Struggling with event registration chaos? This episode of The Event Experience podcast tackles the biggest pain points and practical solutions, straight from industry leaders. Host Rachel Moore recaps a dynamic Bizzabo webinar featuring Daniel McCartt (Nasdaq), Samantha Arth (Axon), and Gabrielle Scott (Bizzabo), who share real-world strategies to streamline and personalize your event registration process.
You’ll hear expert insights on:
The panel also reveals how tools like Bizzabo enhance registration performance and attendee satisfaction through automation, segmentation, and real-time testing.
Whether you're planning a large-scale conference or an intimate webinar, this episode offers tactical advice to boost conversions and create a seamless attendee experience.
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[00:00:09] Rachel Moore: 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] Rachel Moore: I'm Rachel Moore, your podcast host.
[00:00:23] Rachel Moore: Welcome to this special episode of the podcast, featuring the best bits of our recent webinar, adventures in event registration, chaos, hacks and hope. Where I hosted three expert panelists to discuss overcoming the challenges of event registration.
[00:00:38] Rachel Moore: You'll hear from Daniel McCart. Senior Event Manager for listings at Nasdaq.
[00:00:42] Rachel Moore: Samantha Arth, Marketing and Events project manager at Axon. And Gabrielle Scott, director of Product Marketing at Bizzabo. As we get real about the frustrations of disappearing registrants, creative and effective strategies for improving signups, and how to leverage Bizzabo's event management tools.
[00:01:00] Rachel Moore: If you've never, ever in your whole career as an event planner, had trouble with registrations.
[00:01:05] Rachel Moore: This podcast might not be for you. But we all know the truth about registration in the event experience.
[00:01:19] Rachel Moore: Everyone, we're so glad you're here. I'm especially glad you're here. I am Rachel Moore, and I'm the host of Bizzabo's Event Experience Podcast, as well as being thrilled to be your guide through our webinars, which that's where you are, so you're in the right place if that's where you wanna be. Welcome to Adventures in Event Registration: Chaos, Hacks, and Hope. We're gonna bring all three for you today.
[00:01:43] Rachel Moore: This webinar will be available on demand for your convenience. Yes, we're here today to talk about that universal truth of event planning: the thrilling, nail biting, sometimes soul crushing quest to get those registration numbers soaring and maybe even land a few signups before the week of the event.
[00:02:02] Rachel Moore: Imagine that. I know, I know. It's from the distant past. Let's see if we can bring it forward again. In this session, we're not just going to commiserate over the crickets chirping in your registration dashboard. We're diving deep into the biggest frustrations that keep us event pros up at night.
[00:02:18] Rachel Moore: Is it the endless follow ups, the mystery of the disappearing registrant? Where did they go? The sheer audacity of people waiting until the last minute. I'm guilty. I've done that too. We'll cover it all. We're also bringing the remedies today. Get ready for a dose of creative and, yes, possibly slightly unhinged tactics that we've actually worked in the wild.
[00:02:41] Rachel Moore: We're talking real strategies, helpful hacks, and the kind of honest, unfiltered talk that you usually only hear whispered in the vacant hallways of event industry conferences. I know some of you lurk there, sometimes do eavesdrop.
[00:02:54] Rachel Moore: Speaking of solutions, we'll also be showing you how Bizzabo empowers event professionals like you to conquer all these challenges.
[00:03:02] Rachel Moore: We're not offering tools alone here either. Think of us as a lifeline in the often turbulent waters of event registration. So get comfortable. Get ready to arm yourselves with insights and inspiration to finally crack the code of early and enthusiastic event signups. Let's do this.
[00:03:19] Rachel Moore: Without further ado, let's begin our journey by introducing today's webinar speakers.
[00:03:24] Rachel Moore: First, we have Daniel McCart. Daniel is the Senior Event Manager for listings at Nasdaq, where he leads strategic event planning and execution for executive engagements and investor conferences across global markets. With over a decade of experience spinning spanning Nasdaq, On it, and Thomson Reuters. Daniel brings deep expertise in executive experiences, field marketing and demand gen.
[00:03:49] Rachel Moore: He is passionate about creating impactful experiences that connect industry leaders and drive those business outcomes. And for a long event day on the ground, Daniel is wearing, I've never heard of these before, Birkenstock, Chelsea boots. He's, and they make boots, Daniel?
[00:04:05] Daniel McCartt: They make boots. They make all kinds of shoes.
[00:04:07] Daniel McCartt: I had no idea either.
[00:04:09] Rachel Moore: This is news to me, so thank you. Welcome to the discussion. Welcome you and your Birkenstock Chelsea Boots.
[00:04:14] Daniel McCartt: Thank, glad to be here.
[00:04:15] Rachel Moore: Of course. Next we have Samantha Arth. Samantha Arth is the project manager of marketing and events at Axon, where she has spent the past four years helping scale the company's event program exponentially.
[00:04:28] Rachel Moore: All of us want exponential results in our metrics. She owns the end-to-end event registration process, from backend setup to onsite execution, and is passionate about finding innovative ways to utilize registration tools to meet the unique needs of each event. And her event day shoes are Hokas, which are popular in my house too.
[00:04:47] Rachel Moore: Welcome, Samantha, to the webinar.
[00:04:49] Samantha Arth: Hi, thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
[00:04:51] Rachel Moore: Awesome. And finally, we have Gabrielle Scott. Gabrielle is the Director of Product Marketing here at Bizzabo, where she leads go to market strategy and product storytelling.
[00:05:02] Rachel Moore: With over 15 years of marketing and communications expertise spanning the technology, professional services, and healthcare industries, Gabrielle brings a customer first lens to every initiative.
[00:05:14] Rachel Moore: She's passionate about translating complex product capabilities into compelling experiences that resonate with users. For event days, she's wearing Roth's Flats. I've not heard of those either, so I love it when I hear about new shoes. Gabrielle, welcome to our webinar.
[00:05:29] Gabrielle Scott: Glad to help. Good to see you.
[00:05:31] Rachel Moore: All right. Well, let's get started, shall we? We are gonna tackle this first. So, the order of show today: we're gonna do this first segment. It's gonna get a little spicy, okay? Emotions may run hot. Reactions are gonna be real.
[00:05:44] Rachel Moore: Pain, anger, chaos. In that order.
[00:05:46] Rachel Moore: Daniel, I'm gonna take this question for you first, but then we are gonna go around the panel and we are gonna hover on that registration poll we just saw.
[00:05:54] Rachel Moore: Was one of those three your winning response, and why, why did you feel that that one really resonated with you? Which one just kind of like 'hmm' with you.
[00:06:01] Daniel McCartt: I would say it's the, the one on the bottom left, balancing ease of registration, getting enough information. I think that's a big pain point. It's not only getting enough information, but it's also getting the correct information.
[00:06:15] Daniel McCartt: The other day, someone registered with an email address that they mistyped. So, it was a, uh, one of my team members. It was a wild goose chase to find out who this person was. And then it made it complicated because whenever you have to run duplicate searches, all of those items, I would say that's a big pain point.
[00:06:33] Daniel McCartt: Um, and then also just depending on the event, what partner you're working with, what venue you have to get even more information maybe you didn't know about in the beginning. So then you have to go back and then email everyone. They didn't put their dietary restriction in, you name it. So that's it. That's a big one.
[00:06:50] Rachel Moore: That's right. Uh, no, and I, I, I can imagine too, I, I don't know, I, I think all of us know the hacker once you kind of get what the, uh, the, the protocol is or the naming protocols for you know, a brand's emails or it's like, is it first name dot last name? And so then you're trying to like sleuth it out and be like, maybe we can figure out who this person is.
[00:07:08] Rachel Moore: I'm sure a lot of us can relate with that.
[00:07:09] Rachel Moore: Samantha, I'm going to you next. Which one was your kind of winner winner chicken dinner?
[00:07:13] Samantha Arth: Oh, that first one about managing and responding to inquiry submissions. That's always a huge struggle for our team, especially, you know, in that month lead up to the event when everyone's kind of heads down, just, uh, you know, planning the event.
[00:07:26] Samantha Arth: That's also when the most questions come around registration. Um, so that's definitely the, the biggest pain point for us. Especially for paid events.
[00:07:34] Rachel Moore: Oh my gosh, yeah. Especially with that. I know we all have AI and stuff, but you know, we, we still wanna make sure people feel that human touch. And, and so, it can take a lot of resources to do that for sure.
[00:07:44] Rachel Moore: Very relatable there.
[00:07:45] Rachel Moore: And then Gabrielle, which one, uh, any of those three that just kind of jump to you? Or maybe even a fourth option?
[00:07:52] Gabrielle Scott: Honestly, the last one, people waiting till the last minute to register. I hear this from so many of Bizzabo's customers that I speak with on a regular basis, that this is just the biggest pain in their neck.
[00:08:03] Gabrielle Scott: Um, and I think we've all been there, having that stress of having to give the venue your final head count. You're really committing to your spend at that point, and you don't know if those people are actually gonna show up. Um, if you're gonna end up undercounting, over counting. Um, it's so hard to hit that nail right on the head.
[00:08:19] Gabrielle Scott: So, I definitely feel the stress of that one.
[00:08:22] Rachel Moore: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, and we alluded to it at the top. I mean, I even stepped in the confessional and said, I do this sometimes. I think last year I registered for an out-of-state conference a week before it happened, and I'm sure that just made them. 'Yeah, I am glad you're coming, but why couldn't you have decided earlier, right?
[00:08:38] Rachel Moore: Well, Samantha, I'm gonna take this next one to you from anger to pain. And just a reminder, I am gonna go around to each panelist for this too. We're gonna get all this venting aired out before we move on.
[00:08:47] Rachel Moore: I'd like to give each of you a chance to share your own pain point or points about registration. We obviously just had an opportunity to share, "Well, here's what I aligned with as far as like which one of these kind of bubbled up to the top from the registration of this webinar," and we might have some shared feelings in comments. There'll be no shocks there.
[00:09:03] Rachel Moore: But let's get real. Go unfiltered. This is venting session. Let loose about what's wrong with registration.
[00:09:09] Rachel Moore: Samantha, what is wrong with registration in your mind?
[00:09:12] Samantha Arth: Yeah, so really, that that first answer hit it on the head, the management. And I kind of mentioned it the, for paid events, um, managing payments. Who has paid? Who's offline? Who's online? Finding a way to just kind of keep all of that on track and sane, along with uh, all the other, uh, event planning and, and registration, uh, components.
[00:09:32] Samantha Arth: That's definitely. It's definitely the hardest.
[00:09:34] Rachel Moore: Well, and you know, when things you think about paid, there's just so much more pressure there. And, and maybe I'm speaking on a turn, if anyone's like, "No girlfriend, uh, you know, free events are right up there too." But paid, I mean, you, you obviously there's revenue to be had there, and you're just kinda like wondering, "Well, are, you know, we have some, some, uh, some bars we wanna hit as far as like where, what are our lowest minimums that we wanna make sure we're registering for?
[00:09:57] Rachel Moore: So I would imagine that adds a lot of stress to that scenario, correct?
[00:10:00] Samantha Arth: Yep. Um, managing, the revenue aspect of it, but then, um, also, you know, following up offline for the invoice payers, working with our finance team, tracking it all in a way that, uh, that makes sense. Uh, definitely.
[00:10:15] Rachel Moore: Yeah. Gabby, I'm gonna go over to you next. What about you? And, and you know, I know again, we, we kind of tapped into one of those that what came through this registration of this webinar. But, uh, what else? What are your other pain points? You're like, 'ugh!'
[00:10:28] Gabrielle Scott: I think it's just really hard to feel like you are breaking through the noise and getting to people, right? Everybody's inboxes are cluttered. Everybody is getting content thrown at them left and right. So I think that's one of the hardest points is, you know, how can you tailor your own communications, your own promotion, so that you're actually breaking through?
[00:10:48] Gabrielle Scott: To me, that's one of the biggest challenges.
[00:10:50] Rachel Moore: Daniel, going to you. What about you? And again, feel free to vent forth here, uh, other pain points around registration you're just like, man, this just gets me every time.
[00:11:00] Daniel McCartt: Well, I would add to what Samantha said, paid events. I don't do paid events. Someone else on our team does.
[00:11:05] Rachel Moore: Oh.
[00:11:06] Daniel McCartt: Those can be rough 'cause it's people's money. So when that's involved, people get a little spicy. So, um, luckily, I work on three events for the moment.
[00:11:15] Daniel McCartt: I would say a big pain point, that isn't so much a pain point anymore for us actually is now that we're using an event software, like an event management software. It helps a lot.
[00:11:25] Daniel McCartt: Before then, we were working with the marketing operations team, so, you know, our internal teams that handle creating the registration page, creating all of those items. They have to be in line with brand, with what other departments and business units are doing.
[00:11:39] Daniel McCartt: And then also, not only is there a lack of flexibility, was there a lack of flexibility, but there was a lack of timeliness that came with creating those items.
[00:11:49] Daniel McCartt: A specific story that I'll tell is that we hosted a really large reception at the Texas Governor's Mansion. We were doing a remote bell, which is really cool. If you haven't ever seen a Nasdaq Bell open or close like a remote bell, they were really cool. We did a remote one for Instacart, etc.
[00:12:06] Daniel McCartt: We were doing this reception, and part of it is you have to submit all the names to the Texas Governor's Mansion, um, slash, the patrollers, the state troopers kind of office that manages security. And it has to be exactly as it's written on someone's license.
[00:12:23] Daniel McCartt: So imagine if someone shorthands it, what have you? But the way that our registration was set up, it would sync with Salesforce. So the data that I would actually type into the registration page might not be exactly as I entered it because it's using a contact record.
[00:12:42] Daniel McCartt: So I had to go in and manually look up 72 people in the metadata. This is like 20 clicks per person, make sure it's right, copy and paste. It's crazy.
[00:12:54] Daniel McCartt: Now, I figured out after that there's a way to change the form to where it enters exactly as it is. So of course, I found that later, so I flipped that automatically. But that was a very big registration pain.
[00:13:08] Rachel Moore: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that is, that is wild. It's so relatable. How many of us have like been like, had to like, well, I guess I'm gonna slog through a bunch of manual data checking. 'cause I gotta make sure, especially in that kind of instance, and you have no choice and you're just like, um, yeah, gotta gotta make it happen, and that's valuable time. That now is no longer yours because.
[00:13:27] Daniel McCartt: And the last thing you want is a guest to go up to the security desk at the Texas Governor Mansion and be like, um, this isn't your name.
[00:13:35] Daniel McCartt: They're like, yes it is. I promise.
[00:13:38] Rachel Moore: Well, and it was funny because like even uh, when we were talking about this webinar, you know, I was asking, does anyone go by a nickname? Can you imagine? Because like, you know, if anyone would be like, "Well this, yeah, this is what I go by and it's fine. And it's like, it's not fine 'cause it's not what's on your license? I'm sorry."
[00:13:53] Daniel McCartt: Oh my gosh. I promise it's my middle name. I just go by my middle name. It's okay.
[00:13:57] Rachel Moore: Ugh, mind numbing. When you're talking about those paid ones, hard to have proper backup to push for paid sponsorship and exhibitor op opportunities if we don't have real, tangible historical data.
[00:14:06] Rachel Moore: So yeah, sponsorships being part of it too. It's like, it's really hard when all these registration numbers when we maybe don't have the data soon enough. Don't, don't have historically and stuff. And you know, just having to be able to showcase that and convince people to hop on board. Just, you all are bringing up some really great points, panelists.
[00:14:22] Rachel Moore: And attendees included. Uh, and Gabrielle, I'm gonna come over to you next. Um, now we're gonna get into, and this might still stay spicy, I hope.
[00:14:30] Rachel Moore: We wanna keep it real here, what is the craziest thing you've ever done for registration? Like, we want, you know, anything you did that was outta the box, tactics that earned you major bombastic side eye.
[00:14:42] Rachel Moore: People are like, are you kidding? You're gonna try that and you did it anyway. Or possibly ideas that made a vendor or partner go, 'excuse me'. Um, so yeah, what, what, what do you got?
[00:14:51] Gabrielle Scott: I'm not sure I have any stories that would get the Texas State troopers to tackle me. Nothing quite that spicy. Um, I would say the most creative sort of out of the box thing I did was years ago I was organizing a large in-person, um, conference for global attendees.
[00:15:06] Gabrielle Scott: We were down in Miami and we were really trying to get people to register early. As we talked about, obviously. Trying to get those registrations in the door early. So what we did was we actually, um, sort of put a promotion out there that if you registered by the early bird deadline, we'd throw in, um, an all expenses paid weekend at the same venue, at the same hotel. So you could extend your stay.
[00:15:29] Gabrielle Scott: And it turned out there were quite a lot of people who, you know, wanted to bring their spouse down for the weekend or whatnot. And so I think the conference was Tuesday through Friday and we extended them Friday through Sunday and we had people enter for a chance to win.
[00:15:42] Gabrielle Scott: Um, and we actually did see a higher percentage on that early bird registration. I don't know if causation of is correlation, but it seemed pretty effective and people thought it was a really fun idea.
[00:15:53] Rachel Moore: I would've done that too. If you have a chance to like, and my, my spouse would've also been like, yes, you're doing that.
[00:15:59] Rachel Moore: So, I love that you, you're adding almost that pressure of like, "Okay, somebody else that they're close to is gonna want them to do this too." That's really, really inventive. I love that you did that.
[00:16:07] Rachel Moore: Uh, I wanna, uh, give Samantha and Daniel opportunity anything I spicy that you've tried? It's like, okay, hope this works, and maybe it did.
[00:16:15] Samantha Arth: Something that we've done on the backend that's kind of crazy to think about, um, is we had an event that had over 30 different registration flows, um, to really like, personalize and, and make the registration experience very easy, uh, for the front end user.
[00:16:31] Samantha Arth: Um, so that people could, you know, select which state they're in, and then the, the tickets that that align with that show up so crazy just because it's, it's, uh, it was a big thing to set up on the backend, but gave the the customer the best experience possible.
[00:16:45] Rachel Moore: That gets down that like what we're, it might be manual to set that up, but worth the payoff in the end, right? Um, and to, to make sure the ad that they're getting that custom experience.
[00:16:53] Rachel Moore: Daniel, uh, how about you? Anything, and again, it's kind of hard to top the, to the Texas State Trooper thing.
[00:16:59] Daniel McCartt: Yeah. Well, I mean, Gabrielle, I would send me the link 'cause I'd love to sign it for a trip. No, I'm just kidding.
[00:17:05] Daniel McCartt: I would say in my former life I worked, did all trade shows. Um, that's what I did for years.
[00:17:11] Daniel McCartt: So, like 70 trade shows a year. It was crazy. Going to Vegas seven times in one year of the course of four months isn't a vibe. Um, especially when one of those is in September. But during one of those shows we did registration signups and we did at the actual booth, like a trivia challenge game where the top 10 winners got to win like a hundred dollars gift card, which trade show, gift cards, money, of course it's gonna drive people to the booth.
[00:17:37] Daniel McCartt: So like during the registration process, we were very forward about that and so we gave people like a way to sign up beforehand and so they could actually participate and get a, a test of it.
[00:17:48] Daniel McCartt: It was really cool. Like it, a lot of people signed up for it. I did the same, similar thing when we were in COVID during all virtual. We did a virtual kind of trade show, which if anyone remembers that, that seems like a, a 10 years ago, that whole virtual event experience that will get people really hot and heavy, that's not fun.
[00:18:06] Daniel McCartt: Um, but yeah, just trying to experiment.
[00:18:10] Rachel Moore: Really, that's the name of the game, right? I, I think it, it, you're just really trying to play on like, what, what is going to move the needle for the registrants? What's, whether it's an emotion or, you know, a, a get a solid, get from something that's valuable to them and valuable to them, not even like in respect to the event itself, but personally.
[00:18:29] Rachel Moore: This is going to improve my life and experience beyond this event. And so, you know, whether it's a extended travel or, or a gift card, you know, I know I, I'm sure, uh, and not to knock that. I mean, hey, try whatever you can and sometimes that is really gonna work for you. So, hopefully that does.
[00:18:45] Rachel Moore: Okay, this was a spicy segment as we said. I want everyone, I'm gonna make a Taylor Swift reference, shake it off.
[00:18:51] Rachel Moore: Okay, everybody shake off the bad, the, the venti, the angry vibes about registration. We're gonna leave those behind. They are very valid. I don't wanna invalidating anyone's feelings, but we're gonna move on to the hopeful, hopeful portions of today's event.
[00:19:04] Rachel Moore: Now, we, we've alluded to it a little bit already. Marketing channels can often make the difference for successful registration. And of course, we're all gathered in the actual event tech platform that gives us a head start every time we're launching a new event.
[00:19:18] Rachel Moore: So, Gabrielle, I'm appropriately gonna go to you first, Ms. Bizzabo. Uh, marketing channels do wield their own power specific to your event and the audience are trying to entice to register. Can you share one or two hacks, maybe specific to a marketing channel that you've used to win at registration? And again, Daniel and Samantha, I'm gonna take this around to you as well, but, um, what are some, what's something that you've tried with a marketing channel?
[00:19:42] Gabrielle Scott: There are a couple of things actually that I've heard from our customers. Some, I think underutilized under celebrated Bizzabo features that are kind of channel specific that have been pretty successful.
[00:19:52] Gabrielle Scott: So if there's anybody on here who's not tapping into them, I encourage you to do. So, one of them is for promotion on social, there's something called Ticket Boost, and it allows you to sort of share single or double-sided incentives.
[00:20:04] Gabrielle Scott: So your, your registrants can turn around and promote the event for you. And it's one of those, you know, if you sign up, the registrant gets 50 bucks, you get 50 bucks off, that kind of thing. So it just helps to spread the word, everybody wins, everybody gets some type of a promotion. So that's one that I've heard really great feedback on from our customers.
[00:20:22] Gabrielle Scott: And the other one, which is, I think as a marketer, my personal favorite is something called 'Hot Leaves', which is more email based, but it's kind of an abandoned cart functionality where we're actually able to track people who got halfway through the registration form and then, I don't know, their doorbell rang, they stepped away, something happened and they didn't have a chance to finish it. We're actually able to capture those people kind of build a list for you and then you can go and retarget them and try to encourage 'em to finish registration.
[00:20:51] Gabrielle Scott: So, as a marketer who loves, you know, who loves data and who loves any type of good segmentation, that one is really top of my list.
[00:21:00] Rachel Moore: That is brilliant.
[00:21:01] Rachel Moore: And as someone who has absolutely abandoned carts. Whether it was for events or otherwise, and then gotten some kinda like follow up email or text be like,
[00:21:08] Rachel Moore: "Hey, hey, did you forget something?" Uh, very effective, right? To be able to do that. I love the discount one as well, uh, to say, I mean, who doesn't want, especially if it's a paid event as we've talked about, who doesn't wanna get that little bit of a, "Hey, just take a little, little off the top for what I need to pay to get into this event."
[00:21:23] Rachel Moore: And then we both win-win and get to go together. That's really cool.
[00:21:26] Rachel Moore: Daniel, I'm gonna go to you next. Uh, anything specific to a marketing channel that you have tried as a registration hack?
[00:21:33] Daniel McCartt: Um, I would say, I mean, I like what Gabriela said about metrics, um, utilizing kind of the metrics, you know, within Bizzabo you can do this. Other platforms, you can of course do it as well, but just using a software, whenever you're going, inviting people, looking at who has registered or who hasn't.
[00:21:51] Daniel McCartt: That data is very insightful when it comes to follow up, right? Because a lot of the times us as marketers, we're not doing the actual follow up.
[00:21:59] Daniel McCartt: It's gonna be our sales teams that are reaching out to clients and reaching out to prospects regardless of the events paid or not. So giving and having that insight to give to them, I think makes a big difference.
[00:22:10] Daniel McCartt: And, you can have something else to reach out to them if they're not like responding. If you don't know if they're following up. I'm like, "Hey, 20% of your folks opened the link, but they didn't register." You know what I mean? And it gives us more insight when we're creating registration, when we're going about an event, AB testing, let's say, to, to be more creative.
[00:22:33] Rachel Moore: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And, and you know, God, we all love talking about data. We're big fans, you know, 'cause this is a whole big engine.
[00:22:39] Rachel Moore: We were just talking about retargeting with Gabrielle and you know, how you need that data that can actually help you move the needle to, to, to get those registrations to the finish line and, you know, use whatever pressure you can around to say, everybody do this together. Let's go on.
[00:22:54] Rachel Moore: Samantha, how about you? Um, anything you've tried?
[00:22:56] Samantha Arth: Yeah, so definitely the last couple years what's really helped us grow our audiences and the different segments that attend our events, um, is, kind of segment specific landing pages.
[00:23:06] Samantha Arth: That's something that we've added the last four years and while our core, uh, event website has a lot of great information and you know, touches on some of the different benefits that different kind of groups of people would, would get, uh, having those segment specific pages and also emails.
[00:23:24] Samantha Arth: Where we can just send people directly to like, how is this event event going to benefit you? It's really helped us, uh, grow the types of, uh, segments that attend our events.
[00:23:33] Rachel Moore: That's really smart. Uh, and again, like this kind of alludes to what you said earlier, it takes some time to set that stuff up, but you really are keeping that, uh, attendee experience front of mind there to say we wanna make it as sensible, as much flow as possible.
[00:23:49] Rachel Moore: Ease that journey for them so that they really feel that customization. And I, I would say probably way less inclined, like to have an instance like Gabrielle talked about or Daniel, where you like bounce or anything like that. But you're more likely to stick with it and, and get to that finish line of registration with that.
[00:24:05] Samantha Arth: And to tie it back to the very first pain point of, uh, all of the registration management questions, it gives us a nice place to send, to send folks, uh, when they, you know, ask questions about should I attend this event?
[00:24:18] Daniel McCartt: Answer is yes.
[00:24:20] Daniel McCartt: Yes, you should.
[00:24:21] Rachel Moore: The answer is always 'yes'. This all drives back to as well, and just something I think we all have top of mind. How is this keeping in front of mind? How is this going to help? Why should that registrant come? Why should they attend? What is the benefit? What's the payoff for them? And keeping that front of mind that, that needs to be how we're compelling them to come.
[00:24:42] Rachel Moore: We'll be right back with more event experience after the break. Event enthusiasts, are you hungry for the latest event trends and insights? Pop open your laptop, pull up your favorite browser, and head to the Bizzabo blog, that's B I Z Z A B O dot com forward slash blog, for fresh perspectives and expert takes on what shaping the world of events.
[00:25:05] Plus, subscribe to get blog updates sent to your inbox every two weeks, and never miss an article from bizzabo.com/blog. Do more that matters with Bizzabo.
[00:25:17] Rachel Moore: We're back as we spill the beans about what we've tried that has absolutely not worked to improve registrations. I wanna flip the script now and again. The, I kind of said confessional. I stepped into a confessional earlier. This is where we can kind of be really honest, like what hasn't worked.
[00:25:35] Rachel Moore: Daniel, I'm gonna go to you first with this. What have you tried in the past that was so lackluster that you left it in the dust never to be used again? 'Cause it just didn't get it done?
[00:25:46] Rachel Moore: Uh, we still wanna be hopeful, obviously, but we're just also here to help everyone avoid pitfalls, be like, oh, I shouldn't try that. Um, but anything that comes to mind that you're like, I ain't doing that ever again.
[00:25:56] Daniel McCartt: Yeah, I'll give a specific example. Um, I won't be too specific 'cause I don't wanna, you know, who knows who's on the webinar, but we had an, we had an event that we did, this must have been a couple months ago, where we were doing like a baseball experience, for example. And it was an opening game that was gonna be great. We had a suite. But the problem was with the event is that the time that the partners chose, it was like a day game on a Wednesday, it like 12:00 PM. So, obviously that could be problematic.
[00:26:24] Daniel McCartt: So registration, we are doing registration, trying to get outreach. Uh, very difficult. Maybe we had four or five, some canceled. So it was a learning experience, right?
[00:26:35] Daniel McCartt: It's like, if you're gonna do something during the middle of the week, don't do it during the day. Like, who's gonna be able to go?
[00:26:40] Daniel McCartt: And I would say a huge benefit that we potentially had is there was gonna be a former player that was gonna come into the suite and then meet everyone, but we didn't get that information until after the fact. So it was, that would've been very good to put in the beginning when people registering, right?
[00:26:57] Daniel McCartt: So, it's, it's a learning experience. We all have different issues with events, but yeah, that was an interesting one.
[00:27:03] Rachel Moore: Sounds, yeah. And I love that you focus, this is like, thanks, thanks for keeping it hopeful. 'cause it is about learning from the experience.
[00:27:09] Daniel McCartt: Trying to keep it positive. That's right. We all have enough problems going on.
[00:27:14] Rachel Moore: That's so true. Well, and, and Samantha and Gabrielle wanna leave that open to you too. Anything that you've tried, you're like, 'Mmm. That's, that's, uh, that's in the past. We're gonna leave that back there. We don't talk about it anymore.'
[00:27:25] Samantha Arth: Mine isn't like necessarily specific to a marketing strategy, but, uh, definitely something that we're living in the past is, uh, more complicated registration options and registration experience.
[00:27:36] Samantha Arth: We were kind of doing things the same way for a while and then, you know, when we took a fresh look at it, uh, we're asking question like, why are, why are we having abandoned registrations? Or why aren't people following through, really simplifying both for free and paid events, the different registration options and the questions that we ask.
[00:27:53] Samantha Arth: What's, uh, you know, required versus optional. Definitely simplicity gets the job done a lot.
[00:27:59] Rachel Moore: Well, I like that you mentioned that too, and that that can seem to run counter to one of the, one of the, uh, top events that we shared at the very top during the registration for this webinar was like, "Well, I need information though about this registrant." That balance of saying, "Well, what, which questions are too many questions? Which is enough, which isn't, and, and just really, I need to be simple, but I also need data about you."
[00:28:22] Rachel Moore: And so, trying to figure that out.
[00:28:25] Rachel Moore: Uh, Gabrielle, how about you? Anything that you're like, "Yeah, we're never doing that again."
[00:28:28] Gabrielle Scott: Kind of similar to Samantha. I think it's really that one size fits all registration process where you're going through it and you're like, "Oh, half of these questions don't even apply to me."
[00:28:39] Gabrielle Scott: So I think using things like conditional fields to, you know, really help personalize those registration flows so that people are only seeing the fields and the questions that are super relevant to them, I think is just leveling up their experience and something that honestly should be table stakes at this point.
[00:28:55] Gabrielle Scott: Yeah. So I think just leaving that in the past, that sort of one size fits all approach
[00:29:01] Daniel McCartt: And I would add to that, the, the intention of the fields being required or not is a huge item. Like so many of the, you know, actual marketing operations or marketing strategy folks separated from our event team would like all of these fields to be required, which I get, but if they're required, you're gonna stop them from filling out the form.
[00:29:21] Daniel McCartt: Um, yeah, it's just too much. Like, they don't wanna give that much data either, like they're going to a dinner or they're going to a trade show, or they're going to a paid event. They're not buying a car or a house. Like why do they have to provide all this information?
[00:29:34] Samantha Arth: For sure.
[00:29:34] Rachel Moore: That's, that's a really good point.
[00:29:36] Rachel Moore: And, and yeah, just obviously we all want the data, but it's like, yeah. You know, is is it, has it be, has it become their own pain point now to be like, huh, I gotta muscle my way through your registration form. It's like, oh God.
[00:29:47] Rachel Moore: All right. Let's get into some tech time, um, as we take a close examination into Bizzabo's platform features.
[00:29:53] Rachel Moore: Samantha, I'm gonna take this to you, but again, I wanna leave it open for, uh, Gabrielle or Daniel to sound off on this.
[00:29:58] Rachel Moore: But, what, what are, uh, some platform features in Bizzabo that make the whole prospect, uh, of registration maybe less cringey, a little more clutch?
[00:30:08] Samantha Arth: So, uh, there's a lot of features of Bizzabo, that are amazing and work really well for us. They're very open to like, however you want to use them.
[00:30:17] Samantha Arth: We've, depending on the different type of event, we use, uh, biz Bizzabo in a very different way. Like, the ticket type might be in person in virtual or the ticket type might be a stop on, you know, a, a tour of events that we have. Um, a registration flow, like the example, I mentioned earlier could be like all the events that are in a certain state.
[00:30:36] Samantha Arth: Or it can be for a certain audience. Um, really being able to customize these features to exactly what you need for each unique event, um, is super, super helpful.
[00:30:47] Samantha Arth: Um, the ones that we use the most are, you know, the allowing different registration flows and different, uh, registration experiences based on the audience or the ticket type.
[00:30:56] Samantha Arth: Um, also having custom registration emails. Per ticket type is, is super key for us as well. And the different payment options, uh, are super, super crucial for our paid events.
[00:31:09] Rachel Moore: Wow. That's, that was a whole slew of really awesome things that sound like they, they really work well for you, especially considering your very, you know, attendee centric focus that you all like, you like to employ, that gets you success.
[00:31:21] Rachel Moore: Gabrielle wanted to give you, or Daniel a chance to sound off to any, anything that's like, "Oh my God, I'm so glad this feature exists."
[00:31:27] Gabrielle Scott: Sure thing. I've heard from a lot of our customers that the branding options, um, that we have related to registration. Um, really make a difference for them. Um, you may not think of that as something that's really gonna drive it, but the fact that the registration can either be on your own website, it can be a widget that you drop into your own hosted website, the fact that you can customize the look and feel of the form itself.
[00:31:51] Gabrielle Scott: I think all of those things sort of help to build that really professional on-brand experience. Um, so that from the second people land on your event website, they sort of feel like they're immersed in the world of your event.
[00:32:04] Gabrielle Scott: So I think, I think those things are really important.
[00:32:06] Rachel Moore: Absolutely. And Daniel, over to you.
[00:32:08] Daniel McCartt: Yeah, I would agree. Brand perspective is a really important feature. Just being able to customize the page. I mean, you can go crazy if you want to. You can use the embedded features, but you can also use like CSS, like custom, custom, HTML, and really get your creative team involved if you need to.
[00:32:24] Daniel McCartt: You know, I didn't go that far. We kind of in the middle, middle ground.
[00:32:29] Daniel McCartt: But I would say for me, one specific use case that's been very useful is we're planning, you know, a larger event in like Aspen, where it's gonna be just pretty bespoke. People are gonna be driving there, we're gonna be busing people in, but it's a plus one event. Where people will be bringing their plus ones.
[00:32:45] Daniel McCartt: So, capturing guest registration can be even more difficult than capturing actual attendee signup registration. So, we did a, a workaround essentially where we were able to have them fill out their form at the top. It says, once you click next, then you'll be able to add in your guest registration and it duplicated the form essentially in a separate way.
[00:33:07] Daniel McCartt: So, that way it brings in the attendee or the guest as a separate attendee versus just adding on data to that person's registration, which is what I had to do in the past.
[00:33:18] Daniel McCartt: Then you gotta go through, look at it. That's a vent for two seconds. Then you have to go in, add that data to a separate line of Excel. But this allowed it to aggregate normally as if they had registered themselves as the guest. So I think that's a very powerful use case that we found.
[00:33:35] Rachel Moore: I'm getting flexibility here from a lot of what y'all are saying, like it based on what you need to do it, it lets you do exactly the extent that you want, which is really great. And who doesn't want that? Because like you said, you, you just, we all just gave examples of very different events, very different types of events, types of registration and it's all doable.
[00:33:53] Rachel Moore: We're gonna keep on speaking about the Bizzabo platform in this next segment.
[00:33:57] Rachel Moore: And who better to hear from than someone who has a proven strategy using all of the tools and tactics, including some of the ones we just talked about at their disposal to achieve registration goals?
[00:34:07] Rachel Moore: Samantha, I am gonna take this one to you. You're the one I'm talking about right now. We'd like to delve into different strategies needed to deliver for B2B versus B2C, free versus paid, VIPs versus general admission.
[00:34:23] Rachel Moore: Can you help us by highlighting your varied approaches to these types of events? And I know I just gave you a whole swath of different kinds of events, but, but yeah.
[00:34:31] Rachel Moore: How, how do you make this work and, and get the registration goals done?
[00:34:35] Samantha Arth: Yeah, so, uh, we usually start with talking about what, what, what do we want to achieve, right? Like what, what do we want, uh, to gain and what do we want the experience to be like? And before we even go into Bizzabo, 'cause having an understanding of like, okay, what this is the type of information we need. How would it make sense to, uh, segment these different registration types out? We kind of do all that thinking and, and determination outside.
[00:34:59] Samantha Arth: And then once you have a good idea of that, going then into the Bizzabo platform gives you kind of like a more of a blank slate versus just starting and then being like, "Wait, should I have done the other event type? Because now that I'm building it, I'm thinking of this."
[00:35:12] Samantha Arth: So, really there's a lot of, of, of different approaches. I kind of mentioned it. But there are times where we use, uh, ticket types for uh, different types of attendance or there's even been times that, you know, we've had B2B events where we are only allowed to have, you know, four representatives per company. And, you know, these are the 20 companies.
[00:35:33] Samantha Arth: And so, we've had ticket types with, you know, those, those limits per company and we've really kind of done a, a lot of different things here.
[00:35:40] Samantha Arth: But using the hidden tickets, uh, for the VIP versus general admission has been huge. And the ability to attach kind of the promo code for either a hidden ticket or just a ticket discount and send someone that specific URL. Um, so that they can register appropriately, um, is is huge as well.
[00:36:00] Rachel Moore: Gotcha. That, yeah. And that, like we said, flexibility, but you really are tapping into all these different nooks and crannies really of, of Bizzabo the platform and all the things that lets you customize that experience, and right down to the ticket tier, ticket type, you know, again, if there's paid, if there's free.
[00:36:18] Rachel Moore: And I think we've all, you know, been to events where there's maybe both in those. Sometimes they're paid and sometimes they're free. So, um, I, I think that's super cool.
[00:36:26] Rachel Moore: And then, uh, Gabrielle, I wanna take, this next one over to you, and you can feel free as well to opine a little bit on what Samantha just said.
[00:36:34] Rachel Moore: But I'm gonna kind of tap into something we do on the podcast.
[00:36:38] Rachel Moore: So we, obviously, I mentioned I, I help host and produce the Event Experience Podcast.
[00:36:43] Rachel Moore: But, I always ask each guest for a single piece of advice. And that's really tough sometimes to ask anybody because I'm looking back, you know, we talked about your, you have a very vast career.
[00:36:52] Rachel Moore: There's a lot of advice you could give, but I'm asking for like one piece of advice plugged from that entire career experience that you'd like the audience to take away with you today.
[00:37:02] Rachel Moore: And let's get specific in regards to registration. And if you wanna give more than one, that's okay too. But, uh, what, and, and Daniel just get ready, you and Samantha. I'm gonna ask you the same question. So, I'll give you a little more time to think about it.
[00:37:13] Rachel Moore: But Gabrielle, what is one piece of advice that you think this audience today, on this webinar should take away regarding registration that you've learned in your career?
[00:37:21] Gabrielle Scott: it's sort of an oldie buddy goodie. But I think really tapping into the power of your network. I think for an event that you have speakers, you have sponsors, you have so many different stakeholders involved, get those speakers and sponsors involved in spreading the word for you as well.
[00:37:39] Gabrielle Scott: If you have speakers lined up, ask the speakers to share that they're speaking at the upcoming event. Maybe they have a special promo code. If you have sponsors, ask them to share that they are, um, attending that next event.
[00:37:52] Gabrielle Scott: Every person that you can get to spread the word for you just kind of extends the reach of your network further and further. And it's all usually free.
[00:38:00] Gabrielle Scott: So, you know, it's, it's an oldie buddy goodie. It's not the most high tech option. But I really do think the more that you can get people to, kind of, just spread the word and expand the reach of your community, the better. And I think you see those dividends in your registration.
[00:38:15] Rachel Moore: Excellent. Uh, thank you so much for that. That's great advice. Samantha, I'm gonna pop back over to you for your advice.
[00:38:20] Rachel Moore: Uh, something you can hand over to the attendees to take away today.
[00:38:24] Samantha Arth: Yeah, I'd say that my number one piece of advice would be to imagine yourself as the person registering.
[00:38:30] Samantha Arth: Um, so we often we're the ones, you know, setting it up, right? And we're the company and we know exactly what, what our goals are.
[00:38:39] Samantha Arth: Um, but don't build registration based on that. Start with, "if I were registering for this event, what would I want that experience to be?" And, and if you think about that as you're setting up the, the questions and the website and your marketing channels, that'd be my one piece of advice.
[00:38:55] Rachel Moore: That's really, really solid advice. Daniel, over to you.
[00:38:58] Rachel Moore: What do you have for our, our team?
[00:38:59] Daniel McCartt: I love that one. To piggyback off of Samantha, putting yourself in those shoes, but like also if you have a registration page or a form, use it and open it up on every different device that you have.
[00:39:11] Daniel McCartt: Like imagine yourself no matter where you are, like looking on your phone. Because even though like Bizzabo and other event platforms, they scale according to where you are. Look at it though, because you just need to make sure because.
[00:39:23] Daniel McCartt: Also think about is someone using dark mode? Is someone using light mode? Like those are all different elements that come into play.
[00:39:30] Daniel McCartt: My original answer is similar to Gabrielle. I would say similarly, be really close with your sales teams and the folks that are gonna be sending the invite.
[00:39:42] Daniel McCartt: Stay connected at the hip because the more you're connected with them and the better the relationship you have with everyone across the business that is involved in the event, it's gonna give you more ability to say, "Hey, let's do another push. Like let's continue inviting, etc, right?
[00:40:00] Daniel McCartt: That's what I found. The stronger the relationships I have with my regional team, with o my other team members there, like East coast, Southwest, it makes such a huge difference. When those relationships are strong and then it, it just brings a whole new element to the entire situation.
[00:40:18] Rachel Moore: Yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense. And you know, we talked about this too, registration is one metric of an entire event. But there's data you're gathering, there's an experience you're creating, there's business you're trying to conduct.
[00:40:31] Rachel Moore: And knowing that those teams are, you know, they're part of that and they're going to benefit from that for their own, you know, for what their goals are for the business. But all of you are. And so, yeah, the relational part of it.
[00:40:42] Rachel Moore: And again, we, we, there's been some common themes we've talked about today, flexibility in the features of a platform, relational and trying to make this a very attendee, um, centric experience and all the teams that are required for that.
[00:40:54] Rachel Moore: Daniel, I I have a, I had a question I was gonna ask you though. I think we kind of answered it already, but I wanna still give you opportunity. I, I'd asked you earlier 'cause you already shared some of the features that you think are really helpful in Bizzabo.
[00:41:04] Rachel Moore: Anything else that you wanna add about Bizzabos awesomeness for, especially when it comes to like registration and, and making that attendee experience exception.
[00:41:13] Daniel McCartt: Yeah. Kind of what we talked about before, I just think flexibility. 'Cause I know probably a lot of people on the, the webinar now or others that will listen later, all have the big pain point of not using maybe an event software at the moment.
[00:41:29] Daniel McCartt: I've been at a company where I've used an event platform and then I haven't, and now I am again. So, I've been through the rigmarole of not being in control, things taking too long, no flexibility with the registration page. It has to look this way. You can just change the form and the image on the background. Like it's, it was very antiquated, very old school. And then, you know, we switched and got an event platform for us that we do so many events, like over 200 a year. I was like, we have to get something. This is crazy. Like we have to have flexibility. Our team is getting too big to not be in control of the situation.
[00:42:05] Daniel McCartt: So, I would say that, and that's a general kind of statement about event software, is that not using it is hard and be an advocate for yourself and your team to go and then realize why it can make your event program 10 times better.
[00:42:22] Rachel Moore: I wanna ask a really quick impromptu question. This should be fairly easy 'cause you can give a range.
[00:42:27] Rachel Moore: You mentioned you do two over 200 events a year. . Samantha, how many events are you doing per year?
[00:42:32] Samantha Arth: Oh, so probably around 200. We have, uh, a couple that are hosted like our own conferences. But as far as events that we attend, it's, yeah, it's in the hundreds.
[00:42:43] Rachel Moore: Woo. Gabrielle, how many events are, is Bizzabo even helping with each year? Do we remember?
[00:42:49] Gabrielle Scott: Oh gosh. Um, hard to say. Each year on Bizzabo thousands, um, I think last year, I wanna say it was four or 5,000 events that we supported in a year.
[00:43:03] Gabrielle Scott: Just off the top of my head. So, I know each year we're, we're supporting, you know, a couple hundred thousand, uh, attendees and registrants.
[00:43:12] Gabrielle Scott: And so, we're super aware of like every one of those individuals that's coming through a Bizzabo powered event and coming into the platform. And so, it's, it's, uh, it's humbling, but also really awesome to see those numbers come through.
[00:43:25] Rachel Moore: That blows me away too. And you do you think about each, each and every life in there. You know, it's like that's an attention to go have an experience in supporting it, woo.
[00:43:33] Rachel Moore: So, that was just a little,
[00:43:35] Daniel McCartt: I just need to take a breath. Because I, I think we forget that we do so many events as event marketers every year that challenging and just stay calm. It's gonna be okay. Um, each time we do one,
[00:43:51] Rachel Moore: Keep calm and carry on. Especially if you're using Bizzabo. But yes, absolutely.
[00:43:58] Rachel Moore: amazingly. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you everyone for your amazing questions And also, panelists, thank you so much for your insights.
[00:44:05] Rachel Moore: Speaking of which, let's all extend our heartfelt thanks to our distinguished speakers. Daniel McCart, Samantha Arth and Gabrielle Scott, we are so grateful for your time and knowledge today.
[00:44:15] Rachel Moore: Letting us vent together and letting us hope together. It was great. I'd also like to express our appreciation to our wonderful audience. Before we do part ways, a quick reminder that this webinar, was hosted on the Bizzabo Event Experience OS showcasing the power of innovative event technology.
[00:44:31] Rachel Moore: Thank you once again for joining us and we look forward to seeing all of you at our future events and we look forward to registering and having better registration at your events.
[00:44:39] Rachel Moore: Have a great day everyone.
[00:44:41] Rachel Moore: Thanks again to Daniel McCart, Samantha Arth, and Gabrielle Scott for joining us on another great Bizzabo Industry webinar. And thank you for listening to this special version for the Event Experience Podcast.
[00:44:52] Rachel Moore: If you're enjoying the show, we'd love to hear about it.
[00:44:55] Rachel Moore: Connect with us on social and subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you're listening.
[00:44:59] Rachel Moore: Also, don't forget to share the show with your colleagues and friends. You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on Bizzabo.com/podcast.
[00:45:09] Rachel Moore: On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of event Experience.
