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The Best Online Event Management Tools for 2020

Best online tools to run events in 2020

Planning and managing an event requires effort, dedication, and a lot of attention. With the progress of time and technology, events alike are also becoming more complex to plan and manage. And when it comes to organizing online events in 2020, apart from event planning skills, it requires the knowledge of online event management tools and technology.

In other words, knowing about the right software for event planners for running digital events is as essential and useful in the event industry as knowing how to manage a social media account to promote your business. Times are changing quickly, and it is better to stay in touch with the latest trends to adapt to the quick changes. Event management software can help you stay organized, save valuable time, and get a lot more done in general. However, there is a plethora of software for event management available online, and some of the event management tools are even available for free. So it begs the question. What is the best event management software to run significant digital events? To answer this question, learning all about the top event management software available online, and how the software can best fit your needs, is the most practical action you can take to prepare yourself before making a choice on which tools to use.

 

What is Event Management Software in 2020?

Traditionally, event management software is nominally known as a system of software products used to manage professional and academic conferences, trade exhibitions, conventions, and even smaller events such as meetings. An event management system uses software to monitor servers, workstations, and network devices to effectively and efficiently manage events. As for virtual events, it is better to use an online event management system to effectively perform and complete more specialized and intricate tasks in planning and managing online events.

Why is Event Management Software important for Event Planners?

Event management software helps event planners to effectively plan and efficiently manage events by using a single platform. With event management software, an event planner can automate the majority of repetitive tasks, such as sign-ins, registrations, surveys, and all other things of that kind. In doing so, an event planner can ultimately streamline the lifecycle of an entire event while lowering the costs at the same time.

Features to Look For in Event Management Software

The features to look for in event management tools mostly depend on the needs of your event. It would be wise to make a list of all your needs to focus on what particular features in management software will be useful for you. For example, some event management tools offer general event planning features, while other tools provide more specialized features for specific tasks.

Think about what type of events you are going to organize. Virtual events or online events, for example, require more digital features than conventional events. And those features in event management software should be aimed at improving the user experience on your event website. When users land on your page, they generally look for certain specific features to be present.

Here are some essential features to look out for in event management software.

  1. A user-friendly interface that interacts with users easily.
  2. The option for users to make reservations.
  3. An easy and convenient payment process for users.
  4. Mobile readiness and seamless accessibility from any device and browser.
  5. An attractive platform to convert visitors into attendees.
  6. Security features that assure users of safety and security.
  7. Sharing options that act as a marketing tool for your event, which users can utilize to spread the word about your event.
  8. Registration and online check-in options to convey the legitimacy and quality of your event.
  9. Engagement features to keep your online event audience engaged.

Estimation Criteria for the Best Event Management Software

The variety of event management software is wide. Most of the event management software in the market promise success and quality service. So how could you determine the criteria for the best event management tools? A useful event management tool should be able to save you time and energy when it comes to managing event logistics, deadlines, and attendee engagement. Even though different events require different functions and features, event management software should meet the following criteria:

  1. Centralized event planning and organizing.
  2. Assistance in collaborating and communicating with your target audience for the event.
  3. The presence of a dashboard to monitor and measure success.

As for the case of online events, it is better to opt for software with an event management application for planning online events.

Choose From the TOP Online Event Management Tools in 2020

Maybe you are looking for the best enterprise event management software. Or perhaps you are looking for the best open source event management software. In any case, here are TOP 15 event management tools you can use to plan and manage your next online event. By comparing the key features of the following tools, you will better understand which particular software best suits your business. Some of the key elements to keep in mind are ticketing, marketing tools, video stream features, engagement tools, reporting and analytics, and other advanced tools designed for digital events. The great thing is that even some of the best free event management software includes most of the features necessary to manage online events.

Tools For Event Team Tasks Management

Trello

Trello is a web-based Kanban-style list-making tool for project management and task management. Trello is flexible, shareable, and lets you record in “cards” specific information. You can use it to organize tasks, notes, projects, shared files, or anything else that can help your support team or staff work together. As a collaboration tool that organizes projects into boards, Trello is useful in delegating work to others and overseeing tasks. In general, this tool also works as an event planning software for online events.

Asana

As a web and mobile application, Asana functions to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. Asana is a software service aimed to improve team collaboration and work management. With Asana, it is easy for a group of event planners to manage projects and tasks in one tool. Event planners can create projects, assign work to teammates, specify deadlines, and correspond on about any tasks at hand with Asana. This software application also serves as a central site to run any functions related to managing an event. With a wide variety of available features, Asana can optimize the performance of any team.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a free cloud-based, file storage, and synchronization tool. This tool allows users to share files on their servers, synchronize data across devices, and share files with multiple users. Google Drive also syncs stored documents, photos, and other files across all devices. One useful feature of Google Drive is the ability to create online registrations forms for attendees by using google designed template forms. Additionally, it is easy to benefit from the contributions and opinions of everyone involved in a project by simply being able to share a document where everyone can view, comment, and edit. This feature can properly facilitate good teamwork and extensive collaboration in the planning and management of any event.

Tools for Online Attendee Engagement

Buffer

Buffer primarily aims to manage social media accounts in social networks. Buffer provides the means for users to schedule posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. The software application also enables users to analyze the results of their posts and engage with the community on social media. In other words, Buffer provides a smart and innovative way to share content on social media. Whatever posts you make and schedule will be sent out automatically and posted by Buffer. As a powerful and intuitive social media management platform complete with scheduling, analytics, and monitoring, Buffer can get your team to coordinate and orchestrate social media marketing campaigns for your next online event. With Buffer, It is easy to work together with your team to create quality content for your online audience.

Judgify

Judgify is an online judging system created to allow awards organizers to set up awards and competitions easily. Judgify works as a cloud-based and mobile-ready awards management software with many useful features. Such features include submission management, event data scoring and reporting, and tools to plan contests. In general, with Judgify, it is easy to automate contests of any size and type. Judgify is also useful in helping event planners to access larger audiences with custom awards landing pages, personal submission rules, and the freedom for the public to vote via any device.

Quiz-maker

Quiz-maker is a free tool that helps event planners create, analyze, and publish quick surveys and quizzes. With Quiz-maker, the user just needs to provide questions, and the software will do the rest. It’s an easy tool that anyone can easily use to improve engagement with online attendees. Teachers, individuals, and businesses usually use Quiz-maker. Among its features, Quiz-maker provides access anywhere, timed tests, custom branding, secured encryption, auto-grading, and public and private quizzes.

  Tripleseat

As a sales and event management web application, Tripleseat generates sales and streamlines the planning process for restaurants, hotels, and individual venues. Tripleseat is an event management tool created by hospitality event managers for hospitality event managers. To help restaurants and hotels avoid stress, unhappy customers, and the loss of business while managing events, the creators of Tripleseat set out to solve these problems with an easy-to-use and intuitive web application to increase event and meeting sales. As a result, Tripleseat is now among the best event management software for small businesses, as Inc. Magazine has named it one of the 500 fastest-growing companies in 2018.

Solutions to Livestream an event

Youtube Live

Youtube Live is a great way to watch live streams, such as live gaming, live music, live sports, and live news. Through Youtube Live, you can easily reach a larger audience in real-time. This platform is useful, especially if you are hosting an event, hosting a live Q&A, or teaching a class. The tools in Youtube Live will help you manage your stream and interact with viewers as they view your live broadcast. Having an event via Youtube Live is free. However, the platform is probably not adequate for the use of regularly scheduled events. Event planners should be prompt to schedule the events created on Youtube individually. It is also worth knowing that Youtube officially only supports videos that are up to 12 hours in duration. Any more than the 12-hour threshold and the video content will not record.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live is now a popular feature of the Facebook social network. It uses the camera on a personal computer or on a mobile device to broadcast real-time videos on Facebook. With Facebook Live, broadcasters can decide who on Facebook can see their video and use the content to engage with their audience during crucial moments and events. It is fun and straightforward to use Facebook Live, mainly when other users on Facebook engage with the content broadcasted live.

InterCall

 As a subsidiary of West Corporation, InterCall is among the largest conference and collaborations services across the globe. InterCall is also known to be a leading provider of global cloud-based unified communications services for online events. As a major international company, InterCall claims to have a trusted customer household of almost three million conference leaders in more than 65,000 organizations worldwide. Among its services, Intercall offers monitoring, Webhosting, targeting, and webcasting and streaming.

Ustream

Ustream is a live interactive broadcast platform. It allows members to broadcast live streaming videos on the internet. Ustream comes with a searching feature that enables visitors to filter through video categories, which include sports, entertainment, news, animals, music, technology, games, and education. This interactive platform enables its users to broadcast content related to any type of event. Also, Ustream offers advertising and digital campaign solutions for mobile devices and all other devices associated with event production and management.

Periscope

Periscope is an American live video streaming application predominantly for handheld mobile devices. As an application, Periscope allows its users to share and experience live video streams that meant to capture the interest of viewers. Periscope is free to use. However, it consumes unusual amounts of data. Therefore, it is better to use the app with wifi instead of data. It is important to note that viewers on Periscope are anonymous and that they cannot leave comments. Moreover, Periscope goes unmonitored, and as a result, users are often free to stream whatever content they desire. In general, Periscope is very easy for everyone to use to connect and share videos online.

Event Management Tools to Manage Events

Regpack

Regpack is an online event management tool designed for small and midsize companies. More than 7,000 organizations across the world use Regpack. Useful features in Regpack for managing events include customized enrollment, registration, sign-in, online payment options, reporting, and analytic tools. In general, Regpack features an automatic communications module that allows users to use all the essential features to manage an event properly. With Regpack, there is no need to work with outdated and complicated excel spreadsheets to manage your events. You can benefit from Regpack as it provides the right tools necessary to analyze and understand the data collected from your attendees to manage your events with ease.

Member Solutions

Member Solutions is a cloud-based business management solution that provides members great tools to manage an array of different businesses. From martial arts schools, fitness centers, dance studios to music schools, Member Solutions equips the tools to get the job done. This software includes business functions such as staff management, commissions, inventory management, and financial reporting. More importantly, Member Solutions provides easy online event registration. Member Solutions offers fast registration forms, email marketing, instant payments, branding, web integration, event discounts, event promotions, real-time reports, mobile responsive software, group registration, early-bird pricing, event product sales, and social media integration.

Caterease

Caterease is among the world’s most popular catering and event planning software. This software offers all the features necessary to simplify the planning and managing process of an event. Caterease includes tools to quickly and easily manage even the most complicated events. With Caterease, you can save time and avoid mistakes, take your business mobile, easily manage specific events, create custom event prints, seamlessly manage customers, and track custom business metrics.

Odoo Community Edition

Odoo is a set of open-source enterprise management applications. Large companies broadly use Odoo. Small businesses, associations, and many different types of organizations also use Odoo. The services of Odoo allow organizations to manage, automate, measure, and optimize operations, finances, projects, and events. As a business management software, Odoo includes CRM, billing, accounting, manufacturing, plan, and inventory management features. In event management, Odoo offers a variety of apps and tools related to managing events of all sorts.

ConfTool

Being a web-based event management system, ConfTool supports the organization of academic conferences, workshops, congresses, and seminars. ConfTool has helped more than 1000 organizers to manage their events successfully. As a robust and mature system, ConfTool supports many of the tasks related to a conference organizer. Some of the features and options available in ConfTool includes a multilingual interface, extensive security measures, technical support, customizable review submission and review forms, full online participant registration, multiple payment options, accounting, bulk emails, and participant invitations.

Everything you should know about running online events

Open Conference System

Open Conference Systems (OCS) is a free web publishing tool that creates a complete web presence for any scholarly conference. With satisfactory reviews and success stories, this free event management tool offers some extensive features to manage quality conferences. OCS software allows event planners to do a vast array of things. With OCS, event planners can do the following:

  1. Create conference websites.
  2. Compose and send a call for papers.
  3. Electronically accept paper and abstract submissions.
  4. Allow paper submitters to make edits.
  5. Make post-conference proceedings and papers in a searchable format.
  6. And post original data sets, register participants, and integrate post-conference online discussions.

Tools or Creating a Landing Page for an Event

Unbounce

Unbounce is a Canadian software company aimed at producing landing pages for websites. The primary purpose of landing pages is for organizations to convert visitors to their web page into leads for future engagement. In the digital marketing world, a landing page is a standalone web page that is created specifically for marketing and advertising purposes. Unbounce focuses on this and works towards making landing pages the best option for increasing the conversion rates of marketing campaigns while lowering the cost of acquiring leads. With Unbounce software, it is easy to get better results in landing pages through useful features such as quick-easy-to-use templates and publishing tools.

Instapage

Instapage is a service that allows users to build landing pages for online marketing and promotion campaigns. This service software offers features such as multiple campaign management, easy-to-build customizable page templates, real-time visual collaboration, and google amp powered services. Instapage also assures its users that they can create hundreds of message-matched landing page experiences intended to increase the rate of conversions as much as 400%.

LeadPages

Leadpages mainly functions as an online tool to collect email subscribers and turn them into leads. This service also provides many templates to use for lead magnets, webinars, and landing pages. LeadPges is an ideal service for users with a budget looking for a professional landing page tool. This online tool also helps users to avoid spending time coding or building landing pages with HTML. With LeadPages, it is easy to construct code-free websites, high converting landing pages, pop-ups, and alert bars. In short, LeadPages promises to make it easy to connect with an audience, collect leads, and close deals.

Tools For Creating Online Registration Forms For Events

123FormBuilder

As an online form builder, 123FormBuilder helps businesses manage events attendees by creating a variety of web forms and surveys without coding. Additionally, 123FormBilder is equipped with tools to create user-friendly online event registration forms and add attendees to an upcoming event directly from any website. Whatever the occasion, 123FormBuilder has the tools and features to handle the registration process, post-event feedback surveys, marketing options, and manage the guest list with ease.

Soapbox Engage

If you are a non-profit organization and use SalesForce CRM, Soapbox Engage will be the best event management software for you. It is a robust tool, which integrates with SalesForce. With Soapbox Engage, it is easy to manage donations, event registrations, and build forms. Reservations and payments are saved straight to Salesforce CRM. Ultimately, this software provides event planners with the following features: event marketing analysis, options of payment processors, and compatibility with most devices for a seamless registration experience.

WordPress Plug-ins

WordPress plugins are applications that let users add new features and functions to the WordPress website. These applications work similarly to apps on smartphones. In general, WordPress plugins are small software apps that integrate and run off of WordPress software. WordPress Plug-ins allow users to create almost any kind of website. Additionally, WordPress enables other developers to add their coding. All in all, WordPress plugin offers a robust set of hooks and filter which allow developers to modify existing WordPress functionality or even add new functions

JotForm

JotForm is an online form building company with software that creates forms with a drag and drop creation tool and an option to encrypt user data. With over 7,000 form templates and two million registered users to date, JotForm is a powerful online application that delivers a friendly user interface to make form building incredibly easy without any coding. Companies that use JotForm are usually from the United States of America and in the hospital and healthcare industry. Nonetheless, JotForm can also be used with ease to create online registration forms for events. Its tools and features include forms for mobile devices, PDF editor, HIPAA forms, payment forms, secure forms, form widgets, apps, and integrations.

Email Marketing Tools

Litmus

Litmus is a software that provides web-based email testing and tracking solutions. The company software offers email previews, spam filter testing, email analytics, interactive testing, and subject line testing services. As a web service, Litmus allows users to test templates on 70+ email clients and devices in a short time. Its automated email testing provides quick identification of broken links, images, and other bugs. In short, with Litmus, it is easy to get insights into what engages your audience through email.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an American email marketing company with software that provides email marketing services. The software offers an all-in-one marketing platform that helps users manage and talk to clients, customers, and other interested parties. Mailchimp’s approach focuses on providing health contact management practices, beautifully designed campaigns, and robust data analysis. In general, Mailchimp is an excellent tool for most English-speaking users. The software encompasses features that boost sales with landing pages, build a larger audience with sign-up forms, and find new customers with digital ads.

Reach Mail

Reach Mail is an easy to use email marketing platform that comes with an exceptional support service. The company’s software appeals to a wide range of customers with specialized solutions to address specific needs. As for the industry in Marketing and Transactional email delivery, Reach Mail is a leading service that aims to provide a quality experience for its customers. Altogether, Reach Mail offers useful features for small businesses, marketing firms, and large companies.

Tips for Choosing the Best Event Management Tool

It can be challenging to decide on what event management tool to use to plan and manage your next event. The solution is to choose the event management software with features that fall in line with your specific needs. When the time comes to make a decision, keep in mind how you envision the event by taking into account your goals and target audience.

In any case, here are some essential tips to help you make the right decision on which event management tool to choose. For starters, find an answer to the question of why you need event management software. Second, be sure of who needs to be involved in the making and managing of the event. Third, do additional market research on the best event management tools available. Make a list of the software suppliers, and gradually make your way to a shortlist of just three suppliers. Do further research and compare their features. Take an objective approach and test the working models to get a better feeling of how well they live up to your expectations. Finally, evaluate your service expectations and get the contract right. Choosing the right management tool for you will take time, but it will be worth it.

Conclusion

Unless something else comes up to reduce the stress and headaches that come along with planning and managing an event nowadays, it is better to take advantage of these event management tools. They will most likely save you additional stress and difficulties. When equipped with the proper knowledge of software for event planners, you will have more opportunities to stay organized, save valuable time, and get more out of your efforts to manage events effectively. With plenty of event management tools available in the market, find the right one for you, and use it to your advantage to effectively and successfully manage your online event.

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