rachel Moore: I would say, I mean I, uh, there's 50 states, so I'm just like, that's a lot of states. That's a lot of registration workflows. And to make it custom each one, but it drives back to what you were saying, it's like, but you know, instead of presenting this super long scroll list that someone's gotta be like, "Okay", But instead of like, okay, just tell us what, what state you're in, and then you're gonna get something that's very specific to you and, and makes the most sense to you and get yourself to this event, which I, wow, that was not what I was expecting. It was more than I was expecting. And that's pretty impressive.
[00:18:08] Samantha Arth: Yeah. There's a lot of little things like that, or not little that's kind of a big thing, uh, that, that are a little more custom, uh, than just, you know, a very basic event. But, how we think of it is you know, not doing more work, it's actually saving us work in the long run, you know.
[00:18:25] Samantha Arth: Doing the work upfront so that the experience is as easy as possible for the customers. We get less questions about it and uh, and, you know, ultimately saves us all down the line.
[00:18:36] We'll be right back with more event experience. After the break From backstage to the spotlight, The Event Experience Podcast by Bizzabo gives you a front row seat to the event industry's most captivating stories. Want to get more out of each episode? Visit bizzabo.com/podcast. That's B I Z Z A B O dot com forward slash podcast for show notes, transcripts, links, and resources mentioned in each episode and more. The Event Experience Podcast by Bizzabo where events become unforgettable experiences.
[00:19:11] We're back with Samantha Arth, who's about to share key differences in registrations for B2B, B2C, free paid, and any all of the above.
[00:19:23] Rachel Moore: Alright. I, I'd be really curious to poll all the audience for this podcast to find out which kind of events they tend to work on. And I'm speaking specifically about like, B2B. So Business to Business or B2C, Business to Customer.
[00:19:39] Rachel Moore: We probably have some event professionals listening who really gravitate toward one or the other, and maybe not both.
[00:19:45] Rachel Moore: Similarly, we might have other, um, event professionals, uh, who are audience of this podcast who, uh, only work on free events. No payment needed registration. There's not even freemium where it's like, "Oh, upgrade" or, you know, "Get a, a different tier" versus others who were like, "Nope. Paid all the way. We always do paid, you know, conferences or you know, anything like that."
[00:20:06] Rachel Moore: You're a bit of a unicorn. Because, you do all of the above. And so, again, super excited to to talk to you and really hash this out because you bring this unique experience to someone who's like, no, I, you, I dabble in all of those things.
[00:20:21] Rachel Moore: And have that experience, you know, the differences between like what a B2B versus a B2C event plan experience is free versus paid. And then of course, uh, cross sections across that it's a free B2C or it's a, it's a paid B2B or whatever.
[00:20:34] Rachel Moore: I wanna give you some space here, uh, to share what are some key differences you think are crucial for event profs to know as you tackle these different types of experiences, B2B, B2C, free to paid.
[00:20:47] Rachel Moore: Unload on us. What, what are we talking about here as far as like what we need to know?
[00:20:51] Samantha Arth: Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, you are very correct.
[00:20:53] Samantha Arth: We, we have a, a wide range of different types of, of events, uh, which is really fun and really also challenges us, in a, in a really cool way. And gets us to practice and, and learn, you know, what are those differences? How can we make each event most successful?
[00:21:10] Samantha Arth: And Axon is, is a little unique as well, uh, because we, you know, the, the company is, is, vast majority, you know, B2B. So, you know, our customers are other, other companies.
[00:21:22] Samantha Arth: So, how I like to think of it is kind of our internal events versus our customer facing events. Because, you know, we have a, a big company and, and, and our culture is, is a big priority. And so, we have a lot of company-wide events that are, you know, still thousands of people, almost as big as our customer events.
[00:21:42] Samantha Arth: But the strategy and, and the components that go into it are obviously way, way different. So just talk about a couple examples of, of the biggest type of events that we throw.
[00:21:52] Samantha Arth: We have our company kickoff event, which is, two to 3,000 people come in and, and we all are together to collaborate. And that's, a big effort and a really fun one that our events team throws.
[00:22:05] Samantha Arth: And then, also our biggest customer facing event is Axon Week. And that is, you know, a paid event. And we also have many, you know, smaller, free kind of pop-up conferences around the globe.
[00:22:17] Samantha Arth: And what I would say is, an easy way to to, to sum up my overall thoughts on this is, when you have a paid event, I find that it's that you're really able to ask more of the, of the, of the attendee and there's more at stake. They, they're more willing to provide a lot more information, um, because, you know, they're paying for it. It's a, it's a, it's a, you know, bit of a, a bigger ask and, and more of a, a registration experience.
[00:22:47] Samantha Arth: Whereas on the free side and on our end, also the internal side, we find we get the most success by really prioritizing ease of registration. Because at that point it, they're not putting money on the line. We're really wanting to bring them in and, and experience our company and our event and we find that it's, it's easiest to do that by really prioritizing ease.
[00:23:11] Rachel Moore: I wanna ask a, a kinda, um, tangent question this too, so that makes sense too. And I, I'm kind of gonna step into the shoes of someone who's going to register for either of these events, whether it's a paid event or the free event.
[00:23:24] Rachel Moore: I think something that event profs are probably wondering, is that "Okay, great. What if it's a new attendee? They're new to the paid or new to the free?" And I, I appreciate you bringing up like, you know, there's a little bit more investment or a stake in it when I'm paying. So yes, there's an expectation you're gonna want a little bit more for me 'cause this is an investment for me to go.
[00:23:44] Rachel Moore: And then, you know, the ease of registration is important for the free event. Either way though, you gotta convince that person to register. What are the differences that you try to approach with where you're doing the, you're trying to give the receipts almost, or the, here's why you should register at all and pay us either to go to the pay event or just register for the free event.
[00:24:06] Rachel Moore: Do you ever struggle or do you feel like there's a difference there between like, how you, you, message that proof of concept to the registrant to say, "We're gonna convince you and compel you that you should be here, paid, or, or, uh, free."
[00:24:18] Samantha Arth: Yeah, that's a, a great question and something that we're kind of always trying to, to think about and, and improve on.
[00:24:25] Samantha Arth: My initial thoughts on this just from, from some example events that I'm thinking about is, paid events. We really try to nail home the core benefit and what they're gonna get out of the event.
[00:24:38] Samantha Arth: And, you know, provide justification letter templates for their management, uh, you know, so that they can have, you know, they can get approval for, for the costs and things like that. And really more about like, the education in the core things that they're gonna take away from the event.
[00:24:55] Samantha Arth: Whereas we still wanna push that very much for the, the free event but sometimes, you know, it's easier to, to immediately pull people in with more of the experience aspects, you know, the, the event experience is of course, you know, a priority for all, and, and the benefit and what people get out is always a priority.
[00:25:13] Samantha Arth: I'd say we, we lean more into, uh, what will you leave with for the paid events and more "This is what, like, you know, you will get at the event for, for the free events." If that makes sense.
[00:25:25] Rachel Moore: It does, uh, because I, you know, I think, again, in the, in the shoes or you know, of the person who's gonna register for either the paid one makes a ton of sense. I even just read in a slack this morning in a group that I'm in where it's like they're going to a conference, it's a paid conference. And they talked about they struggled every year to even get, you know, budget approval. To be able to go to that conference is a, something that will not only help develop them as a professional, but can help, you know, develop what they work on for that brand.
[00:25:53] Rachel Moore: We all, we all know the struggle and event professionals know it too. You're fighting that battle to be like, "Hey, we're gonna try to help you win the budget, uh, internally to be able to attend this because you, you may not be paying your own way to go to this."
[00:26:05] Rachel Moore: But I would say, I, I would hazard to say almost equally, uh, important to people is their time. We all need more of it. There's not a week that goes by that I don't wish," I wish I just had an extra 24 hours where nobody's slacking me and I could just hammer stuff out and catch up." It's not happening. So, okay, I've gotta get used to that reality.
[00:26:26] Rachel Moore: But you're asking people for a free event, spend time with us and we'll, and so you are, like you just said, you're convincing them that you're, we're going to make it worth your while. The experience be worth the time investment you're making to spend with us. You're not paying for it, but you are kind of because of your time investment.
[00:26:44] Rachel Moore: And thank you for highlighting that, that's so key to think about. There's, there's, there's more than just actual monetary currency going on here when it comes to, attendee deciding to attend an event, right?
[00:26:55] Samantha Arth: Absolutely.
[00:26:56] Rachel Moore: Is there anything else that you think is really key for, let's say there's another unicorn like yourself out there and they're like, oh God, Samantha, I, I'm having to do B2B and B2C. I'm having to do free and paid, um, help. You know, is there anything else that you think would be like, "Okay, keep this in mind, this will help you be successful. Just something that maybe you really rely on as your foundational, like, this is my approach and, and how I, I think about it, parse it out in your brain.
[00:27:22] Samantha Arth: I would say another huge component for us in the paid events is making sure that the payment process is as easy and clear as possible. And what we find for our events is that we have a lot of folks that can't pay right now via credit card, but they want to pay later via credit card.
[00:27:48] Samantha Arth: And you know, we, another kind of custom way that we use Bizzabo is we, you know, for instances like that, we kind of have like a side, you know, event that we create just for credit card payments for individuals that wanted to pay via credit card and, you know, weren't able to do so at that time, but we give them that link and then, you know, so they're able to pay by invoice and also pay by credit card.
[00:28:14] Samantha Arth: So, there's just like, depending on your audience and what you find that they're asking for, that was one for us. We've kind of found custom ways to provide that to them, even if it wasn't, you know, an out of the box.
[00:28:27] Samantha Arth: Something that, that, uh, you know, our, the tool automatically does. Um, so that's something that we, again, going into the, the customization aspect. Really not being afraid to think outside the box there and meet your customers where they are.
[00:28:42] Rachel Moore: Gosh, I, I. That is something too, and that probably something I would've automatically thought of, but it makes a ton of sense. Let's all think about our own household finances and stuff.
[00:28:51] Rachel Moore: Sometimes you're like, well this, you know, this money comes in at this point in the month. I'm so glad because then I pay that bill right away. Of course, an event person's gonna be doing that, or an attendee's gonna be doing that as well because it's like maybe they're working with, or their finance team, you know, they've gotten the budget approval, but we all know. We all know when we work in businesses, there's budgets and maybe you've gotta spend money by a certain date, and if you don't, then it's gone. You know? Or "Hey, you can't spend it until that date." It's a super familiar situation.
[00:29:22] Rachel Moore: And so, I think that what a, what a great way to think about that. To be like, look, we, we want to understand and accommodate someone who wants to attend has the budget to attend. Maybe we need to finesse when they pay a little bit. Which I would say too, that probably comes into play. You were talking about, you know, when people are having to register late, maybe, you know, but you've got a certain, um, amount or capacity. You can't go above.
[00:29:47] Rachel Moore: So, just again, demonstrative of all the, the, the, the tight wire that ever, you know, the high wire that ever, all these event profs are walking. We're like, we are, we're doing our best to make sure there's a balance and you have the best shot possible to be able to attend our event and register for it.
[00:30:04] Samantha Arth: Yep. Exactly. Um, and another thing that comes to mind, uh, just how we generally, uh, approach a paid event versus a free event, is, a paid event is really an opportunity to promote group registrations and offer those sort of discounts, and that's where we wanna, you know, pull people in and, and get as many people, you know, through the door and, and registered for the event and offer those sort of discounts that, uh, that really enco, encourage, uh, that sort of registration.
[00:30:34] Samantha Arth: Whereas free events, we, generally tend to, uh, you know, limit the registration to one ticket for per order. Because, you know, we wanna make sure that we're getting the most quality information already for a free event. We might not ask quite as many questions, so we wanna make sure that the information we're getting is very personal and very individual.
[00:30:55] Samantha Arth: So that's just another example. Of course, it depends. There's gonna be instances of, you know, of both group and individual for free or paid.
[00:31:04] Samantha Arth: But in general, that's kind of how we approach it as well, is, you know, this is a, a free event. We wanna really encourage everyone to register for themselves and, and, and get that information that way.
[00:31:14] Rachel Moore: Makes a ton of sense. These are great tactics. Thank you so much. Because yeah, this, I, I knew this was gonna be kind of a goal, a chance to dig further into the goldmine of your brain, uh, to, to get some more, uh, tactics that people can try and, you know, even, even as they think about the things you've talked about, it can pop off some other ideas too.
[00:31:31] Rachel Moore: It's like, "Ooh, ooh", you know, and, and all of it, y'all comes back to just, you know, let's think about the attendee. You know, what, what is the best way? And in these, this day and age of registration, uh, chaos and, and sadness and, and, uh, just trying to overcome that challenge. Um, what are those ways that we can make sure we're giving ourselves the best shot to get those registration numbers and close those deals?
[00:31:57] Rachel Moore: Finally, Easiest question of all, where can our listeners find and follow you online?
[00:32:02] Samantha Arth: Absolutely. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, Samantha Arth. And I'm also, you know, on Instagram, uh, but not, not super active there. I'd say mostly LinkedIn is where you can find me.
[00:32:23] To help you skill up, Samantha's advice is about not settling for the status quo from event to event.
[00:32:30] Samantha Arth: Never be afraid to ask why, and really don't be afraid to, to, to change how, how you think about things and, uh, put yourself in the, the shoes of a customer and you know, if, or whoever your audience is, that you're trying to register for an event.
[00:32:49] Samantha Arth: And, you know, if registration is done a certain way and there's something in your mind that's like, wait, that doesn't make total sense to me, it might've made sense to your company five years ago, but never be afraid to ask why did we do it that way? Or does that still make sense? Um, you know, we've just found with small changes of our team really thinking about things differently and, and, and asking the why with these small shifts, we've really been able to, uh, you know, change the game a lot and really improve our processes.
[00:33:20] Thanks again to Samantha Arth for joining us on Event Experience and thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love to hear it.
[00:33:28] Connect with us on social and subscribe, rate and review us wherever you're listening. Also, don't forget to share the show with your colleagues and friends.
[00:33:36] You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on bizzabo.com/podcast.[00:33:43] On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of Event Experience.
