In our last blog, we talked about the struggles of various stages in event planning and how they can be solved via automation. We continue our discussion with the remaining four aspects of event management.
Attendee engagement
The struggle
It’s nearly impossible to gauge attendee engagement at your event without the right tools. Attendees show up, register, leave, and that’s the extent of their involvement. With all the work that goes into executing a successful event, you owe it to yourself and your attendees to deliver an engaging event experience – with the data to prove it!
The shift
Connect and engage your attendees by using the piece of technology they don’t leave home without – their mobile device. With the help of a mobile event app, your attendees can have a customised experience while boosting their engagement levels (and having the ability to track it!).
Attendees will have access to relevant content, speaker details, interactive maps, messaging, and the most up-to-date event information. Using mobile technology, you will be able to edit your event’s information without needing to reprint any documents. This cuts down your costs and allows attendees to easily access event information at their fingertips, including social media. Social Wall lets guests broadcast their social media feeds to the rest of the participants, a feature that’s always well-received.
Attendee feedback and reporting
The struggle
You know your attendees are enjoying your events, but the only proof you have are a few paper surveys and scattered feedback. This presents a problem when you’re trying to prove the effectiveness and positive impact of your event to key decision makers, whose focus may rest solely on the bottom line. You know the value of your events, but you lack the right tools to prove it.
The shift
Automate your event feedback and reporting processes to gain greater insight and collect actionable data to make decisions about your meetings and events. A simple way to do this is by providing feedback surveys during your event and encouraging attendees to participate with push notifications.
Collecting real-time feedback during your event is a game changer. Track which sessions are most popular and which exhibitor stands are driving the most traffic. Based on this feedback, you’ll have the ability to make changes onsite that will drive engagement and improve the attendee experience.
Data integration
The struggle
Events are the second most effective tactic in a marketer’s arsenal, right after the company website. You know it, but can you prove it? Without visibility into how events impact the marketing and sales cycle, having a complete picture of ROI can be daunting (and even impossible). Messy data, disparate systems, and inconsistent reporting are major time commitments you can’t afford to make.
The shift
Integrating the data captured during the lifecycle of your event into Marketing Automation Tools and CRM systems opens a world of possibility for both event organisers and marketers. Through strategic integrations, you can develop a 360-degree profile of attendees, enabling more relevant and personalised event experiences that accelerate the buying cycle. You’ll be able to incorporate rich event data into your existing systems, which helps you determine the impact of events on key behaviours. Use this insight to tie event investments to the revenue cycle and make data-driven comparisons to your other active marketing channels.
Spend management and budget reconciliation
The struggle
Event budget, spend, and ROI are often the main concerns of most decision-makers. But these details can get lost when you’re managing each component of your event in different silos. Once you’re meeting is over, you’re on to the next challenge. For larger enterprises, this leaves little time to reconcile event budgets and compile accurate reports on meeting spend.
The shift
A structured strategic meetings management programme (SMMP) lays the foundation for data consistency across your organisation. With technology, organisations can centralise the meeting and event approval processes, ensuring budgetary approval before the event even happens.
Taken a step further, meetings management technology can integrate with expense management and payment card systems to automate the expense reporting process and eliminate manual time and energy spend reconciling event budgets. This provides the time and ability to calculate meeting spend consistently across your organisation, resulting in actionable reporting and proven meeting ROI.
By now, hopefully you’ve seen the benefits of event management technology and are ready to embrace the automation evolution! By adding automation to every stage of the event lifecycle, you’ll spend less time on manual processes and reinvest your energy into strategies that elevate the attendee experience and boost event ROI.
