A leading Virginia-based insurance company leveraged Dynamics 365 as they sought to manage their investor relations events in a system that could tie into their customer relationship management database.

Challenge

Disparate systems across event management platforms, personal contact management systems, and customer relationship management databases inhibited a holistic view of their target audience. Event requirements across two large-scale events for this client included session-level registration, invite-only versus public-facing event registration, visually appealing and informative event registration websites, the ability to send communications about the event to targeted audiences (such as registered vs. unregistered or invited vs. general), email communications that included session registration and event details, and the ability to use registration information to print badges for attendees.

The client sought to strategically utilize Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys to manage events while still building a singular contact database.

Solution

This company partnered with Coffee + Dunn to create two events within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys. The large reunion event utilized a customized event registration website with company branding, session-level registration (including logic to only allow one registration per time-block), and a registration form that captured critical contact information to help build out and standardize contact information within the CRM platform. Both events hosted invite-only dinner sessions and restricted both marketing and visibility of registration for these dinners to a select invite list of contacts within the CRM database.

Finally, event communications were customized to only display information for registered sessions for each individual registrant. Communications spanned across pre-event invitations, pre-event registration confirmation and details, and post-event surveys.

Results

Centralizing event management and CRM capabilities within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys led to a 55% lift in contacts within a four-month period, with 82% of new contacts aquired through the event channel. With Coffee + Dunn assisting with centralized and streamlined marketing efforts, both events’ registrations goals were achieved. 

This continued partnership has allowed the client to focus on strategy and intention, while Coffee + Dunn can work to make the process more streamlined and building for continued larger capacity events.