Toronto-based e-commerce software maker AudienceView has expanded its event organizing and ticket-selling software offerings with AV Community, targeted at organizations that might have several different organizers working to put together independent events under the same brand.
Released in early May, AV Community launched with some early-adopter clients in the post-secondary education space. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, Simon Fraser University and Western University Student’s Council are the three clients named in AudienceView’s press release. They reflect the complex sort of environments where AV Community is hoping to make a splash, says Mike Evenson, vice-president of marketing and product management at AudienceView.
“We’ve cut our teeth helping organizations with a central control and command centre that operate events in their own venues,” he says. “Now we’re opening up the opportunity for different parts and groups within an organization to independently manage events for their community while maintaining a consistent brand experience.”
Evenson points to some campus-themed examples of how the software works. It could be used to organize a 30-person lecture for a history class, or it could be used to organize a varsity football game in a large stadium. While the event organizers are operating independently, the experience in registering for the event is the same from the end-user point of view, and the organization can learn about its customers and what events they like to attend.
“The value of knowing there’s that same person that goes to the history lecture and the football game is new, and doesn’t exist in the market today,” Evenson says. “With the emphasis more on fundraising on campus… there’s huge value in this information.”
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In capturing customer demographic data, interests, and behaviour in this way, AV Community is functioning much like a CRM system would. The ability to target customers with personalized messages based on what an organization knows about them is the big appeal, and AV Community can even be tied into an internal CRM system to create a better picture of customers.
The potential target market goes beyond just university administration and organizaitons, Evenson says. A franchise operation could use it to allow their local dealers to organize and market events, or regional school boards could tap it to organize field trips.
“I have a six-year-old daughter and I still put cash in her backpack for field trips,” he says. “This could give teachers across a school board the ability to run events with organizational oversight.”
AV Community is available on a subscription basis.
