10 + 1 Tools every Professional Conference Organizer (PCO) should use [Updated]
A Professional Conference Organizer, or simply PCO, is a company or agency with extensive know-how in organizing corporate events. For that, PCOs need the right event planning tools.
PCOs will eventually feel drowned among the increasing number of event planning tools that come out every day. The good news is: you don´t need all of them. Actually, to be a successful partner of interested umbrella companies and provide the core and extended services for their MICEs – meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions – you just need the right ones.
We know a PCO needs to meet and exceed several expectations of clients, attendees, sponsors, brands, and a whole network of stakeholders. They differentiate from event managers, public relations, or travel agents in basically one aspect: they are specialists in putting it all together rather than only taking care of single aspects.
Business events add $1 trillion dollars to the global economy every year. Half of it is concentrated in the USA (US$ 381 billion) and Western Europe (US$ 266 billion), according to Oxford Economics. However, the more this already huge industry keeps growing, the more the niche gets demanding and competitive. Building up a strong experience is the golden pot PCOs need to keep in mind at all times.
What are the main attributions of a PCO?
The list of roles a PCO company/professional has to perform in order to achieve successful event planning and execution is often very broad. We put together some of the core missions and most common challenges faced by a Professional Conference Organizer:
– Event planning;
– Team management;
– Logistics;
– Risk management;
– Strategic marketing;
– Promotional activation;
– Measuring results.
Coordinating all of these efforts to achieve the objectives of an event and controlling resources are inherent to a PCO assignment. Plus, he/she still needs to keep stakeholders updated about the development and performance of the project.
What a PCO needs to take into consideration when choosing the right event planning tools to work with?
When looking for tools to organize events, PCOs declared to take a few factors into consideration.
Industry research states that 73% of every Professional Conference Organizers makes use of two to five tools to manage events. Among these, they state that what they value the most in event management software is a task organizer.
And 66% of the interviewed PCOs choose the tool they’re gonna work with according to the level of support they get from the manufacturer.
What are the event planning tools every PCO should use, and how can they optimize performance?
Trello
Initiation, planning, execution, controlling and monitoring, enclosure. You can manage every stage of your projects with this agile management software based on the visual streamlines of the Kanban method. Opting in for a simple platform, your team improves organization and efficiency. Therefore, the project management process focuses on results rather than dozens of documents and emails.
Official website: https://trello.com
Pipefy
Speaking about Trello is more of the same since it’s been ranked in the 1st place among project management tools for years. So Pipefy shows up as one of the best alternatives to make sure the event strategy is executed by team members and the specific goals are achieved.
Official website: https://pipefy.com
InEvent
A reliable and robust event management platform is essential. InEvent provides consolidated information on the projects you’re in charge of. From the very early stage of the event until the management of a fully customized branded experience, it provides PCOs the right tool to handle the job to be done. Budget sheets, strategic plan, task list, attendees registration, speakers logistics, sponsors expectations, stakeholders communication: it’s all in there for the PCO to improve control of processes and results.
Official website: https://inevent.com
ClickUp
ClickUp is a powerful project management platform with hundreds of features designed to help event teams seamlessly coordinate events, collaborate with clients, manage budgets, and more—all in one place. Its intuitive UI, automation capabilities, and real-time reporting help event planners create clear event timelines and easily delegate responsibilities. Its rich set of features makes ClickUp the perfect event management solution, even on its Free Forever plan.
Eventopedia
Have you made the decision about how your event should look like? No matter what’s in your mind, Eventopedia shows places all over the world, from standard conference halls to fancy ballrooms. Filter your search per location, style, or number of guests, and Eventopedia will come up with some incredible suggestions.
Official website: https://eventopedia.com
With Jotform Sign, you can automate your workflow with legally binding documents online. Plan your events by sending an application form that your users can use for their electronic signature to join. Collaborate with your team on the same documents and use templates to make them stand out.
Google Trends
Know what people are talking about and how they do it. Google Trends facilitates recent trends for your event to sound familiar to your audience and create more buzz. Let’s say your event holds activities relate to technology – Business Intelligence, for example, is a term that has been consistently replaced by Data Science. However, both speak broadly about the same subject.
Official website: https://trends.google.com
Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets
Microsoft Excel is a classic. New tools are released and fall into oblivion every now and then. However, Excel and its limitless functions to work with spreadsheets are always there. If you’re still not familiar with it, time to begin. If you are a frequent user, sharpen your skills. Pivot tables and chart generations can be a good place to start from. Some companies are also choosing Google Sheets to work with rather than Excel due to its outstanding performance in the cloud and the capabilities of simultaneous editing.
Official websites: https://products.office.com/en/excel / https://sheets.google.com
Respona
Respona is an all-in-one blogger outreach platform outfitted with all of the necessary tools to set up and launch an email campaign of any kind, be it for link building, digital PR, marketing, or even sales.
It’s integrated with Google’s search engine for streamlined prospecting and pulls metrics like Domain Rating and Ahrefs Rank directly from Ahrefs.
An easy-to-use email finder is also included, making it extremely easy to find the right person’s contact information without having to rely on any other tools.
Respona’s intuitive interface guides you through every step of creating and launching your outreach campaigns, keeps track of your performance, and also the status of your conversations with each prospect.
The tool will be especially useful to link builders. It was initially used to help Visme scale its link-building outreach efforts, helping the website gain over 2 million organic visitors a month.
- Automated email outreach
- Great for prospecting and finding contact information
- Deep personalization
- Built-in analytics and reporting
Official website: https://respona.com/
Facebook Ads
We have recently published an article about how Remarketing can massively increase your event registration numbers. It’s a comprehensive how-to-start guide for event planners. And if you wanna dive deeper into the subject, it’s also worth paying attention to Kevin Urrutia’s recommendations in this blog post: Facebook marketing books. He’s the CEO of Voy Media, named among the fastest-growing Facebook marketing agencies in New York.
Official website: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads
Paldesk
Effective, quick response is a must in the age of experience. Paldesk does a great job of monitoring your customer’s questions in real-time, with integrations that allow you to do it straight from your own app. Use ticketing systems to distribute tasks, set business hours, and direct the most common doubts to FAQ predefined answers. Chat transcripts, statistics and feedback forms guarantee control over your customer experience when interacting with your brand, no matter if it’s via ai chatbot or live support.
Official website: https://www.paldesk.com
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