by Calanit Atia
Cvent is a leading meeting, event and hospitality technology company that is making an impact on lead capture with its Universal LeadCapture Technology platform. Follow-up on leads is crucial for success, and with Cvent technology, no leads are forgotten.
Exhibit City News sat down with Cvent co-founder & CTO David Quattrone and SVP of sales Brian Ludwig to talk about the technology and the importance of lead capture.
ECN: How did you get your start?
Brian Ludwig: We started with event registration; that was the core in 1999 when David [Quattrone] founded the company with Reggie [Aggarwal]. The goal was to give organizers tools to market their event, so we had an email campaign and event website to power the registration experience. Over the years, it morphed into a much broader platform covering the entire event lifecycle. This includes meeting inception, getting the meeting approved, budgeting and finding a venue. It also assists with setting up exhibitors, leads gathers, booth staffing, badging, session tracking, mobile apps, appointment management and speaker management. We offer tools for everything for putting together conferences and tradeshows with all the tools connected under one platform. Some clients will use only five parts of it, and some will use 15. It is all about their budget and needs.
David Quattrone: I would add that it is really about what we can do for any event using our platform. Our focus has always been on looking at practical, real-world problems and figuring out how technology can streamline and add value to solving problems.
ECN: How does Cvent technology relate to tradeshows?
Brian: If someone is looking to manage registration, we have the concept of dynamic registration pads. We empower exhibitors to scan people they meet at the booth. We have Universal LeadCapture, where a tradeshow manager who is exhibiting in many shows can use one universal system for lead capture. Each team in their booth can use one tool they have configured and integrated with their CRM system. All the leads are in the same tools the company needs for fast diligent follow-up.
So many organizations go to different shows; they get the lead capture from the show supplier, and by the time the sales person gets it to act upon it, it takes a few weeks or even never. I have often seen statistic that 70 percent of leads don’t get followed up. Our point is the speed at which we capture and bring it into the system—real-time lead retrieval.
Cvent is offering Trade Show Solutions. One is our Universal LeadCapture scanning drive-by traffic at the booth and setting up an appointment in advance. The sales team calls their clients to inquire if they are attending the show, and they set up an appointment to meet at the booth.
Cvent has an appointment tool that enables the client to schedule an appointment, and the attendee receives an Outlook meeting request. Then, when the client arrives at the show, the person he is meeting with checks him in, and the salesperson can see all the notes about the client that anyone from the company shared. Also, the salesperson can score the conversation and insert all his notes to be shared, and that info floats into the CRM and marking systems.
In this way, pre-scheduled meetings made with Cvent’s Universal Appointments tool and its LeadCapture solution together help clients engage and close more leads gathered at the show.
Calanit Atia is an award winning event planner and entrepreneur. Air Force Veteran, Founder and President of A to Z Events, Las Vegas DMC and Entertainment Agency, 2021 MPI Advisory Board Member and Speaker. She can be contacted at 702-212-2500, Info@AtoZevents.com, www.AtoZevents.com, www.twitter.com/CalanitAtia www.facebook.com/calanit, www.linkedin.com/in/calanit, www.instagram.com/calanitatia
