About Partnership Leaders in-person conference ‘Catalyst 2023’

When it comes to partnerships, the challenges are as diverse as the collaborations themselves. Professionals responsible for managing these crucial relationships find themselves navigating a complex landscape where success hinges on strategic finesse and adaptability — it’s an uphill journey and one that's twice as difficult if you're going it alone.

Enter Partnership Leaders. This community of over 1,500 members, including the brains behind Google, Salesforce, and Twilio partner teams, helps partner professionals build and learn from the top Channel, Alliances, Business Development and Ecosystem teams at the best companies around the world. 

In 2022, Partnership Leaders set out to expand their community-driven engagement into an annual conference - Catalyst - that would help professionals break new ground in partnership excellence.

“We created this event because the industry as a whole needed a place to meet to discuss best practices, set standards, and then recognize successes and failures, and to elevate partnerships around the world - a place that is a catalyst for growth,” says Asher Mathew, CEO, Partnership Leaders. 

The challenge

The first Catalyst took place in Miami in 2022. The conference was carefully curated to deliver on what Partnership Leaders’ members wanted: “a real-life experience that helped them connect in-person and continue the conversations that we were having on Slack.” explains Asher. 

The team turned to a well-known marketing automation solution to manage the conference. While recognized as an industry-leading marketing automation platform, its core capabilities are not built for event management, so the team was faced with some year one growing pains like not having a customizable attendee mobile app.

Partnership Leaders envisioned Catalyst 2023 to be bigger, bolder and better. 

“We wanted to deliver a modern feel for a conference and for the partnerships industry that never really existed before” states Asher. “Education, connection, entertainment tied together smoothly in a very modern setup.” An ambitious goal, made more so by the doubling of conference registrants to 700+ and the decision to host the event in an entirely new city, Denver.

To pull this off, Partnership Leaders needed a modern event tech stack.

“We said this year, we need to have a modern tool to make the functional components of the conference - scheduling, networking, a directory - extremely streamlined and automated", Asher says.

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The outcome

With Zuddl’s complete suite of on-site event solutions enabling logistical ease and efficiency, Partnership Leaders was able to create the ‘modern conference experience’ they had envisioned: integrated, uncomplicated, and when you got down to it? Downright fun.

Zuddl’s comprehensive and integrated solution included all the essentials for a smooth conference experience including ticketing, registration, landing page and email communications, badge printing, and a customizable attendee mobile app. This streamlined operations for the Partnership Leaders team on-site, and significantly improved the 3-day conference experience for members and sponsors alike.

Not only did it make it smoother and easier to navigate through the sessions, but more engaging and valuable too, solidifying Catalyst's reputation as a ‘must-attend’  industry event for partners and BD professionals. In fact, attendees loved the experience so much that they're still talking about it months later!

Here's a quick look at highlights from the conference:

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Key outcomes from Catalyst ‘23

(1) Smooth registration and check-in

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Catalyst 2022’s check-in process had room for improvement. The team pre-printed event badges for 420 conference attendees, but at the registration desk, each attendee had to search through a mountain of badges in order to find their own — and let's just say it was a badge-finding treasure hunt no one signed up for. 

In contrast, with Zuddl’s on-site solutions, Catalyst 2023 attendees could check-in and get their badge in less than 60 seconds. Here’s how:

• Partnership Leaders used Zuddl’s ticketing module, which was embedded on a Hubspot webpage and integrated with Stripe for payment processing. When attendees purchased a ticket, they received a QR code to download the attendee app along with their ticket over email. 

• Attendees then received an email from Zuddl which had their individual attendee QR code for check-in.

• Attendees could self check-in using this QR code on iPads available at registration desks at the venue.

• Once successfully checked-in, a badge label was printed by portable high-speed printers provided by Zuddl. Attendees used this badge to access sessions and other activities throughout the Catalyst 2023 conference. 

Talk about a fluid transition from digital registration to in-person event access.

‍“Smooth and seamless,” recalls Asher.

(2) A conference app co-built by the attendees

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One crucial element missing from Catalyst 2022 was a mobile app, a gap that the Partnership Leaders leadership was determined to bridge for Catalyst 2023. “Instead of buying an off-the-shelf event application and dealing with bloated features, we decided to ‘co-create’ a conference app with Zuddl because of [Zuddl’s] domain expertise in events,” explains Asher. 

Zuddl’s event attendee app can be customized to fit any event's requirements, so Partnership Leaders community members partnered with Zuddl to build the ideal attendee app for Catalyst 2023. “Members were logging in, testing things out, making suggestions,” Asher says. “And they all raved about the fact that they felt included in the building of it.”

This sense of co-ownership engaged the community in a way that hadn’t been done before: a staggering 98% of Catalyst attendees downloaded the conference app. 

“They used it to navigate the venue and add sessions to their schedule. They could receive real-time updates to the agenda, and it allowed them to see who else they could network with based on their goals and interests,” says Asher. “It helped to personalize the conference experience for them and strengthened the sense of community, as we had all built it together.”

(3) The Lead Capture app generated higher ROI for conference sponsors 

Sponsor booths often become bustling hubs of activity, drawing in a steady stream of visitors who could become valuable leads and eventually customers. However, without an efficient way to capture and manage these interactions, all the effort and expense put into these booths can easily fall through the cracks.

At Catalyst 2023, Zuddl’s lead capture app helped sponsors turn booth traffic into meaningful connections and, ultimately, business growth. Here’s how:

• As every attendee at the conference had a QR code on their badge, sponsors could quickly scan the QR code of each attendee who visited their booth, instantly capturing vital information like name and contact details.

• Booth owners could also qualify leads in real-time, rating them as hot, warm, or cold prospects. They could even assign star ratings and add notes about the interactions, all in the lead retrieval app. This made it easy to prioritize follow-up after the conference.

• This data was exportable as a convenient CSV file so that sponsors could seamlessly integrate their leads into their CRM systems or marketing automation platforms.

550+ leads were generated for sponsors from the conference.

"[They] loved the app because it allowed them to get the info for all their team's leads at the same time,” Asher notes.

To recap

With Zuddl, Partnership Leaders elevated Catalyst 2023 to an experience worthy of their members. They were able to unify, streamline, and personalize the entire event lifecycle and curate a ‘modern conference’ experience.The collaborative effort didn't just enhance the attendee experience; it built unprecedented value for everyone at the conference: from sponsors seeking ROI on their investment to organizers delivering value to their members – a true partnership if you will (we had to say it).