It’s a known fact that a mobile app at an event can turn your clients’ event-goers into event-doers. A well-designed event app can increase attendee engagement, boost session attendance, generate sponsorship revenue, enhance communication, and provide powerful opportunities for your clients’ attendees to have the best event experience possible. Whether the event is large or small, your event app will encourage increased attendee engagement with each other, and with your organization. An intuitive event app will enable your clients’ attendees to communicate, network, interact, get educated, and share feedback quickly and easily.
Here are some key things to focus on:
Personalization boosts engagement.
A personalized user experience is crucial to event satisfaction. A well-designed event app should make it easy for attendees to 1) select their favorite sessions and create a custom schedule, 2) interact with the people they are interested in meeting, and 3) highlight the exhibitors they want to visit on the show floor. Your clients’ audience won’t waste a minute of valuable event time because they will be able to readily see the sessions they choose, the exhibitors they want to visit, and the other attendees they want to network with!
Targeted messaging boosts interaction.
Attendees react to an event best when the information they receive is targeted to them … targeted to their interests, their job title, their location and more. An event app can enable the organizer to send targeted messages so that they can reach different audience segments with different messaging. Clients can send push notifications about a session that is relevant to certain attendees, provide updates and reminders on certain items only to specific groups (like their Board of Directors), and so much more. Delivering content relevant to attendees defines meaningful engagement.
Gamification makes things fun.
Gamification is a two-edge sword: done correctly, gamification motivates and rewards attendees for taking certain actions (done incorrectly, it can end up being a wasteful distraction). Well done gamification is a great way to excite attendees about an event in a fun, interactive fashion. Plus, it makes a great sponsorship revenue vehicle.
Networking is a huge source of attendee engagement.
Event Apps really differ in the amount of attendee engagement that they foster. When done right, an event app makes it easy for your clients’ attendees to network, so they feel more invested in the event. In fact, one of the prime reasons individuals join an association is to network with their peers, so encouraging conversations and interactions is crucial. Your clients’ event app should make it easy for attendees to do just that, via Activity Feeds, Social Media Sharing, Photo Galleries, Surveys and Polling, Session Conversations and more.
Session attendance is crucial.
As an event organizer, your clients spend a lot of time choosing their sessions. Good attendance is more than just a numbers game, it’s critical to the success of your clients’ event. First, and most obvious, an event app highlights all the relevant info on the valuable sessions that they put together. And it makes it easy for an attendee to choose that session and build a personal schedule, which increases attendance. But what an event app can also do is provide more session-specific interaction. A well-constructed event app should make it easy for attendees to check-in and out of sessions, give valuable feedback via surveys and polling, ask questions of the session leader, post comments and so much more. All this valuable session engagement is a huge boost to the success of your clients’ event.
Attendee feedback is critical for engagement.
Your clients’ event app should be able to provide important information that they can use to increase engagement for next year. Via polling and surveys, and by analyzing the data in easy-to-read reports, they can instantly see which sessions are working (and which are not), what sponsors ads are being seen, what exhibitor booths are visited, and so much more. By utilizing all the valuable data generated by their event app, your clients will be able to hone in on what attendees liked and didn’t like, to increase satisfaction year after year.
A well-designed event app is a crucial tool for attendee engagement. It can boost their overall satisfaction with your clients’ event, while also providing valuable tools for future planning.
Community Brands is the largest provider of association software; trusted by 200+ AMCs, we specialize in providing tech that increases efficiency for growth, drives non-dues revenue and streamlines operations for you and your clients.