Modernizing Through the RainFocus Partnership
ELX and RainFocus became partners to further support senior event leaders. RainFocus provides leaders with smarter, data-driven event technology, while ELX facilitates connection and learning. With the partnership, ELX gained access to RainFocus’ Base Conference template to deliver its Annual Congress. The team wanted to modernize the event, creating a better experience for both the team planning the event and attendees. Before moving to RainFocus, they were managing registration through a Typeform integration and manual follow-up emails, which both required significant manual effort.
Rapid Microsite Deployment
The Base Conference template gave the ELX team everything they needed for launch, including a clear sequential task checklist. Senior manager Hannah Elston used the checklist to apply branding across a multi-page microsite in a single day. The site included a homepage, speaker page, session catalog, and FAQ page. For the rest of the registration build process, the checklist also served as a guardrail to surface tasks as needed and ensure all were completed.
“I loved the event checklist! I thought it was very helpful. While I was working on something, I could see the progress I was making toward completion.” — Hannah Elston, Senior Manager, Partnerships, Marketing, & Communications, ELX
Benefits of In-Platform Communication
When inviting members to register for the event, the ELX team opted to send invitations directly from RainFocus rather than through their existing marketing platform. This choice made registration easier, as RainFocus’ one-click registration link let attendees sign up without creating an account or logging in first. The experience delivered significant downstream impact by reducing registration abandonment.
“Sending emails directly through RainFocus was worth it. I have no doubt that the reason we’ve had so many registrations come in so quickly is that they haven’t had to spend time logging in first.” — Hannah Elston, Senior Manager, Partnerships, Marketing, & Communications, ELX
Results
Even before the event took place, the wins from switching to RainFocus were immediately apparent. In the first week following registration launch, a third of ELX’s entire community registered — a feat that the team described as unprecedented. In the same week, ELX also surpassed their total registration from the previous year’s congress and saw a 50% conversion rate from pre-registered attendees. The early excitement around the event gave the team more time and data for creating an experience to engage attendees.
Beyond registration numbers, the team has experienced operational wins. For example, the automatic task reminders within the attendee portal surfaced outstanding hotel and travel bookings — eliminating the need for manual outreach. As a result, 77% of attendees had promptly booked their hotel.
What’s Next
Hannah and her team look forward to partnering with RainFocus throughout the execution of the Annual Congress. We’ll share the second part of their story — with more wins and results-driven data points — after the event.
The team is already excited to expand on their experience with the Base Conference template. They feel confident that they can easily create the event build again for next year’s event.
“A lot of what we’ve done has laid a healthy foundation for the future.” — Hannah Elston, Senior Manager, Partnerships, Marketing, & Communications, ELX
