The Challenge
Hosting more than 100 events each year
Each year, the Degreed events team hosts more than 100 events. In 2022, the company put on about 130 different events, including webinars, smaller regional events, more significant virtual events, intimate dinners, a once-a-year internal event, and LENS, Degreed’s marquee brand event. Additionally, the team attends five or six trade shows and conferences annually; in most cases, they have a company booth.
Managing this many events with a team of four event experts is a massive undertaking. Without the right tools in place, it becomes an insurmountable task.
“We have so many events going on that we have to be able to put up event websites quickly. Because there’s always a last-minute change with any event, we also need to be able to edit on the fly quickly.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
To execute their event strategy and achieve their ideal outcomes — driving new leads, increasing client advocacy, and demonstrating thought leadership in the EdTech space — the Degreed team began looking for a powerful event management solution to streamline the website creation and registration processes.
The Solution
Lightening the event team’s load with Bizzabo
As Degreed began looking for an event management solution, the team needed a versatile platform to accommodate events of all sizes and formats. The ideal solution would make registration easy, too. For Degreed, client advocacy is critical. The easier registration is, the more leads the company gets and the more potential clients they can lock down.
After researching the market and narrowing down options, the team agreed around 2019 that Bizzabo’s Event Experience OS, a feature-rich event management solution designed for the entire event lifecycle, was the exact tool they needed.
“Bizzabo is a lifesaver for us.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
Typically, Degreed events have somewhere between 80 and 100 participants. LENS, its premier event, usually draws around 400 attendees. In 2021, Degreed held a virtual LENS Lite event, pulling in roughly 12,000 attendees, as well as a hybrid LENS event.
From making it easier for the events team to create, publish, and edit event websites to streamlining the registration process and generating reliable data, the Bizzabo software met the needs of the Degreed team, who is confident they’ve found a lasting solution.
The Results
Executing more than 100 events without a hitch
With Bizzabo, the Degreed events team can manage more than 100 events each year in all types and formats — hybrid, virtual, and in-person — without burning out. The team shows no signs of slowing down; in fact, quite the opposite. Here are some benefits Degreed has experienced since deciding to execute its event strategy with Bizzabo.
Registration is easier than ever
Degreed uses Bizzabo to power registration for about 95% of its events. For small gatherings with a handful of attendees, the team may use a tool like Zoom instead.
For each event, the team creates a registration site featuring the facts about the event, such as maps and where to park. They also use Bizzabo’s countdown feature to drum up excitement.
“We use Zapier to feed registration form data into spreadsheets, so people can access the data as it comes in. We also stream data from Bizzabo to Slack through Zapier so that people can see who’s registering in real-time, and sales can flag people who might not be a good fit for a particular event.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
Additionally, all registration data is fed into a Salesforce campaign so employees can better understand each lead, prospect, and client and their unique situations. Rather than having to copy data from one system to another by hand, this process is done automatically, giving Degreed a much-needed single source of truth.
Bizzabo’s in-person registration tools are also a game-changer.
“It’s key for us to track who attended and who didn’t so that we can send the right post-event emails.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
Website management that’s built for scale
With so many events to manage throughout the year — and so many last-minute changes to event website details — the Degreed team is thrilled by how simple the website management process is with Bizzabo.
“A lot of times, we’re just copying sites and inputting new graphics and copy for each event,” Beinke explained. “We have a system down and get sites up quickly. With so many events going on, we really have to be able to create websites quickly and make edits on the fly quickly. Bizzabo lets us do exactly that.”
This functionality was particularly beneficial during this year’s LENS conference.
“We had a keynote speaker test positive for COVID-19,” Beinke said. “We got another speaker on board within a couple of hours and immediately switched the information in the event software.”
Although the team creates many websites with templates, each is unique.
“We love being able to really build the sites how we want them to look. That’s what we love most about Bizzabo: We can brand each event to a specific theme, which is particularly important for LENS.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
Email marketing with a personalized touch
Bizzabo makes managing event email marketing outreach easy before and after each gathering. For example, leading up to the event, employees can easily see which prospects have been engaged but have yet to register, and sales can follow up accordingly.
When the event is over, the sale and marketing downloads reports determining who attended and who didn’t to determine who to send “thank you for attending” emails and who to send “sorry, we missed you” notes.
Because Bizzabo integrates with Salesforce, all registration and attendance data is automatically piped into the platform, making personalized email marketing a breeze after the event.
“All the information goes into Salesforce, so sales can start working those leads right away,” Beinke said.
Simplified attribution with promo codes
Like all event teams, Degreed aims to get better outcomes over time. To this end, they’re particularly fond of Bizzabo’s promo codes.
The sales development team uses promo codes to determine which clients and prospects have registered and to track which rep was responsible. It’s a win-win: Reps receive spiffs for each person they get to the event, and the events team learns more about which channels are most effective for driving registrations.
“It’s helpful for us to track where our dollars worked best so we can figure out what to take out and what to do again. It also helps us figure out cost-per-lead and other key metrics.”
Kristen Beinke
Senior Manager of Global Events
Degreed
The Future
Pouring more fuel into the marketing engine
The Degreed team says it has found a true partner in Bizzabo. The software makes it easier for Degreed to accomplish its event objectives, and the Bizzabo team is also incredible to work with, particularly when they bring support onsite.
“Having someone from Bizzabo come onsite to print out the badges has been super helpful for us,” Beinke said.
The Degreed team also is in the process of migrating its marketing activities to HubSpot. The team is looking forward to leveraging Bizzabo’s HubSpot integration to unlock even more value and further enrich event data.
“For us, Bizzabo really is a key tool,” Beinke said.
