A brand new look, new Virtual Events, Silent Auction Features, and MORE!

In March 2020 when the world came to a standstill at the dirty hands of COVID-19, a startup in Boston, who had made it their mission to build the most comprehensive event management and event marketing CRM, decided it wasn’t time to panic but to head to the drawing board!

For those of you who know the team at Yotme, this reaction will probably not be surprising. With Barry Hinckley at the helm, a veteran technology entrepreneur who founded a hundred million dollar+ recruitment CRM, in the midst of the .com crash and navigated it through the 2008 recession, COVID-19 became less of crisis and more of a challenge.

The day we went into lockdown I received a call from Barry. Fearing an answer of trepidation, I asked how he felt? With an unparalleled sense of optimism he replied, “when there is a thundercloud looming, there are some people who run away from it and some people who run towards it.” He paused for a moment then asked, “are you prepared to get your feet wet?” Of course, the answer was yes. We’ve already come too far with Yotme to be defeated now, and as I have always learned from Barry, where there is a crisis there is an opportunity and this time the opportunity was one that could fundamentally support brands and nonprofits through one of the most difficult periods we have faced in a generation.

So, as the world went into lockdown Barry rallied the troops, hired developers like they were going out of fashion, and set to work on delivering features that would enable Yotme not only to continue trading but allow ourselves and our customers to thrive. Here’s what we did and needless to say, we are overjoyed with the results.

Brand new look!

We were already pretty pleased with how Yotme looked, but we are never ones to stand still for too long, so while we were building a raft of new features, we decided it was a great time to update our brand, introduce a new feel that gives more visibility to our members and their events while making it easier than ever for your customers and supporters to find out what you are up to. With the new look and feel it is now easier than ever before to:

  • Host, ticket and manage events
  • Create and host Virtual events and silent auctions
  • Communicate with your customers and supporters before, during & after your events
  • And use our CRM to turn insights into actions

Yotme Virtual Events:
The reason our technology is so powerful is that it can be applied to both virtual and in-person events. With Youtube and Vimeo providing the livestream technology, Yotme built a virtual venue inside our platform to stream live and on-demand events. This way our clients’ can stay connected with their customers and supporters while we continue to do what we do best – allow our brands and nonprofits to:

  • Invite guests and communicate with attendees
  • Ticket and host their virtual events
  • Use our CRM to turn viewers into supporters

And not satisfied at that, we also rolled our sleeves up to hire production coordinators to help those who have never delivered virtual events before. It is exciting for us to let you know that we now offer a paid service where our team of consultants and producers will work with you to create your perfect virtual event.

Yotme Silent Auctions:
In-person Silent Auctions are so 2019! (Yawn) But the point is, Yotme now allows you to run automated Silent Auctions via web and mobile from anywhere in the world! Via Yotme, Silent Auctions are easy to set up and manage. Items are listed in the same way as eBay, while bidder information and payments are collected and reconciled in your Yotme CRM.

Thanks to our unique social network functionality you can use our technology to reach existing supporters and attract new ones by making your cause and your Silent Auction ‘public’. So unlike silent auctions of the past, a bidder does NOT have to attend an event to support your cause. This means more bidders and more new supporters!

Event Agency Admins:
Simply put, we want to help bring a new level of order and effectiveness to the efforts agencies have put in to deliver events to their clients. We are doing this because we know that the value of agencies is under increased scrutiny, as clients seek greater levels of accountability all the time. Yotme not only offers the opportunity to measure your success but also to drive commission-based revenue to reward it and what’s more, we offer it for FREE!

  • Our new agency tools give them one tool to:
  • Manage supporters and consumers for multiple clients from one place
  • Host, manage and ticket events
  • Organize and send communications (Live Chat, Events Boards, Emails and SMS)
  • Turn attendee data into actionable marketing intelligence (Gender, Age, Location, Contact Type, Prospect Type, Relationship Status)

In the process of delivering these new features, we have been able to spread some serious joy with a number of our partners including; Love Serving Autism whose Virtual Tennis events have proven to be a SMASH HIT (pun firmly intended), YMCA of Newport County who COOKED UP a virtual storm (sorry couldn’t help myself) to support local youth services and finally Mount Sinai Hospital who used Yotme to RAISE THE ROOF with a virtual concert that raised over $100,000 for their Frontline Healthcare workers. And folks this is just the beginning – in the coming weeks we are hosting Foundation to be Named Later – Hot Stove, Cool Music event, that is aiming to raise $500,000+ for under-served kids and another big announcement should be made shortly after.

Now we aren’t here to brag, but we are here to give ourselves a big “pat on the back”. What we have done over the past few months is to prove that it is possible to dance in the rain, provided; you stick together, break the mold of your own business and step into the unknown with a sense of confidence drawn up from entrepreneurial muscle memory. We have never onboarded so many brilliant brands and nonprofits as we have done in the last few months and look forward to welcoming more in the very near future, as we work with them to turn events into profitable relationships.

If you are interested in how Yotme could help you, please get in touch with us via donna[at]yot.me and we will look forward to hearing all about your brand, nonprofit or agency and understand what we can do to help you to engage with your consumers and supporters like never before.