Prestashop

PrestaShop streamlines the management of its events and improves participant experience

Assmahane Baghri

“inwink made a real difference for us in the organization and development of our PrestaShop events. The 360° capability of the platform (website, ticketing, emailing, lead gen) provides us with the ideal solution to optimize customer and attendee experience.”

Assmahane Baghri, Head of Event, Prestashop

Key Figures

10
major international events every year
1
huge annual event
1
roadshow set of events

The context

PrestaShop is a software based on open source technologies enabling the creation of e-commerce websites. The software is used by more than 300 000 online shops worldwide.

Events have been an important tool in PrestaShop’s marketing strategy for several years. In 2019, in order to support its business development, the company accelerated the rhythm of its event operations and gave them an international dimension.

The events organized by PrestaShop gather e-commerce professionals for a full day. The aim is to share best practices, feedbacks, and the latest market trends. In 2019, PrestaShop has organized more than ten major events around the world, divided into two categories:

  • the ‘PrestaShopDay’ (PSD) flagship event: this is PrestaShop’s historical event, a not-to-be-missed milestone for its ecosystem. Since 2015, it has been held once a year in Paris. This year, the event also took place in Madrid, Milan, Mexico, and Warsaw. These five dates gather more than 4200 participants and 90 partners across the world. Every edition is organized over a full day and features around 40 presentations: conferences, workshops, pitches, and interactive sessions
  • the ‘PrestaShopConnect’ (PSC) partners roadshow: this is PrestaShop’s travelling event. It was designed to create more frequent meeting opportunities with customers and prospects locally. Hosted in collaboration with key technological partners, the PrestaShop Connect makes a stop in six cities around the world: Lyon, Bogota, Rome, Bayonne, Barcelona, and Kaunas. The event takes place over one day basis and features around fifteen conferences and workshops. Each edition gathers between 120 and 220 participants. 

Objectives

  1. Automate the event-marketing set-up
  2. Offer an exceptional experience to participants and partners

Strategy

Automation of the marketing set-up

With almost one major event hosted every month, PrestaShop’s marketing team needed to increase productivity and to leverage past events. With the inwink platform, PrestaShop transitioned from an event management set-up struggling with multiple tools to a unified, all-in-one platform.
Centralized event content management: with the activation of two event masters (templates) in inwink, PrestaShop gets a broad range of possibilities to create, modify, duplicate, and publish its events websites. The marketing team thus became autonomous in the management and publishing of its content.
By choosing to manage event content with inwink, the organizing team is able to build the program of the event by linking sessions to speakers, partners, physical locations of the event, and time slots, all of which are defined in the inwink Back-Office.
Data collection and analysis at scale: thanks to inwink, PrestaShop is able to measure precisely key event data. This means collecting participants’ contact details during registration, tracking attendance, and measuring satisfaction after the event. With inwink, the organizing team tracks and compares the performance of its various events and synchronizes marketing data into HubSpot by means of the inwink connector. 

A revisit of participants and partners experience

PrestaShop redesigned the digital set-up of its events in order to provide a high-value experience and an effective communication of content. Whether it is online, prior to the event, or on-site on D-day, the quality of the experience provided to all stakeholders is a key factor for an event to be successful. 
Online experience: this new digital set-up covers all of the event’s life cycle. PrestaShop created a ‘multi-events’ website which features a listing of all dates and websites for every edition. A participant can purchase a ticket, consult the program, register to workshops, and plan his/her visit. For every event, communication to participants is centered on customized emails: registration confirmations, sending of badges, sharing of practical information, and collection of satisfaction feedbacks. 
On-site management: On the day of the event, PrestaShop provides an optimum participation experience to all attendees. Hosts and hostesses use the inwink Onsite app to ensure a smooth check-in, on-site on-demand badge printing, and access control to workshops. Attendees consult the program of the event on its website or on the mobile app. Finally, partners generate and qualify opportunities by scanning the badges of the visitors on their booth with the inwink mobile app.