Planspot Aims To Take The Pain Out Of Event Marketing

Following a soft launch in its native Netherlands back in October, Planspot — described as an all-in-one event marketing tool — is seeing its official International push today, including the U.S., now that it has the needed media partnerships in place.

Competing with the likes of London-based Evently, and indirectly, HootSuite, Sproutsocial and Mailchimp, the web app’s dashboard hooks into social media, Press Release distribution, mailing list management, and partner publisher and event-listing websites to take the pain out of event marketing and promotion online.

Planspot starts with the premise that online marketing campaigns for events should be integrated across multiple channels where their effectiveness can be properly measured. After signing up to Planspot, event organisers begin by creating an event listing and entering associated data, including a hashtag and ticket or registration link. This creates a dedicated event page on Planspot itself, and the link to the resulting page or ticket/registration URL, can be automatically pushed to Facebook (including creating a Facebook Event) and Twitter, along with any related status updates.

Resulting conversations on Twitter and Facebook can then be tracked and responded to without leaving the Planspot dashboard, thus replicating some of the social media monitoring functionality found in products like HootSuite. In addition, any Facebook RSVPs will show up on the event’s Planspot page.

Traditional email campaigns are supported, too. Each event created can automatically generate an email template, which includes the ticket/registration link, the Facebook Event link, Twitter hashtag and Planspot Event Page link. Mailings can be scheduled and sent to different mailing lists, which can be imported. Once again, analytics are provided so that event marketers can keep track of the results of an email campaign (e.g. opened emails, clicks etc.).

There’s also a Press Release creator, including distribution and tracking. However, it’s the way that Planspot integrates with publishers and event-listings sites that makes it event-specific and also forms the basis of its business model beyond charging event organisers a monthly subscription for using its dashboard.

Based on the type of event and location, Planspot matches events to magazines, newspapers and event listings sites that it partners and integrates with. For example, a fashion event might be matched to a fashion magazine like Vogue, who, depending on their own event-listing model, might get a kick back for listing or advertising the event (or, presumably, any related ticket sales), with Planspot also taking a cut.

Within the U.S., Planspot distributes events via Zvents, Allevents.in, Songkick and Upcoming, among others. It’s also partnered with event promotion service GetPromotd.com, who are powering a media network across the U.S. for event promotion.

Planspot has raised $750,000 from angel investors, and is founded by Satya van Heummen, with a team that includes Chris Wilson (from the social network Hyves), Michiel Scheepens (from ID&T) and Reinoud Tjallema.