Meeting attendees are starting to expect personalization in almost everything they do, including events they attend.
Spotify curates a playlist of music for them every week based on their personal music preference. Stichfix delivers a personalized bundle of hand-selected clothing items based on their “style profile.” And Naturebox sends a delicious box of treats right to their homes.
It’s this type of personalization that meeting planners should start considering to attract and retain attendees. Using engagement data collected in event apps or other event technologies is key in making this happen. As more attendees expect event personalization (and sponsors expect data to back up their investment), here are four ways that event apps can simultaneously help you accommodate both at your next conference.
Social Networking
The event app, Attendify, gives planners the chance to create a social networking experience within their event app. This creates lots of engagement between attendees, including photo sharing, messaging and comments. Not only does this build personal relationships, but it allows you to track what attendee interest is at your event.
Geolocation Proximity Alerts
Eventbase’s app encourages the use of iBeacon technology to send attendee alerts based on their geolocation. For example, the app can create alerts to notify when attendees are near a LinkedIn connection. Or it can send alerts to attendees about educational sessions or tradeshow booths that are in close proximity and match topics they pre-selected for their event profiles.
Gamification
Eventbase also gives planners the option to create gamification within the app, again creating interactivity with technology as well as among attendees. One game example could include rewarding the attendee who makes the most connections.
Personalized Marketing Campaigns
Attendify’s Attendify Audiences product uses data collected in the app to drive personalized marketing campaigns. This could help not only target potential attendees based on the experience of past attendees, but also target past attendees to attend future shows based on their specific data touch points.
The use of data in the meetings industry is still in its infancy, with several opportunities on how to use it for personalization and marketing on the horizon.
