{{image}} The raw emotion and element of surprise inherent in live presentations can capture an audience and create lasting positive associations for your brand. If you want your clientele to habitually attend, purchase more frequently, and recommend your product, integrating their experiences into your event strategy is crucial. Keeping attendees focused during meetings, events, and product demonstrations is a skill that very few master. Humans are notoriously distractible; cell phones, as a tool of commerce and social frivolity, have made it that much harder to keep your audience interested in what you have to say. Clever business leaders embrace technology despite this double-edged nature and the best among them find ingenious ways to transform potential distractions into tools for engagement. Below are three ideas for your next event to keep attendees engaged and coming back for more:
Idea #1: Create a seamless first impression when guests check-in.
A technological solution means that guests won’t have to wait in line and can receive their badge credentials and agendas paperlessly via their mobile device. Welcome them when they arrive with GEO Fencing technology or bespoke messaging;
Welcometo Best Event Ever 2018!
Your attendees’ cell phone is a natural extension to their everyday life. Enable and encourage them to use their phone as their ticket to speed up the check-in process. Also, notify their primary contact within your organization when they arrive via SMS so that a personal welcome can be administered. First impressions are important. Contact Validar if you want to learn more about how to Leverage our, Event Ticketing, Event Insight Mobile, and SMS Messaging solution to implement these suggestions.
Idea #2: Meet your attendees where they are: their smartphone.
With EventScore, you can provide incentives to your attendees to consume your event content and provide feedback on breakout sessions, product demos, and anything else that they encounter during the event. By giving each attendee an overall score based upon their activity, you can turn participation into a game that drives engagement and fun.
Idea #3: Feedback is the best way to gauge your performance as an event producer.
It also provides an excellent conduit to enable attendees to “raise their hand” when certain content resonates well. How often have you sat through a presentation, eager to speak with the speaker post presentation, only to see a line form immediately after. Capture this renewed interest with your evaluation tool! Encourage your speakers to notify their audience that Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) are available and use your evaluation solution to capture and act upon these opportunities in real-time during the event. Validar’s EventHub™ mobile HTML5 application is a static link, unique to each attendee, that presents dynamic evaluation content based upon an attendee's tracked behavior. You can deliver EventHub™ surveys with Validar software in three ways:
- Embedded within any Mobile Application; No matter what mobile application provider you select, we can work with them and propagate a unique session evaluation while that session live.
- Email – we firmly believe you should capture feedback both within a mobile and external to your mobile application for higher response rates.
- Mobile Feedback Stations can ensure attendees who don’t have a smartphone will have a place to submit their feedback and engage with event directors and fellow participants.
Be sure to check out the Validar blog for more tricks and tips for attendee engagement and stay tuned for more announcements regarding driving attendee engagement at events. Notes/Stats:
- Technology can help increase event attendance by 20%, increase productivity by 27%, and decrease costs by 20-30%. (Source)
- The most used technologies by event planners are photo booths (45%), event apps (44%) and livestreaming tools (44%). (Source)
- 60% of event planners say that event apps increase attendee engagement. (Source)
- 88% of event attendees said that access to meeting or event schedules in an event app is extremely important. (Source)
- 13% of B2B marketers use event marketing software. (Source)
- Events that use event apps generate 42% more social media impressions. (Source)
