Five Actionable Insights From Strategic Event Planning: Enhancing Engagement and ROI with FEVO Solutions

Last week, we hosted our June webinar, Strategic Event Planning: Enhancing Engagement and ROI with FEVO Solutions, which featured valuable insights on how sales, marketing, and operations teams can maximize ROI. Alissa Persichetti, FEVO’s VP of Partner Success, hosted a standout group of panelists, including Christopher Herschberger, Director of Ticket Sales & Service at the University of Iowa; Dan Stahl, Associate AD of Revenue Generation at the University of South Carolina; and Drew Bartl, Director of Ticket Sales & Services at Rutgers University.

Below are some key takeaways on how to work cross-departmentally, increase community outreach, and discover “hustle revenue” opportunities you might not even realize is available.

Family Weekends: Flexibility & Early Planning

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Getting ahead of your high-profile events is 101 for success. During this webinar, the panel discussed optimal timing for your hallmark Offers. For example, Drew Bartl and the crew at Rutgers start their Homecoming & Family Weekend planning as soon as Bowl Season winds down in late December/early January. As a pro-tip, Dan Stahl emphasized the importance of testing offers at least a month before on sale. Additionally, as with all major events, the panel stressed the importance of doing the leg work of getting buy-in from marketing, operations, and related organizations like the alumni association to ensure a collaborative and flawless execution.
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To maximize your ROI, organizations have to understand their audience. In the case of Rutgers, with so many alumni being season ticket holders already, Rutgers designed their FEVO Offer with flexibility for fans to purchase a ticket for the game, a ticket for the tailgate experience, or the ticket and tailgate bundled together, providing fans an easy, frictionless, purchase experience.

Pre-Game Experiences: Tailgates, Photo Ops, Concerts

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Fans are becoming more interested in creating memorable experiences, and technology has made creating and marketing these experiences more effortless than ever. Gone are the days of needing to sell all your Tailgate inventory to corporations or sponsors — now’s the time to start utilizgamedayt inventory beyond your high-profile events. Case in point, University of South Carolina’s Dan Stahl highlighted how easy it is to build non-inventory items directly in FEVO, enabling his team to create custom, creative gameday experiences in a flash. With non-integrated inventory, SC was able to offer fans added value experiences like on-field photos, pre (or post) event concerts, access to the sideline before games, and more. He stressed again that creating procedures and operational buy-in throughout your organization is extremely important to the gameday success.

Fundraising Offers: New Audiences & Great Causes

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When planning and selling group outings, enabling your groups to purchase for a purpose is invaluable to success. With FEVO, it’s easy to create Offers that give back. You decide the organization and the per-ticket donation amount, and we’ll cut the check to the non-profit of your choice. Not only is this a great way to raise money for a great cause, it’s also a fantastic way to get first-time attendees in your seats and database.

Better Data: Learn About Every Attendee

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In the age of digital ticketing, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have the data for every attendee in your CRM. With FEVO’s integrations, you get attendee info for each person who purchases an item, not just the group leader’s info. Chris Herschberger talked about how the Iowa Hawkeyes utilize FEVO Enterprise to understand a group’s needs with customizable questions and then turn that data into fuel for their sales teams. They also use FEVO widgets on various landing pages, which create more actionable buyer reports that can be easily imported into your CRM.

FEVO Exchange: Reach New Audiences

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People can’t buy what’s not available to them, so all FEVO clients should take advantage of our robust Exchange program. Our own Alissa Persichetti highlighted how FEVO partners have already found major success with these channels. FEVO Exchange gives you the opportunity to market and sell your inventory to a variety of audiences including Costco Members, members of the American Bar Association, Citi cardholders, and more.

Watch the webinar in its entirety below and gain even more great insights:

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