“You think you know what you’re getting into with an event platform, but then you find out between managing the platform, implementing a Marketo integration, and learning how to best leverage its features, it quickly becomes a full-time job.” Bryanne Baye, Senior Manager of Corporate Events
When Mendix, the leading low-code platform for enterprise-level organizations, had to pivot their 2020 annual flagship event from in-person to virtual, their team was presented with the opportunity to reach more people, but had the challenge of delivering an end-to-end online attendee experience that would also capture the right level of pre-and post-event data.
They were faced with the overarching question: how do we best leverage MarTech and marketing automation to achieve our event objectives for 2021?
Background
Mendix is no stranger to Perkuto – Perkuto has been working with the Mendix team since 2017, and our level of partnership has only grown over time. When Perkuto’s partners are faced with unexpected challenges, the team at Perkuto is the first to rise to the challenge; even if the challenge is outside of Perkuto’s platform expertise area.
Aside from Perkuto’s work with the Mendix World project, Perkuto provides Marketo consulting and managed services to their internal marketing operations team. This consists of strategic consulting for larger initiatives, which ranges from compliance, consent management, and preference center to creative work such as updating landing pages and email templates.
The Perkuto team also steps in to troubleshoot technical issues, whether that means a slow sync with Salesforce, trigger issues, or data transfer.
The Flagship Event: Mendix World
Despite the pandemic, Mendix put together an event experience for their 2020 event, which would drive the highest number of registrants to date. But, there was one key component missing – data.
With Mendix World 2021 predicted to be even larger, the team was ready to roll up their sleeves and get to planning. To ensure they would walk away from the event with actionable data and insights, they added RainFocus to their MarTech stack. Rainfocus’ capabilities include encapsulating the entire event experience, from data and analytics to registration and even virtual exhibitor booths.
The Challenge
When Mendix initiated kickoff conversations, the team quickly learned that they lacked in two departments:
- Internal expertise to manage and integrate a new platform.
- Bandwidth to train themselves on the new platform.
Handling the architectural design, installation, integration, and set-up of a new event platform can take weeks or even months, and with registration around the corner, there was little time for risks.
What Mendix needed was more marketing and IT bandwidth. Although Perkuto had never worked with RainFocus, Mendix was confident in Perkuto’s technical expertise and capabilities to implement a Marketo integration.
The Solution
Perkuto focused on two key areas:
- Technical and structural framework: Since improving pre-and post-event reporting capabilities was a key objective for Mendix, Perkuto designed and implemented the RainFocus-Marketo integration that was the cornerstone to all downstream analytics.
- Project management: With Mendix experiencing rapid internal growth, their team had their hands full and needed help staying on track. The Perkuto team made sure that Mendix understood the impact of their decisions, and kept the project running on track.
Throughout the entire project, Perkuto acted as an extension of the team. This meant adding the right mix of talent to ensure objectives were being met, and solutions were technically sound.
“Perkuto will tell us if we’re going down the wrong path and we’ll get to the right answer together. We have an established partnership of five years, and it’s only grown over time. We needed a trusted partner to fact check and have our backs, and Perkuto did just that.”
Nicholas Rose, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing Operations
Perkuto assigned the following roles to work on this project:
- One project manager
- One solutions architect
- One senior consultant
- Five Marketo consultants
The Results
Mendix and Perkuto celebrated many wins throughout the project duration. From launching registration on time to successfully sourcing registrants, Perkuto worked with Mendix to achieve several event objectives.
Let’s take a look at some numbers….
- Over 18,000 registrants
- 115 sessions in 3 days including live, simulive, roundtable meetings, scheduled reruns, and invite-only sessions visible to select attendees.
- 9 critical integrations into the primary virtual event tool, including a Marketo integration.
- Built 143 Marketo programs to track engagement within each session and sponsor uniquely.
- Successful implementation of 8 core pages in the event platform. Each page had several interaction points and visibility rules controlling access to each element.
Perkuto played an instrumental role in guaranteeing Mendix was getting the most out of their event platform investment, and ultimately, helped implement a successful event.
Key Takeaways
“Perkuto acted as a critical extension of our team throughout the duration of the project. Without them, it would have been significantly more challenging to successfully execute the event.” Bryanne Baye, Senior Manager, Corporate Events at Mendix
We wrapped up our conversation by asking Mendix their biggest takeaways from the 2021 event, and what advice they would have for others considering Perkuto.
“Be transparent and honest about the level of support you need. Getting yourself into a new event platform, you can’t predict what obstacles you’ll run into. Be aware of the gaps on your team – for example, is it technical or project management?
And their final bit of advice?
“When working across multiple disciplines... we trust Perkuto as our go-to partner.” Click To Tweet
