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Emerald Multiplies Registration at Two Events With Feathr Invites

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1,839

New Registrants

25,000

New Digital Leads

$206,150

ROI



Challenge

Founded in 2013, Emerald is a leading operator of B2B trade shows for a variety of industries including photography, sports, and technology. Emerald organizes dozens of events in the United States each year, including two major photography shows: PhotoPlus and WPPI.

Part trade show, part educational conference, and part pop-up art gallery, these shows are something more akin to fan events. And because photographers are notorious gearheads, always wanting to learn about the latest tools that can help make memorable images, the audience at these events is made up of some of the most loyal brand followers.

Emerald has been using Feathr since 2016 and seeing great results, so the team decided to use it again to maximize registration and attendance to PhotoPlus 2018 and WPPI 2019.

“Brands are extraordinarily influential to photographers, and when a brand with loyal devotees endorses an event, their audience will follow. We knew that implementing a Partner Invites program would open up our event to a ton of qualified, new audiences.”

- Lynne Schreur, Marketing Manager, Emerald

Using Invites for PhotoPlus 2018

Founded in 1983, PhotoPlus is the largest photo and imaging event in North America. Organized by award-winning photography magazine Photo District News, the 2018 show featured over 100 educational seminars, photo walks and masterclasses, special filmmaking and drone sessions, awards shows, and over 200 exhibitors representing every angle of the photography and imaging industry.

Emerald started prepping for PhotoPlus 2018 by using Feathr Invites to create custom templates at scale for event partners to share with their networks. They built landing page and email templates just once, and Feathr did the work of creating a unique version for each of their 300+ speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors.

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Sample landing page used by PhotoPlus partner Irix
.

Within the 3 months leading up to PhotoPlus, Emerald was able to get 249 exhibitors, speakers, and other partners to actively share their custom landing pages, emails, and banners promoting the event. Over the course of the campaign, this translated to 572 additional registrants and nearly 10,000 new digital leads* for PhotoPlus.

*A digital lead is someone who engages with one of your partner's collateral pieces – like a landing page, email, or banner. They are a lead because you can continue to market to them through retargeting.

Here’s a quick campaign breakdown that shows where the registrants came from:

  • 420 from exhibitor invites
  • 96 from speaker invites
  • 56 from other partners

To top it off, Emerald also used Feathr Ads for PhotoPlus, which independently converted an additional 547 registrants.

The total ROI from both campaigns was $33,570. The marketers at Emerald were excited about these results, so they decided to use Invites for WPPI 2019 – this time with a focus on getting even more participation from speakers as well as exhibitors.

More Great Results With WPPI

Wedding and Portrait Photography International (WPPI) is the largest show for professional, amateur, and emerging wedding and portrait photographers and filmmakers, drawing attendees from all over the world for four days of conference, content, and business-building.

Similar to PhotoPlus, WPPI is made up of extremely loyal brand followers looking to see the latest trends and technology and hear from the top people in their industry.

Emerald knew it could get the best results by leveraging not only its relationships with exhibitioners but also its relationships with the event’s speakers, since they are the primary draw for WPPI attendees. So the marketing team got to work again creating custom landing page and email templates to share with partners.

Again they built landing page and email templates just once, and Feathr did the work of creating a unique version for each of their 300+ speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors.

WPPI’s Invites campaign garnered active participation from 300 partners (nearly all of them), which resulted in 1,267 new registrants and 15,000 new digital leads.

Here’s a quick campaign breakdown that shows where the registrants came from:

  • 726 from exhibitor invites
  • 422 from speaker invites
  • 119 from other partners

Once again, Emerald used Feathr Ads to boost registration, which independently converted an additional 311 registrants for WPPI. The ROI on both campaigns totaled $172,580.


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Sample landing page used by WPPI speaker Phillip Van Nostrand.

“A huge portion of the partners who participated in our Invites program for WPPI were speakers, which served as a great reminder not to underestimate the value and the networks of individuals as event partners.”

- Shanna Allen, Marketing Manager, Emerald

A Double Success With Invites

Overall, Invites was responsible for 1,839 new registrants and 25,000 new digital leads for these two events.

That’s 25,000 additional people to whom Emerald can promote next year’s events, which means Invites not only boosts growth for singular events – it opens up a whole new audience for you to market to all year round.

And here’s the best part: besides the nominal platform fee, all of those new registrants and leads cost next to nothing for Emerald to acquire. The exhibitors, speakers, and other event partners did all the work by spreading the word to their networks.

“We’ve been using Feathr for a number of years now. Our brands are so used to the platform that almost as soon as registration opens, they’re asking for their page links. They are more than happy to work with us to spread the word about our event, and Feathr Invites makes it easy.”
Lynne Schreur
Marketing Manager, Emerald

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