CANBERRA, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Zoho announced its newest product offering: Backstage, an end-to-end event management tool that allows organizers, corporations, and non-profit agencies to plan, promote, and run events ranging from large-scale meetings to conferences and trade shows. Zoho Backstage comes equipped with a broad range of features, including a multi-language website builder, agenda planner, attendee mobile app, sponsor management, detailed analytics and more. Backstage adds a completely new marketing channel to Zoho's integrated suite of apps, Zoho One.
"Planning and running an event is a complex operation that has traditionally required different tools for each stage of the process—a website builder, a mass emailing solution, scanners for checking in attendees, and a stand-alone app for audience engagement," said Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist, Zoho Corp. "Backstage embraces event management from start to finish by offering a unified online platform that allows organizers to market the event, fill seats, and engage audience all from within one product. Rather than getting bogged down in the complexities of the tools being used, this holistic event management system lets organizers focus on what matters: putting on a great event."
Highlights of Zoho Backstage:
Before the Event
Dynamic event website builder: Zoho Backstage enables organizers to create a dynamic event website from scratch within minutes. The website builder includes multi-language support, an agenda planner, sponsor promotion, direct registration (for free and paid tickets), photo gallery, speaker management, and customizable labels and sections.
Intuitive agenda planner: With Backstage's agenda builder, organizers can create unique schedules for each event, choosing from different session types and organizing presentations into multiple tracks. They can simply drag-and-drop the time blocks to build the perfect event for their attendees.
Sponsor and speaker management: To get the most out of an event, external partners—such as speakers and sponsors—need to be highlighted prominently on the event website. Important speakers can be featured on the homepage to boost interest, and the dedicated sponsor page gives credit to the outside companies that made the event possible. Backstage also allows organizers to define sponsorship categories to maximize revenue.
Promotion tool: Event planners can use the built-in promotion tools to spread the word and increase event reach. Backstage also offers the option of embedding promotional banners on third-party websites and blogs. It equips event marketers with customizable email templates directed at attendees and sponsors, both for promotional and instructional purposes. In addition to this, Backstage can also be integrated with Zoho Campaigns via Zoho Flow to run email marketing campaigns.
Monitor ticket sales: Backstage integrates with Eventbrite allowing organizers to watch in real time as attendance grows in the days and weeks before the event. In the next couple of months, Backstage will also be releasing an in-house ticketing solution that will bring the entire ticketing process onto one platform.
Custom branded mobile app: Attendees can have an engaging experience with a completely custom branded event mobile app. This can be hosted on the App Store and Play Store and is available for both iOS and Android devices.
During the Event
Content library: Presentations are an integral part of any corporate event. With its native integration with Zoho Docs and Show, Backstage offers a centralized content library to create and manage slide decks, files, images, and more. This ensures that on event day all the presentations are pre-loaded and the sessions run smoothly, without any disruptions.
Agenda personalization: Personalized agendas allow attendees to keep track of all the sessions they are most interested in. This self-selected schedule makes it easy to check presentation times, speaker bios, and assigned locations on the go.
Audience engagement: Backstage also integrates with Zoho's internal presentation delivery tool, ShowTime. Designed to encourage interaction during presentations, this tool allows attendees to provide speakers with feedback through virtual Q&A, slide likes, and instant ratings, all from within their mobile devices.
Community building: Event organizers can create an online community even before the event starts. Discussion forums provide a good opportunity for participants to not just interact with the organizers, but also keep conversations going with other participants.
Attendee convenience: Large events can be impersonal and overwhelming if attendee experience is not taken into consideration. In an effort to reduce long lines on the opening day of the event, Zoho Backstage allows staff to check in attendees with the click of a button on the web dashboard or the mobile app, rather than using an external scanning device.
After the Event
Comprehensive analytics: Zoho Backstage gives organizers insight into the key performance indicators for each event, from engagement statistics for individual session to attendance metrics for the entire event. Speakers can be evaluated by reviewing the number of likes and comments each session received and reading through post-presentation attendee feedback.
Post-event feedback: Organizers can use Zoho Flow to integrate Backstage with Zoho Survey, making it possible to gather information on how the event resonated with attendees.
Customer Statements
"Our Zoho Backstage experience has been very positive. In less than an hour and a half, Backstage helped me build a two-day event with all the bells and whistles. The ability to have multiple solutions in one place that saved 5 to 6 hours of my time is just wonderful. I highly recommend Zoho Backstage."
- Josh Wagner - Director of Marketing. Fluitec International, New Jersey, United States.
"Zoho Backstage can be best described as convenient, advanced, and smart. We saved a lot of time—and time is money. This solution is definitely worth the investment."
- Quốc Vinh - Group Chairman and CEO. Le Bros, Vietnam
"With Backstage, we were able to save time and money planning our annual conference which was attended by 700+ delegates. All it took was a few clicks to get our event website up and running. We were also able to provide our attendees with an engaging and memorable event experience through a custom branded mobile app. Backstage will surely be part of our future events."
- Ramesh C Pathak - PMP, VP Technology. PMI Bangalore, India.
Pricing and availability:
Zoho Backstage is available immediately, both as a web app and as mobile apps for iOS and Android. Zoho Backstage offers four subscription plans: the Free plan, the Professional plan ($129 per month), the Professional+ plan ($259 per month), and the Single Event plan ($389 per event) with a custom branding add-on at $1299 per year. Custom branding includes a custom domain and mobile app. The Zoho Backstage Professional+ plan is included as a part of Zoho One.
For more information on Zoho Backstage, please visit https://www.zoho.com/backstage. To learn more about Zoho, visit https://www.zoho.com. For breaking Zoho news, follow the company on Twitter at @zoho and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/zoho. The latest news about Zoho products is available on the company blog, http://blogs.zoho.com.
Mobile apps:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/zoho-backstage/id1324912655?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zoho.backstage
About Zoho
Zoho is the operating system for business—a single online platform capable of running an entire business. With apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho is one of the world's most prolific software companies. In 2017, Zoho introduced the revolutionary Zoho One, an integrated suite of applications for the entire business.
Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. More than 35 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. Zoho Corporation is privately held and profitable with more than 5,000 employees. Zoho is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, with international headquarters in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in Austin, Utrecht, Singapore, Yokohama, and Beijing. For more information, please visit www.zoho.com/.
