Technology has permeated every aspect of our lives. There are apps and software for almost everything nowadays. The event industry hasn’t escaped this coup. Events are a big part of attendee’s lives, and so, they look at events through the same lens as they do their personal lives. And so, events and event professionals need to adapt to changing trends in order to keep up with attendee requirements and truly deliver impactful experiences.
In this blog, we look at some of the aspects of the event that have been disrupted by technology.
Enhancing lead generation
The days of exchanging visiting cards and waiting in long queues are over. Events are high-stress environments and event attendees often look for an engaging experience and prefer to talk to someone with authority. They feel that the time wasted standing in long queues could have been used in other, more productive ways. To solve this, event professionals started using badge scanners to scan tags and shorten the registration process. This method had a huge impact on how event attendees felt about the engagement process and of course beat having to wonder where their visiting cards went.
The badge scanner by itself has evolved and with the latest API integrations, all of the information obtained from scanned tags can be made to flow directly into a CRM. Attendees will also be able to scheduled sit-down meetings, check themselves into meetings, and many other things. And for event professionals, these integrations are massively useful to keep track of leads as and when they come in. Additionally, the qualification process is simplified and they are able to structure swift follow-ups.
Related: Why you need a badge scanning integration at your next B2B event
Boosting engagement
Engagement is a big part of the experience. There is so much that event marketers can learn from analyzing engagement statistics at events. Essentially, how customers engage with content and the brand tells an elaborate story about what they are looking for, how they go about getting it and how they are likely to react to certain scenarios. And in many cases, engagement translates into currency at events and trade shows.
An average attendee spends a majority of the day with one hand on a mobile device, sieving through mails and using social media channels. With so much activity centered around mobile devices, there is a need to reach out to them through these channels as well. Monitoring social media can also help create meaningful conversations and address issues as and when they come up.
While presentations are being made, mobile devices can be turned into a personal viewing centers where attendees are able to view slides and respond to polls in real-time. Live streaming and crowd streaming are two of the latest trends that takes the experience beyond the venue. Getting tagged in these posts increases exposure and boosts brand reach exponentially. Social media walls also go hand-in-hand in getting attendees to participate and express their views on subjects.
Flawless meeting management
A major portion of an attendee’s time is spent in meeting rooms, engaging with product experiences, and talking to sales reps. This implies that time management is an important aspect that needs special attention. From an event marketers perspective, scheduling and managing meetings is an ancillary activity that should not take too much time. This way, they can concentrate on giving their attendees a meaningful, stimulating experience.
Luckily for them, technology caught on quick. From an obsolete Excel-based meeting management system, technology has helped meeting management become a platform that manages multiple aspects of an event within a single interface. A meeting management app can greatly help reduce these manual efforts. Every aspect of the meeting like assigning spaces, reeling in the right people, selecting time slots that work with everybody can be managed through a single interface. What’s more? A well-rounded meeting management app can help sales reps optimize these interactions by giving them access to crucial account information and further deal discussions through the sales cycle. This way, meetings tend to be more productive and stay within the context of the customer’s needs and requirements.
Related: 5 ways a meeting management software boosts event ROI
Accurate reporting and attribution
If there’s one thing that a sales manager is constantly worried about, it is how efficient his/her team is. Tracking metrics can prove invaluable in giving sales and event managers a clear picture of how their teams performed at events. A meeting management software should be capable of generating reports based on what the sales manager is looking for. Sales managers should be able to filter fields and derive actionable insights to help them address important aspects of the event with their teams. This way, meeting-related reports are easily accessible and can be used to debrief sales teams.
Everything from the average deal size, win rate, number of interactions per deal closed can be a telling story about what is going well and what needs immediate focus. A meeting management software can help marketers get their hands on these metrics and in turn, can help them gather insightful information. They can then make changes in their strategy as they go. And once the event concludes, event managers can also use metrics from meetings to understand the contribution of these meetings to the sales pipeline and substantiate returns.
Collecting feedback
Collecting feedback is a crucial gear in continuously enhancing the event experience. But obtaining authentic and relevant feedback is not as simple as it is made out to be. Every form of feedback is a part of a bigger frame. This is why it important for event professionals to create feedback mechanisms that collect actionable insights from across various stages of the event.
The time that immediately follows a booth interaction is an important one. This is the time when feedback is most accurate because the experience is fresh in the attendee’s mind. By placing tablets at the exit of the booth, event marketers can ensure that attendees fill up the survey as they leave the booth. This will not only make it easy to record feedback but will also make it easy to extract this information and channel it to the events team instantly.
The industry is at a boom and event marketers are using smarter ways to integrate tools into their processes. But with the rate at which events are adopting these solutions, it is so easy to lose track. This makes it important for event marketers to follow trends and use technology in a way that gives their events an advantage over the others.
