Simplify Event Management: Overcoming Key Challenges with Talkbase

Event management, while exhilarating, demands meticulous planning and coordination. Oftentimes, as community managers, we inadvertently double as part-time event planners. Today, we'll delve into three common challenges of event management and discuss how Talkbase, a robust community platform for community builders, simplifies these challenges.

Challenge #1: Speaker planning and acquisition

Securing engaging and relevant speakers is vital for the success of any event, making it an integral part of community building activities. However, finding and coordinating with the right speakers can be time-consuming and complex. As a community manager, do you issue a Call for Presenters (CFP) and sort through dozens (or hundreds) of applications, or take the time to reach out individually to people? Managing potential speakers, tracking their details, availability, travel arrangements, and session schedules can quickly become overwhelming without community management tools.

💜 The Talkbase solution

‍Talkbase simplifies speaker acquisition and planning with its integrated speaker management feature. It allows you to add contacts from your CRM to a speaker pipeline, tracking them as you converse with them. Additionally, with a project management tool directly within the event setup, you can also create tasks for yourself and your teammates to ensure nothing falls through the cracks, ensuring speakers are well taken care of and that you have everything you need, from their bios to what time their flight gets in. This streamlines the process and ensures smooth coordination with speakers, enhancing the overall event experience for both speakers and community managers.

Challenge #2: Centralized event coordination across cross-functional teams

As many of us are well aware, community management often involves collaboration across various teams, such as marketing, operations, procurement, and even developers. Running community events is no exception. Coordinating efforts and ensuring everyone has access to the latest information can be a significant challenge. Miscommunication or lack of visibility into updates can lead to confusion and potentially impact the event's success, which becomes even easier to do given the strict time constraints and ever-changing variables that often happen during event management.

💜 The Talkbase solution

‍Talkbase acts as a centralized hub for all cross-functional teams involved in event planning, while at the same time empowering community teams to do a lot on their own without the need for outside support. For example, with the ability to publish an event and create a public or gated webpage that shows information about the event and allows people to register for the event, it eliminates the dependency on marketing and developer teams to create a separate site. Also, with a fully customizable registration form, you can easily collect all the information you need from your registrations. You can also easily manage members within your community CRM or integrate it with your company’s CRM for end-to-end visibility and access to data.

Challenge #3: Streamlined registrations and check-ins

Efficient handling of event registrations is a key community management task that impacts the attendee experience. Manual registration processes can be cumbersome and prone to errors. Slow registration processes can frustrate potential attendees and even deter them from participating. Then, when it’s time for the event, ensuring a smooth check-in process also provides a more professional and enjoyable experience for attendees. After the event, it’s important for the community team to also have visibility into who attended the event.

💜 The Talkbase solution

‍Talkbase offers a user-friendly and streamlined registration and ticketing system, making it incredibly easy for both attendees and the events team. People can register directly on the event page, where you can select an either automatic approval process or add registrants to a waitlist until you have a chance to approve them. If the event is virtual, attendees will receive reminder emails with the stream link to join the event. If the event is in-person, attendees will receive an email with a QR code that can be easily scanned upon arriving at the event. Hybrid events are also supported.

Conclusion:

While community building and running events comes with its unique set of challenges, Talkbase empowers community managers to tackle them effectively. Talkbase integrates features for speaker management, centralized coordination, and streamlined registrations. As a result, it simplifies the event management processes, enhancing efficiency and communication. Use Talkbase to deliver exceptional events that leave a lasting impact on attendees. To learn more, sign up for a free trial at talkbase.io or email us at hi@talkbase.io.

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