Being an event organiser means adopting new technology such as the event management software. Event managers today are in fact encouraged to use a reliable EMS event management system or software that can easily handle data integration.
What is data integration? While it may sound very technical, it is a concept that is easy to understand. This type of integration pertains to the flow of data within your data ecosystem. Using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), you may combine various databases in one event management software to allow you to manage different aspects of your events.
Here are six business systems that you can integrate with an EMS:
- Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management or CRM is an important business system that you need to maintain. Through CRM, you can manage data related to your customers and contacts. By integrating CRM data with your EMS event management system, you may pull invitation lists for your next event without the need to manually upload them to the software. Furthermore, data that you can extract from attendee profiles may help you personalise their experience and improve your marketing efforts.
- Budget Management
With the use of an integrated EMS event management system, you will have the ability to track funds around your events. Taking care of the financial aspect of events is challenging for event professionals. It goes without question that your event management system should have integrated functions for budget management. Through the software, you are assured that payments are always tracked. Invoicing, credit notes, and received payments can also be generated through this system. Moreover, some software will allow you to upload a budget template for you to see which areas you are overspending or underspending on as you plan for your events. For budget management, it is always best to use an online event management system.
- Marketing Management
It is also important to integrate data between your EMS event management system and your marketing system. This will help you in using templates and design tools necessary for mass emailing campaigns. While many event management software will allow you to do mass emailing, it is still recommended to do data integration between the two systems to make it easier for your marketing team to track metrics such as bouncing emails or opt-out requests. Furthermore, there may be specific demographic data that your marketing team can get from the event management software to help them with their campaigns.
- Corporate Website Calendar
If you belong to an events agency that organises multiple events in a year, it is essential that data from the event management software is integrated with your corporate websites. For example, any event that you create through the EMS event management system should be automatically reflected on your corporate website’s calendar or events’ section. This will help you save time instead of manually updating your corporate website every time you have a new event. You may also control what type of data you’d want to be exported to your corporate website. If it were to include the venue and date, any changes made to these aspects are seen right away by website visitors. This type of data integration for event schedules also works with the online registration software.
- Travel and Accommodation System
The use of an EMS Event management system may also handle specific functions such as travel and accommodation for your attendees. If you have booking systems as part of your service as an event organiser, integrating data with the event management software allows you to add booking options during attendee registration. As attendees register and purchase a ticket to your event, you may also let them book rooms and or plane tickets. This is a specialised effect of data integration that is appreciated by event agencies hosting large international conferences every year.
- Awards Management
Last but not the least, data integration may also transpire between your EMS event management system and the awards management system for your events. For professional conferences, it is common for event organisers to coordinate paper submissions to be reviewed by a panel of judges. This is done to create an awarding component in an event that may engage attendees further. Through an integrated system, your attendees will not have to submit their entries separately through email. They may simply do this through their user account in your event management system. Your review team can then easily sort out entries and coordinate with the judges to determine the winners.
In Conclusion
Those are only some of the known advantages of practicing data integration for your different business systems. The key context here is for your team to be able to work from one place. By employing an all-in-one EMS event management system for all your events, you can rest assured that all data are consistent and error-free for the different committees of your team. That is where you may begin to appreciate the beauty of an event planner software.
To find out more about this type of software, read more around the topic of event management software.