How to decide between a Single or Multi-Event App? Good question.
Mobile event applications were initially designed to be a digital version of the traditional printed conference event guides. When we started out, we would work with a client (like Cisco, for example) on many events. Organizations like theirs hold hundreds or even thousands of events every year.
This posed the question - how many apps with the Cisco brand for events do we want to have in the app store? The number of apps was getting unmanageable, so a new feature of our technology was born. Our event picker feature allows a multi-event app for customers that prefer that option. Let's take a deeper look into what that looks like.
The event picker allows organizations to publish a single app that hosts multiple events simultaneously. This means attendees only have to download the app once - no matter how many events they attend! This also means that you don't have to wait around for app store approval. With our cloud-based technology, you can add a new event into our CMS and it appears instantly.
Here are some points to consider when deciding between single vs multi-event app:
Branding: How are your different events branded to the outside world?
If you have events that carry a strong brand on their own, consider using a single event app. Examples include Salesforce's epic event, Dreamforce. Or Oracle Open World. Those organizations have loads of events per year, but they typically keep their massive user conferences separate, to help build that event's brand equity. The single event app highlights the brand of a specific featured event, instead of something that has to apply to all the events. Having one app for your larger conference often helps you market the conference, since many attendees look at conference details in the app to determine if it's something they want to attend.
If you have multiple events for employees, it's a good idea to use a multi-event app. Companies like Routes America have found the multi-event conference app beneficial for their multi-event road shows. The app users are the same target market, and to build a brand around each regional event doesn't make sense. They have one app in the app store and used it to highlight all the regional events. Attendees download one app and then select their specific regional event.
Event Attendees: Will multiple attendees want to access many of your events?
For employees that attend many corporate events, it could be daunting to download an app for every single event. Having multiple events within one event app makes it easy to hop into multiple conferences per year -- and only require one download.
User Experience: What type of user experience do you want to create?
Most single mobile event apps are entirely tailored to that specific event. These apps are unique in their design and specific in their branding, in order to create a personalized experience for that particular audience.
When the user downloads the app, will they expect to access multiple events within that app? Or would they like to use this app specifically for this event? You know your event attendees well… what experience are they expecting?
Timing: Do you want to have the flexibility to add in new events on the fly?
Once the multi-event apps are approved in iTunes and Google Play, future events can be added without additional approval. This saves time over the single-event apps that require a separate submission and approval process for each app.
In summary, events on a multi-event app can be created and loaded by the organizer on an as-needed basis, without the app developer s direct involvement. Some organizations go with a hybrid approach, creating a single-event app to highlight prestigious events with their own "brands" (like their large user conference, etc), and also use a multi-event mobile conference app for their other events.
Multi-event app technology provides organizations with flexibility and scalability. Create hundreds of events per year within a single mobile app, while keeping each nested event configurable and branded.
