Best CRM for events management

As an event organizer, you know that managing attendees, coordinating with vendors, and keeping track of countless details can be overwhelming. To streamline your efforts and ensure a successful event, you need a CRM system tailored to the unique demands of event management. A CRM helps you efficiently manage contacts, automate follow-ups, track ticket sales, and analyze engagement—all from a single platform.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the best CRM options for event organizers like you, highlighting the features that will help you stay organized, enhance attendee experience, and drive your events to success.

Why you need a CRM

Managing events can be overwhelming without the right tools. A CRM can transform your workflow and create consistency in your communication strategy, which is crucial for both event promotions and at the point of following up after a successful one.

Challenges without a CRM

Below are a few challenges that you might already be experiencing as an events manager without realising it. These tend to be a common theme amongst event organizers operating without a suitable CRM in their tech stack.

• Disorganization: Manually tracking client details, event registration, and event logistics leads to chaos and errors.
• Missed opportunities: Without a system, it’s easy to overlook potential clients and follow-ups.
• Inefficient processes: Time-consuming manual tasks reduce productivity and increase costs.
• Lack of insight: Inadequate reporting and analytics hinder strategic decision-making.
• Inconsistent communication: Without a centralized system, communication with clients and team members becomes fragmented and unreliable.

Benefits of a CRM

If you're wondering whether or not it's time for you to invest in a CRM, below are a few benefits that prove how having the right tool can have a direct impact across your every day business operations.

• Centralized information: All client and event details are stored in one place, ensuring easy access and organization.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automating repetitive tasks saves time and reduces errors, allowing you to focus on high-value activities.
• Improved customer relationships: Track client interactions and preferences to provide personalized service and build stronger relationships.
• Better decision-making: Access to detailed reports and analytics helps you make informed decisions and optimize your strategies.
• Increased sales: Efficient lead management and follow-up processes lead to higher conversion rates and more business opportunities.
• Consistent communication: Streamlined communication tools ensure that all team members and clients are on the same page, enhancing collaboration and satisfaction.
  

How to boost your events management process with a CRM

Below are a few ways a CRM can boost your events management efforts, pre and post event.

1. Mapping your process

Defining and tracking the stages of your process are crucial for streamlining event management. Identify key stages such as initial client inquiry, proposal creation, contract signing, event planning, execution, and post-event follow-up. Use a CRM to create a visual pipeline that tracks each event's progress, and custom fields to segment your data ensuring no detail is overlooked and improving overall efficiency.

2. Lead qualification

Methods for assessing and qualifying leads and customers are essential for prioritizing your efforts. Implement scoring criteria within your CRM to evaluate leads based on factors such as event size, budget, and timeline. This helps you focus on high-potential clients, optimizing your resources and increasing conversion rates.

3. Outreach and follow-up

Examples of automated email and LinkedIn campaigns to leads and customers can significantly enhance your outreach efforts. Use your CRM to set up personalized email sequences that nurture leads through the sales funnel. Integrate LinkedIn to send targeted connection requests and follow-up messages, ensuring consistent communication and improving engagement.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM platform

When you're up against having to

1. Define your requirements

Identify the key features needed for your events management business. Essential functionalities may include attendee management, event registration, ticketing, email marketing, and real-time analytics. Consider integrations with other tools you use, like social media platforms and payment gateways, to streamline your workflow.

Key features of a CRM for events management

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows, allowing your team to focus on more strategic activities. Automation can handle everything from email follow-ups to task assignments, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds Leads, Customers email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency. This feature helps you build a more comprehensive database without manual data entry, saving time and reducing errors.
• Multiple pipeline: Tracks leads and customers through defined stages, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness. A well-organized pipeline helps you visualize the journey of each lead, making it easier to identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences. Predefined email sequences ensure timely and consistent communication, enhancing your engagement with leads and clients.
• Social media integration: Seamlessly import contact information from LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more to leverage your social media network in order to find and nurture potential clients directly from the platform.
• Analytics: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning. Detailed reports and forecasting tools help you make informed decisions, optimize your strategy, and anticipate future trends.
  

2. Budget considerations

Balance between cost and return on investment for using a CRM for events management. While some platforms may offer advanced features, ensure they align with your budget and provide measurable benefits. Look for scalable options that can grow with your business and offer flexible pricing plans.

3. Selection process

Steps to research and choose the right CRM vendor include reading reviews, asking for recommendations from industry peers, and scheduling demos. Evaluate vendors based on their experience in the events management sector, customer support quality, and the robustness of their security measures.

4. Get a demo

How to trial and compare different CRM platforms for events management. Start with free trials or demo versions to assess usability and feature set. Create a checklist of your requirements and rate each CRM against these criteria. Pay attention to user interface, ease of integration, and customization options to ensure the chosen platform meets your specific needs. To see how a top CRM can transform your event management, get a demo of Folk to get you stated.

3 tips for implementing a CRM

Cut the time it takes to start familiarising yourself with your new CRM by keeping these three things front of mind.

1. Import your data in your new CRM

Transitioning to a new CRM can be seamless if you properly import your existing data. Start by exporting your data as a CSV file from your current CRM. This ensures that all your contact information, event details, and communication history are accurately transferred and ready to use in your new system.

2. Create your first pipeline

Setting up your first pipeline is a critical step in customizing your CRM for event management. Define the stages that correspond to your event planning process, such as "Lead Capture," "Initial Contact," "Proposal Sent," "Contract Signed," and "Event Execution." This tailored pipeline helps you track the status of each event and ensures nothing falls through the cracks, providing a clear overview of your event lifecycle from start to finish.

3. Onboard your team

Once your CRM is set up, it's essential to onboard your team effectively. Provide training sessions to familiarize them with the new system, emphasizing how it will enhance their workflow and improve event management. Encourage them to explore the CRM's features and share tips on best practices. A well-trained team will be more confident and efficient, leading to better collaboration and successful event execution.

The 5 best CRMs for events management

1. folk

folk is a modern CRM platform for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and integrations to enhance deal management and prospecting.

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Key features

• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
• Social media integraiton: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and more to folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
• Mail merge: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Pros

• Ease of use: folk is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical users with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
• All-in-one: folk streamlines your workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money.
• Customizability: Personalize every aspect of your CRM from folk's dashboards to your custom fields, pipelines, and workflows.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Cons

• Reporting: Currently lacks reporting features, but there are plans for future implementation.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month.

2. HubSpot

Hubspot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, essential for promoting events and capturing attendee interest.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, helping you manage sponsorship deals and ticket sales efficiently.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases to support event attendees and resolve issues quickly.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, ensuring smooth coordination between event planning and execution.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency, crucial for targeting high-potential attendees and sponsors.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it accessible for event planners with varying levels of technical expertise.
• Comprehensive free plan: The robust free version includes essential CRM features, ideal for small event management companies and startups.
• Seamless integration with marketing tools: Integrates smoothly with marketing, sales, and service tools, creating a unified platform for managing events and customer interactions.
• Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows, saving time and improving efficiency in event planning.
• Extensive learning resources: HubSpot Academy offers free courses, certifications, and resources to help users maximize the platform's potential.

Cons

• High cost at higher tiers: Pricing can become expensive at higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for small event management companies as they scale.
• Limited capabilities in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, restricting flexibility for growing event businesses.
• Email marketing limits: Email marketing functionality in the free plan is restricted by limits on the number of emails you can send, a drawback for businesses with larger attendee lists.
• Additional costs for add-ons: Many useful features, like advanced CRM capabilities and integrations, come as paid add-ons, increasing the overall cost.
• Steep learning curve for new users: While the interface is user-friendly, the breadth of features can be overwhelming for new users, requiring time to learn.

Price and plans

Prices and plans for HubSpot's CRM suite on an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: $450 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is a robust CRM platform for large enterprises, offering tools for sales, marketing, service, and analytics, with extensive scalability.

Key features

• Comprehensive ecosystem: A unified platform offering CRM, marketing automation, customer service, and custom app development, ideal for managing diverse event management needs.
• Customization and scalability: Salesforce is highly customizable and scalable, allowing event management companies to tailor the platform to specific workflows and manage growth effectively.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration: Salesforce Einstein offers AI-driven analytics and automation, providing insights to optimize event planning and execution.
• Extensive integration capabilities: With Salesforce's AppExchange, event managers can integrate the platform with a wide range of third-party applications, ensuring seamless operation across different tools.
• Enterprise-grade security and compliance: Salesforce provides robust security measures and compliance features, critical for handling sensitive attendee and client data.

Pros

• Comprehensive feature set: Salesforce offers an extensive range of features covering sales, service, and marketing, making it a powerful tool for managing all aspects of event planning and customer relationships.
• Highly customizable: Salesforce is highly customizable, allowing event managers to tailor the platform to their specific needs with custom fields, objects, and workflows.
• Extensive integration capabilities: Salesforce integrates with a vast array of third-party applications, enabling seamless data flow across platforms used in event management.
• Scalability: Salesforce is highly scalable, making it suitable for event management companies of all sizes, with the ability to grow with your business.
• Advanced analytics and reporting: Salesforce provides powerful analytics and reporting tools, allowing event managers to gain deep insights into their data and make informed decisions.

Cons

• High cost: Salesforce can be expensive, especially for small to medium-sized event management companies, with high licensing fees and additional costs for add-ons and customization.
• Steep learning curve: Due to its extensive feature set and complexity, Salesforce often requires significant time and training for users to become proficient.
• Complex setup and customization: Initial setup and customization can be challenging and often require expert help or certified consultants, which adds to the overall cost.
• User interface: Some users find the Salesforce interface to be outdated and not as intuitive as other modern CRM platforms, which can hinder usability.
• Overwhelming for small teams: Salesforce’s robust features may be overkill for smaller event management teams, leading to underutilization of the platform’s capabilities.

Price and plans

An annual subscription plan with Salesforce for is as follows.

• Starter Suite: $25/user/month provides basic CRM features for small businesses.
• Pro Suite: $100/user/month includes advanced tools for growing businesses.
• Enterprise Plan: $165/user/month offers extensive customization and automation for large companies.
• Unlimited Plan: $330/user/month provides comprehensive features for large enterprises.
• Einstein 1 Sales: $500/user/month provides AI-driven insights and advanced features for large enterprises.

4. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. Its got features such as journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation. There's also something for marketing teams, including lead hurting, event management and customer segmentation.

Key features

• Lead and contact management: Manages attendee information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted event campaigns.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth event analytics.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage attendee interactions seamlessly.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes like follow-up emails and reminders to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.
• Sales pipeline management: Visualizes and manages event registration pipelines with drag-and-drop functionality for better tracking.

Pros

• Affordability: Zoho CRM offers competitive pricing with various tiers, making it accessible to small and medium-sized event management companies.
• Multi-channel communication: Supports email, phone, social media, and live chat, enabling event planners to manage all attendee interactions from a single platform.
• Customization: Extensive customization options allow event managers to tailor the CRM to their specific needs, including custom fields, modules, and workflows.
• Integration with Zoho Suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products (like Zoho Campaigns) creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different aspects of event planning.
• Mobile accessibility: Zoho CRM offers a robust mobile app, allowing event managers to access data and manage relationships on the go, with offline capabilities.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a significant time investment to master the platform.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with large datasets or complex operations, can hinder productivity.
• Feature limitations in lower tiers: The lower-priced plans may lack advanced features, pushing users to upgrade to more expensive tiers for essential functionality.
• Data migration challenges: Migrating data from other CRMs to Zoho can be difficult and time-consuming, often requiring manual adjustments.

Price and plans

Zoho's free plan is limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

5. Capsule CRM

Capsule CRM is a user-friendly customer relationship management platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers a clean, intuitive interface that helps users manage customer relationships, track sales pipelines, and organize tasks and communications efficiently.

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Key features

• 1 sales pipeline: Manage your event leads and customer journey efficiently.
• 30,000 contacts: Store and manage a large number of event attendees, vendors, and partners.
• Activity reporting: Track all interactions and activities related to your events for better follow-up.
• Task management: Assign and manage tasks related to event planning and execution.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks to streamline event management processes.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: Capsule CRM offers a clean and intuitive design, making it easy for event planners to navigate and quickly access important features. This simplicity reduces the learning curve, making it an excellent choice for teams without extensive CRM experience.
• Contact and sales management: The platform provides robust tools for managing contacts, organizing customer information, and tracking sales opportunities, helping event planners maintain a clear view of their relationships and sales pipeline.
• Customization options: Capsule CRM allows users to customize fields, tags, and pipelines to fit their specific event management needs, offering flexibility in how they manage data and processes.
• Integration capabilities: Capsule integrates with various popular third-party applications, including G Suite, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, Xero, and QuickBooks, allowing users to create a seamless workflow across their event management tools.
• Affordability: Capsule CRM offers competitive pricing with a free plan for basic needs and affordable premium options, making it accessible for event management startups.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Compared to some of its competitors, Capsule CRM lacks more advanced features such as in-depth analytics and comprehensive automation, which can be a limitation for larger event management companies with more complex needs.
• Basic email marketing capabilities: While Capsule integrates with email marketing tools like Mailchimp, its built-in email marketing capabilities are relatively basic. Users seeking more advanced email marketing features may need to rely on third-party integrations.
• Limited customer support: Capsule CRM primarily offers support through email and an online help center. The lack of live chat or phone support might be a downside for event planners who prefer immediate assistance or more direct support options.
• No built-in phone or SMS integration: Unlike some other CRMs, Capsule does not have built-in phone or SMS functionality, which could be a disadvantage for event management companies that rely heavily on direct communication with clients through these channels.
• Scalability concerns: While Capsule CRM is great for small to medium-sized event management businesses, companies that are rapidly growing or have more complex CRM requirements might find the platform less scalable as they expand.

Price and plans

• Starter plan: Starts from $21 per user, per month.
• Growth plan: Starts from $38 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $60 per user, per month.
• Ultimate plan: Starts from $75 per user, per month.

Conclusion

Choosing the best CRM for events management is pivotal to streamlining your operations, enhancing client relationships, and driving business growth. Each of the CRMs discussed—folk, Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho, and Capsule CRM—offers unique features and benefits tailored to different business sizes and needs. While folk stands out for its ease of use and LinkedIn integration, Hubspot offers a comprehensive suite for marketing and sales. Salesforce excels in scalability and customization, Zoho provides affordability and multi-channel communication, and Capsule CRM is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses with its user-friendly interface and integration capabilities. Evaluate your specific requirements, budget, and long-term goals to select the CRM that best aligns with your event management needs. Try folk for free here.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What do busy events management teams use as a CRM?

Busy event management companies often use CRM tools like folk, Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho, and Capsule CRM. These platforms help streamline client interactions, manage event logistics, and improve overall efficiency, making them essential for scaling and optimizing event management operations.

Do I need a CRM?

Yes, depending on the complexity of your process. A CRM can significantly enhance your event management by streamlining workflows, improving client communication, and providing valuable insights through analytics, thus allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional events.

How much does a CRM cost?

CRM costs can vary widely, typically ranging from $15 to $500 per user per month. The price depends on the features, scalability, and level of customization offered by the platform. It's essential to choose a CRM that aligns with your budget and business needs.

Does folk’s CRM respond to events management needs?

Yes, folk’s CRM effectively addresses event management needs by offering features like contact enrichment, LinkedIn integration, customizable pipelines, and AI-powered tools. These capabilities streamline workflows, enhance communication, and provide valuable insights, making it an excellent choice for event management companies.