Tech trends
Danica Tormohlen , SISO content director , publisher and editor-in-chief , finds out how the largest independents are enhancing and maximising tech in 2022
T ech investments and strategies are critical pieces of the puzzle as the industry balances the return to live with the opportunities around connecting with communities year-round , providing digital tools for customers and driving new digital revenue streams . Where are independent organisers spending their time and resources when it comes to tech ? To find out , the Society of Independent Show Organisers ( SISO ) produced an interview series with CTOs from leading companies , including RX , Emerald , Clarion Events , Tarsus Group and Diversified Communications . Here are highlights from our discussions :
2022 tech and business strategies “ There are three buckets : Information , integration and insight ,” said Anthony Martin , VP technology and marketing services , Diversified Communications . “ The information is trying to get that customer feedback to help evolve our website presence , the webinars and developing digital products . That ’ s not really a tech strategy per se , maybe more of a business strategy that tech is going to ride along . It seems to be one of the more critical things that could happen in terms of how we use our technology to help serve our customers . That ’ s definitely front of mind for me .” that ’ s needed on the backend ,” said Bill Charles , CIO , Emerald . “ We don ’ t want to be sending three different invoices to the customer for three different things . We are focused around not only the front end — how do we improve the communications with a portal and fewer emails — but also on the back end , how do we make it easier to invoice , contract ? We have a lot of investment there . We recently purchased Zuora , a kind of a Salesforce of the invoicing space . And we ’ re making a lot of investment is in cyber security .”
Tech stack and recent additions “ We tend to buy , not build ,” said Clarion Events COO Adam Ford . “ Our tech stack consists primarily of third-party SAAS software like Salesforce , Pardot , Workday , and we ’ ve implemented a customer data platform called Treasure Data . Our initial focus has been around visitors and how do we accumulate all of that behavioral data , declared data and insight . How do we unify the data so we can see them much more clearly .”
Digital experiences tied to buying cycles
“ It isn ’ t necessarily every day you want to jump on a webinar . You want to use it just when it ’ s right for you , and that ’ s usually around the buying cycles ”
Below : RX Global COO , Brian Brittain
“ We fully expected folks would want to move to digital experiences pretty much year-round anytime ,” said Brian Brittain , Global COO , RX . “ Interestingly , the research is coming back and the data is coming back , it ’ s actually around the buying cycles , but that is different by sector . This is in every country we ’ ve tested this . It isn ’ t necessarily every day you want to jump on a webinar as an example . You want to use it just when it ’ s right for you , and that ’ s usually around the buying cycles . That was a bit of a surprise for us .”
Doing more with data they have “ With Pardot , we ’ ve done a lot of work on things like automated list building ,” said Michael Hatton , data and marketing technology Ddrector at Tarsus Group . “ If somebody inquires about a particular event and we have an additional event where they are in their country or city , we are adding them to the list automatically . If people visit a particular page on the website , view a floor plan or do other activity , they get a score . When they reach a certain threshold , the leads pass onto the sales team to follow up . Those sorts of activities have helped us in the last two years , especially in 2021 . One division generated over $ 2m in additional revenue as a result from leads identified through Pardot .”
Watch the full interviews and read more takeaways from the discussions at www . siso . org / siso-town-hall .
Where Emerald is investing “ The three Cs : Content , commerce and connection . You add in these other subscription-based products , like the commerce platform or content , so there ’ s a lot of investment
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