Events are a big part of marketing.
But despite the resources and costs that go into putting on these extravagant experiences, a lot of companies are doing a lousy job of converting event attendees into new business. And even if companies are successful, how do they know?
Yotme is a new events-driven, network-powered customer relationship management system used by brands and nonprofits to turn attendee data into helpful marketing data that will drive sales and generate new business. The platform also helps individuals enhance their social lives and measure their positive social impact.
“We saw a gap between attendee data and a meaningful marketing follow up,” Barry Hinckley, CEO and founder of Yotme, told Rhode Island Inno. “A lot of brands and nonprofits have a tough time putting a dollar figure on what type of marketing activity they produce.”
“Instead of having static data living in a digital filing cabinet and waiting to be acted upon, this data will actually be active and interacting with other people, other events, other brands and other products between the time you interacted with it last.”
Yotme also solves a technology issue.
Through research, Hinckley has found that most companies and organizations will need to use three to five pieces of technology to run an event. Yotme on the other hand allows companies to run events — soup to nuts — all within its platform, including the online invitation process, ticketing and the CRM.
Baked into the layering is also a social network aspect that reflects data and the entire event process in real time.
“There is going to be a shift in the CRM space, where CRM will look, act and feel like a social network,” said Hinckley. “Instead of having static data living in a digital filing cabinet and waiting to be acted upon, this data will actually be active and interacting with other people, other events, other brands and other products between the time you interacted with it last.”
Hinckley said he thinks Yotme will be attractive to industries such as the beverage industry, where certain segments such as alcohol companies do one-third of their marketing in the events space.
However, his go-to-market strategy will focus on the nonprofit sector, where organizations do not have a lot of resources when it comes to technology and there is high turnover in their events business.
"By delivering them a very powerful set of tools for free, supported via the web so they don’t need any local infrastructure, we can help nonprofits not only do existing events, but become their de facto data center of past events so everything that happens is right there,” he said, referring to data such as emails, invitations, responses and tickets.
Yotme will be free to use, but the company will collect a small commission on ticket sales.
However, Hinckley believes this will be attractive because there is no sales tax on ticket sales and Yotme’s fees are about the same as what the sales tax amounts to.
Although still in beta mode, Yotme has already been working with large beverage brands and those in the nonprofit space, such as the YMCA.
The company is close to finishing the CRM aspect of the platform and coming out of beta, and Hinckley expects to be ready in time for the spring events season. Hinckley also said he will soon begin fundraising for a Series A round and also start developing more premium services.
But right now, he is focused on on-boarding customers and delivering exceptional results for businesses.
“A lot of brands and nonprofits have a tough time putting a dollar figure on what type of marketing activity they produce,” he said. “This platform will allow them to attribute marketing and attendee data into meaningful, actionable marketing intelligence.”
Editor's Note: Yotme was named one of Rhode Island Inno's 2019 50 on Fire award winners. Read more here.
