How To Easily Capture Event Guest Details With Infusionsoft & DynamicSync

In this article we’ll cover the fundamentals around Event Guest Registrations so you know your options to easily capture guest details with Infusionsoft and DynamicSync for your next event.

What is a Guest Registration?

A Guest registration is the ability to register multiple tickets to bring one or more people along to an event.  The additional ticket could be used for a partner, team member, colleague, family member or friend.  Being able to utilise guest registration functionality makes it easier for contacts to sign up for events as it’s typically done in one transaction as opposed to individually.

Guest registrations are quite common for live events, whether you’re running a free or paid event, you may wish to open up registrations for guests.

Why Do You Want To Accept Guest Registrations?

There can be a bit involved in setting up an automated way of accepting event guest registrations, so why consider it?

Accepting guest registration for events can allow you to:

• Avoid the tedious process of manually registering individuals (particularly when you want to register 2 or more)
• Avoid having to do multiple individual ticket payments if it’s a paid event and you want to purchase more than one ticket
• Generate more registrations for an event (as the primary registrant will think about who might want to join them as this event)
• Get other important people in attendance at the event that may be part of implementing/supporting the primary registrant
• Get other important people in the room who may be part of a purchasing decision (e.g. one of our clients helps educate clients on investments – it’s ideal to have both members of a relationship present to help make a joint decision about the next step)
• Know how many people to actually expect at an event – that way you can plan seating, catering, printing and other logistics
• Capture the contact details of your guest registrations, therefore allowing you to grow your database
• Follow up with all registrants, including guests following the event

Guest Registrations Options with Infusionsoft & DynamicSync

There are three main ways to manage guest registrations in DynamicSync with pros and cons of each approach.

“Just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should always accept guest registrations.”

Here are some pros and con to consider whether you should accept Guest Registrations or not whether you’re running a FREE or PAID event.

Please note this could be different from event to event.

Options		Pros	Cons
1	Only Accept Sole Registrations	Guaranteed to capture the lead and collect all the contact details for all registrants  Compliance – all leads opt themselves onto your list  Faster check-in process at events as guests are confirmed	More work for contacts who want to register their partners, colleagues or friends, they need to send them the details to register themselves  Potentially lower registration numbers
2	Accept Guest Registration Numbers & Confirm Guest Details	You know how many to expect  Follow up with the individual who booked to confirm guest details (ownership on them)  Guests will be added to your database  Faster check-in process at events as guests are confirmed	Compliance – potentially blurred when colleagues/ partners are opting in on their behalf  If the guest and the primary registrant has the same email address this will cause issues  If you wish to track the success of an event and the guest is NOT considered a separate buying unit, then this may skew your numbers
3	Accept Guest Registration Numbers But DO NOT Confirm Guest Details	You know how many to expect  If the guest is considered part of the buying unit with a primary registrant, then it won’t skew your numbers	Potentially lower show up rates as they wouldn’t have received event reminders  More manual work and possible delays at check-in should you wish to confirm guest details at the event

How Does Guest Registrations Work With Infusionsoft?

The following diagram outlines how the event Guest Registration process works between Infusionsoft and DynamicSync, in particular, a contact registering guests themselves.  Please note that guests can also be managed internally by staff registering a contact directly into the backend of DynamicSync.
particular a contact registering guests themselves.  Please note that guests can also be managed internally by staff registering a contact directly into the backend of DynamicSync.

Let’s go through the key steps of this process.

Infusionsoft DynamicSync Event Guest Registration Process

STEP 1A – Contact To Confirm Tickets Required

The contact completes a field typically on an external website that integrates with Infusionsoft via a webform to indicate how many tickets they require.

Event Registration Page With Guest Registration 

STEP 1B – Paid Guest Registrations

If the event is a paid event, by using the DynamicSync setup you can use the number of tickets selected in Step 1A and pass that over to the quantity field and lock that down so it cannot be adjusted.  (This is critical as the DynamicSync integration will be feeding off the information in the webform, not the quantity in the order form (as Infusionsoft doesn’t easily share the product quantity data unfortunately)).

Event Guest Registration On An Infusionsoft Order Form

STEP 2 – Redirect To Thank You Page

Whether you’re running a free or paid event, after the contact submits and confirms total number of tickets, they will be redirected to a thank you page.  You can use the DynamicSync WordPress Plugin to customise the event information displayed on this page if you wish.

STEP 3 – Notify DynamicSync of Total Tickets To Be Registered Through Infusionsoft

Once the contact has either processed their payment for a paid event, or submitted their webform, upon entering the campaign sequence in Infusionsoft we communicate with DynamicSync via a HTTP post.  There is an extra element in the HTTP post to communicate to the event plugin the total number of tickets needed to be registered in that one transaction.

Infusionsoft DynamicSync Event Guest Registration HTTP Post

STEP 4 – All Registrants Are Created In DynamicSync

Once the HTTP post is successful between Infusionsoft and DynamicSync, you can see below that the primary event registrant is added into the nominated event, as well as separate entries for each guest.  This allows you to know how many to expect at the event.  Also these extra entries are created to easily convert to actual contact records later.

STEP 5 – Primary Registrant To Confirm Guest Details Automatically

Should you want to add the guests contacts into Infusionsoft (see option 2 above for pros and cons) you can send the primary registrant an email that outlines the total number of tickets (including one for themselves), with a link to enter their guest details.

Infusionsoft DynamicSync Email To Confirm Guest Details

STEP 6 – Enter Guest Details

The primary registrant will be taken to the following page from the email and depending on how many tickets they have registered, they will be able to enter as many guests (minus 1 for their individual registration) to confirm their details.

DynamicSync Guest Registration Page

STEP 7 – DynamicSync Updated With Guest Details

Once the guest has been confirmed, the guest record in DynamicSync will automatically be replaced with the name of the new contact.

DynamicSync Event Management – Guest Registrations

STEP 8 – Guest To Be Added To Infusionsoft

Upon successful completion of the form and as soon as DynamicSync has updated the guest record, the contact will be added (or updated) in Infusionsoft and will get an automatic tag created on their record to effectively register them into the event.  They will then enter the pre-event email sequence, where the guest will receive the confirmation and reminders themselves.  This will help to grow your database and also no doubt get more bums on seats at your events.

Internal Guest Registration

If you wish to complete the first few steps, but want to confirm the guest details yourself, you do have the option to manage guests internally.  If you log into your DynamicSync app, you can edit a Guest record and replace it with a name.  That will also complete step 7 above to create the contact and add them into the event campaign.

Infusionsoft & Dynamic Sync Guest Registration Process In Action

To see the guest registration process in action, check out the following video as we walk through the steps:

Should you wish to see more details on how to set this up, log into the DynamicSync app, in the help area go to “How To Videos”, “Managing Events, Event Dates and Event Attendees”, “Setup Guest Registrations”.

DynamicSync – Guest Registration Setup

 

Infusionsoft Event Guest Registration

Infusionsoft is an incredibly power tool, but due to the nature of its design it makes it a little challenging to manage guest registrations on its own.  As you can see from the options above, you have a few ways to manage guests.  The main benefit here with DynamicSync is that you know how many you’re expecting for your event and can easily add guest registrants if you need.

For other ideas of what’s possible with DynamicSync, check out our event case study here, otherwise click here to start your free trial.