Practically Genius
15 years and 27k+ customers in, Formstack was primed to host our first customer conference. As we looked to transform Formstack into the #1 No-Code Workflow Platform—known globally as the best option for accelerating workflows—building and igniting our community was an absolute must. Since this was a customer event (as opposed to an industry event), our goal as a Creative Team was to create a beautiful, on-brand event visual style. But, we wanted to create an art direction that gave the event its on unique identity, and was a natural extension of our brand.
- Challenge
- Give Formstack's first customer conference its own identity that still felt on-brand, and a tangible feel for a virtual event, with almost no extra creative budget.
- Outcome
- A 27% microsite conversion rate and 53% attendance (against an industry average of about 30%). $634K in influenced pipeline, and 92% of attendees said it met their expectations.
Exploration/Creative Study
Practically genius ideas come to life. It’s not a physical event, so we wanted to take our brand to a physical space and achieve a tangible feel to an virtual event.
Art Direction
We used Cinema 4D to create 3D renderings of the Practically Genius logo—which we had already established as our internal brand for customer stories—along with the core Formstack shapes, resulting in a distinct yet familiar interpretation of both the Formstack and Practically Genius brands.
Application Exploration
To test this art direction and pitch the concept to the executive team, we explored how it could be applied across potential promotional and event assets. Below is range of assets from social promotion, e-mail outreach, award graphics, lower thirds, and more.
Guidelines For Application
Once the creative direction was finalized, we developed a set of application guidelines to ensure designers, videographers, and set designers were aligned when producing assets for the virtual event.
Final Application
Below is an array of assets created for the event, including social and e-mail promotional graphics, landing page designs, award and sponsor banners, t-shirts, virtual booth designs, video transitions, and more.
Challenges
Incomplete Content
Typically, we move on to design directly after campaign messaging and web copy has been approved. This time we had to move forward with placeholder copy, and several speakers and sponsors were unconfirmed.
Executive Sign-off
During the launch of this campaign, several key executives were fully booked or out of office, which made getting the green light difficult at times.
Page Speed/File Size
We wanted to do a lot with the web experience. We ran into challenges with making decisions around how much video, animation GIFs, and web animations we could use. Ultimately, we compromised with the front-end team to keep page speeds up. Coloring on GIFs was also challenging.
Small Creative Budget
We knew from the start we had little to no extra creative budget due to the cost of putting on the event itself. This meant we were not going to engage with external photographers, illustrators, etc…
Performance
27% Conversion Rate
We saw a fantastic conversion rate of 27% on the microsite. Super qualified traffic led to conversions—outstanding work by our Growth and Customer Marketing teams.
28% Traffic from Email
Our largest registration spikes came the days of Pardot email sends (28% of all microsite traffic). And, we saw a strong impression/CTR from email signatures using Terminus.
53% Attendee Rate
The industry average attendance rate for virtual events is ~30%. We hit 53%, which is well above! And, 92% of attendees said the event met their expectations in a post-event survey.
Pipeline Influence
We saw an impressive $634k of influenced pipeline (expansion, trialling customers, etc.), with a $31.6K sourced directly from this event (new prospects).