Just Ask For Help

Ken Dyck:

Peter Caputa of WhizSpark, a web application that helps event planners set up web sites to promote and manage registration for their events, is generating quite a lot of buzz in the blogosphere with a new promotion that offers users a chance to use the service free-of-charge.

What’s really interesting about buzz Pete’s company is generating is how it all started: Pete was a stand up guy, and asked for it. I haven’t know Pete for long, but in all our interactions he’s always struck me as an incredibly focused, but very friendly, young entrepreneur. His experience really demonstrates, especially to me, how being honest and forthright about your business goals can help you to succeed. Too often, we play our cards close to our chest, and miss out on tons of great opportunities because we’re too focused on protecting our ideas and business plans.

Here’s an excerpt from Pete’s email about his company’s new service:

WhizSpark is now offering their services for free to qualified event planners and promoters. WhizSpark has a unique system which enables event planners and promoters to create websites for their events which would normally cost a few thousand dollars for a web design company to build for you. These websites can include invite tools, RSVP tools, ticketing, survey capabilities and tools for manageing give-aways that reward people for spreading the word about your event. You can also publish a photo album, sponsors and testimonials and more. The secret sauce is on the backend where you can send out fancy html email invitations very easily and track who opens and forwards your emails as well as what links they click on. You can also download spreadsheets of your ticket sales, rsvp’s and manage your advertising and online promotions. The real power comes into play when you start to get to know the other people in the network. WhizSpark also provides tools for you to manage affiliate marketing (through email and the web) and viral marketing. Other event planners and promoters use WhizSpark for their own events and you can request that they invite their subscribers to your event or place your event on their website. You don’t get to see who their subscribers are, but you can track how successful they are at generating registrations (RSVPs, ticket sales) for your event. You can do this for an unlimited number of affiliates. You can also recruit myspace members and bloggers to place ads for your event on their website and then manage giveaways. When they refer people to the event website through their profile or through the invitation tools on the site, they become eligible for the prizes. They can log into the event websites and see how many chances they’ve earned towards winning a prize or how close they are to earning one. Event planners and promoters can manage their risk by setting different criteria and thresholds for the give-aways. In summary, WhizSpark provides a comprehensive set of tools for organizing and marketing events online.

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