Conferences, trade shows and other events are a staple of B2B marketing teams, but a company called Chili Piper is offering a tool it suggests will help ensure they maximize their return on investment for sponsoring, attending or even hosting them.
Based in New York, Chili Piper has attracted customers like Twillio and Intuit with scheduling applications that, for example, allow buyers to easily set up a call or meeting with a sales rep immediately after filling out an online form. Its latest offering, which is simply referred to as its Events solution, does something similar for B2B events managers or field marketing managers. This includes the ability to book meetings within two clicks after routing an opportunity to the appropriate team member, as well as managing the capacity of rooms where they might have to arrange meetings at an event and reassign meetings.
Perhaps most significantly, the Chili Piper Events tool will feed data about meetings booked with customers and prospects at events directly into customer relationship management systems (CRM) such as Salesforce.
According to Chili Piper co-founder and CEO Nicolas Vandenberghe, weaving events data into CRM and other parts of the sales and marketing tech stack is critical for many organizations who resort to services like Eventbrite, or even more manual tools like spreadsheets.
“In B2B marketing, the meeting is never in isolation,” Vandenberghe told B2B News Network. “It is always also part of a larger process. And when you’re sponsoring an event, you want to make the most of it.”
One of the particular nuances of B2B event management, Vandenberghe noted, is that those on the marketing side aren’t always sure which rep will be taking a particular meeting, even though they have to go ahead and book one. That’s why its Events tool has the ability to put placeholder spots in its calendar and then assign to a specific rep after the fact.
B2B events also tend to involve a lot of group meetings, Vandenberghe added, such as demos at a trade show for a variety of customers. That’s why its tool has what it calls “Smart Links” to create sessions that can be designated as demos vs. dinners, “happy hour” events and so on.
“It’s been a neglected area,” he said. “Without naming any names, we looked at what was in the market already and, probably because there was less competition, their solution hasn’t evolved recently.”
The Events tool will also work with other Chili Piper products, including scheduling applications that let attendees reschedule at the last minute via a single link within the invite, rather than having to e-mail the organizer separately and then go back into their calendar to update it.
Though the firm has only been in operation since 2016, Vandenberghe said its platform has helped organize more than two million meetings so far.
