Rakuten automates the organization of its online Starter Classes
« We chose the inwink platform for our entire set of events, whatever the size or format. This strategic choice was confirmed when we realized we could easily automate a successful event format without the need for spending any additional resources. »
Melody Viaud, BtoB events and Partnerships Manager
Rakuten is a French e-commerce marketplace for suppliers and sellers of consumer products.
The Rakuten team in charge of BtoB events and partnerships has designed a series of events targeted at prospects and customers that are newcomers to online selling. These events are called the Rakuten Starter Classes.
The Rakuten Starter Classes are accelerated trainings to help small businesses develop their online sales, where they can receive personalized advice from Rakuten E-Commerce Consultants.
In the past, Rakuten used to organize these classes as in-person events, and was preparing a national roadshow going from city to city across France over the coming months. In March 2020, only one occurrence of the Starter Classes had taken place, in Bordeaux, when the covid-19 crisis hit.
Rakuten teams were quick to react and created a 100%-online event format.
« For us, going digital was made really easy by the fact that the platform we had chosen, inwink, was able to handle both physicals and online events. » Melody Viaud, BtoB events and Partnerships Manager
Another strength of inwink is that organizing teams can easily duplicate an event format to replay it as many times as needed.
After the success of the first edition of the online Starter Classes, Rakuten teams decided to repeat this event format in order to reach a bigger number of prospects and customers, and to turn this event into an on-going, always-available tool for the Rakuten sales teams.
From the first edition, the Rakuten sales team, who co-hosted the event to provide advice to e-retailers, was able to open several new accounts at the end of the event.
Furthermore, organizing the Starter Classes as a 100%-online event enabled to reduce the costs as compared to the in-person format (which must cover venue rental, catering, etc.).
Leveraging this event format will lead to an increase in ROI in the long run: each new edition will lead to new account openings, without incurring additional costs.
Integration of inwink with their Salesforce CRM enables the Rakuten team to update and track all participation data in real-time, thus greatly helping its sales operations.
