Analytics for Event Planners
Increase Revenue & Engagement
Analytics for Event Planners
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Unleashing the Potential of Event-Generated Data
2
Preparing for Your Event
4
During Your Event
6
Post-Event Follow-Up
8
Thinking Beyond: The Long-Term Value of What You Gather
Unleashing the Potential of Event-Generated Data You can learn more from your events than ever before. Opportunities created from bringing people together, gathering their insights and evaluating their behavior, are huge. Mobile technology is the catalyst. The depth and scope of information now at your fingertips allows you, the event planner, to host consistently more engaging and productive events. Further, it offers you the opportunity to work in concert with your sales and marketing colleagues to drive business and increase revenue for your organization. Customized event apps on participants’ smartphones are your access to insights—far more insight than you could possibly gather from a registration website, paper surveys or printed brochures. Event apps allow you to learn what’s on attendees’ minds when they arrive. What are their interests? Which sessions do they plan to attend? What do they hope to learn? Who would they like to meet? You can then offer to-do lists, conduct live polling and host message boards to learn how that preliminary information maps against what your guests do as your event unfolds. What sessions are they in fact attending? Which additional activities are they drawn to? What are they downloading? Having gathered this intelligence, what are you now going to do with it? • You’re going to more effectively manage this event—making changes and additions on the fly—and prepare for enhancements to the next. • You’re going to better meet your guests’ needs and heighten their experience. Through the app, they’re networking, connecting with like-minded colleagues and sharing ideas with one another in the app. Embrace the collective wisdom to share knowledge using on-the-spot polling capabilities. • Meanwhile, you’re arming your sales colleagues with actionable customer-specific insight. You’re gaining a greater return on your event investment. You’re offering access to your sponsors’ website and sending qualified leads to your exhibitors’ booths, thus providing them with a greater return as well. And you’re giving your marketing department ideas for future webinars and thought leadership documents. In sum, you’re more effectively meeting both your immediate objectives and your long-term goals.
Fully Leverage the Potential Prior to your event, schedule strategic planning sessions with your sales and marketing teams. Discuss the data that together you’d like to collect before, during and after the event. Ask one another some questions: How can we more fully take advantage of a gathering of so many of our important clients? How should we stage surveys and polls to shape more complete guest profiles? And how will we react to particular pieces of real-time information: right away or after the event?
1
Preparing for Your Event
Event Optimization Learning what you can in advance will, obviously, allow you to host a more engaging, and lucrative, event. As participants select the sessions and other activities they plan to attend, you’ve got a sneak peek at what’s going to be popular, and can prepare accordingly. At the outset, you probably have a pretty good hunch of which breakout sessions are going to attract the most attendees. But you could be wrong. Maybe there’s a sleeper in there—a topic that just started trending yesterday. Who tagged which session as one not to be missed? Is there a buzz afoot? Room too small to seat them all? Fix that fast. Knowing in advance who’s going where gives you an opportunity to swap rooms or roll back a partition. And if an attendee signs up for a session that’s maxed out, or if she’s double-booked herself, she’ll receive a message alerting her. Survey your attendees in advance about any number of things—topics they don’t see addressed on the event agenda, their thoughts on the state of the industry—and use that information to trigger discussion throughout. Also, consider questions like, “What’s your favorite non-work activity?” or “What adjective would your closest friends use to describe you?” Populate answers in the attendee profile area for great conversation starters. Or allow your participants to build their own profiles with bios, photos and contact information.
2
The app provides a personal, in-hand itinerary. Attendees can create their own agendas and adjust on the fly. The meeting planner can see what sessions participants are selecting. Say there’s a key customer you’d like to provide with some white-glove treatment, now you know their intended schedule.
Pre-Event metrics from these features help optimize events: • • •
Capacity planning Participant-chosen “My Schedule” Surveys
Preparing for Your Event
Intelligence and Revenue Mobile event apps are excellent tools for improved customer/client service and revenue generation. Information in such depth and scope simply can’t be gathered by any other means. While precluding the cumbersome, messy nature of paper surveys, mobile apps allow you to gather valuable intelligence in advance that your sales team can then act on throughout the event—answering questions, sharing relevant documents, steering to on-site sources—or follow up on post-event. A good idea is to create a matrix of the kinds of information you’d like to collect. Then determine how to act on that information. For example, if an attendee checks into a session on cloud computing or downloads the session presentation, should they be contacted while still on-site? If so, who should do it and how? And how should those actions be scored and integrated with your customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation systems for follow-up? Now consider what that interaction or follow-up should look like. What processes need to be put in place? How can content and messaging in the app support those? The app is also a forum for sponsor and exhibitor ad banners and images. They can be placed on the home screen or alongside individual session descriptions. The ad might provide information on where and when to find the exhibitor’s booth. You can also measure the number of clicksthrough to the sponsor or exhibitor’s website. Also consider offering lead retrieval services to your exhibitors for increased ROI. Remember: The more you plan how to optimally utilize the power of your app— bringing your sales and marketing teams into these discussions—the more effectively you’ll leverage its revenue-generating potential.
3
Pre-Event metrics from these features help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • •
Surveys Session check ins Exhibitor ad banners
During Your Event
Event Optimization Interactive feedback allows you to check the pulse of your attendees throughout the event: What did you take away from this afternoon’s keynote? Or conduct an in-session live poll: How many social media channels do you regularly use? It allows you to bolster a sense of community: Which off-site activity did you find most fun? Garner the wisdom of the group: Which customer segment should be our focus for 2017? You can also solicit questions from your audience and if you see a pattern, you’ll know to address that topic in more depth in the future. Gauge group opinions and gain consensus on key questions using discussion boards. Post your findings—in-app and on monitors in common areas—along with comments to keep your guests updated throughout the event. These conversations add texture and help generate richer participation. Attendees feel more invested because they’re helping shape the proceedings. They’re being given the opportunity to actively engage with peers and gain valuable industry insight. Rather than being guided through a scripted agenda, they’re getting customized, dynamic content. And you, the host, are getting feedback in real time—in time, for example, to perhaps schedule an encore performance of a hit session. And certainly to more effectively strategize for your next event. Or consider the concept of the “unconference”: Attendees vote on topics they want to learn more about, and then the most popular among them become sessions on the last day of the event. It’s a great way to maintain enthusiasm to the very end. To-do lists are also great motivators. Prior to the event you can provide each attendee with a personal in-app list of things to accomplish throughout the event. It’s a convenient way for them to keep up with their schedules. You can track who has completed which tasks. And if it appears they need a nudge, you can send a gentle reminder, and perhaps direct them to where they can get assistance. Attendees can also earn continuing education credits, track their progress and access a real-time credits-earned graph right in the app. You get extensive reports to send to accrediting organizations and your participants can get a certificate of completion.
4
Metrics gathered during the event from these features help optimize events: • • • •
Live polls Discussion board To-Do lists Continuing education credits
During Your Event
Intelligence and Revenue There’s so much intelligence to be gained with a customized event app that translates to your bottom line—information that you just can’t gather through any other means. For example: Knowing what documents your guests download offers insight into their interests, which can then be relayed to your sales team. When appropriate, a rep can follow up right away, on-site, offering additional information and direction on where to learn more. Or you can add that participant to your marketing automation system to receive the next offering on that topic. Likewise with attendees’ survey and real-time poll responses and information they post on message boards about what’s resonating with them or what they’re looking forward to. Being able to collect all of the questions from the audience, as opposed to just the few from people who get to the microphone first, makes the mobile app a superior way to understand customer questions and perspective. Address unanswered questions in another forum or follow up directly with the specific customer. Gamification is a great way to further engage your guests, and it’s fun. The leaderboard displayed in-app and on a large screen makes for some good, friendly competition. Badges can be earned for attending individual sessions, taking surveys and live polls, posting photos and more. Again, this allows you to gain a more rounded view of attendees’ interests. Badges can also be earned for visiting exhibitors’ booths. Exhibitors get real value from increased attendee traffic. Really make your exhibitors happy and increase your event’s ROI by allowing them to capture leads quickly and easily through the app. The exhibitor scans each visitor’s badge with an inapp scanner (no additional hardware is required) and the person’s profile is recorded. Exhibitors have access to a detailed report, at any time. They can target the most promising leads—and they’ll pay a nice premium for this service.
5
Metrics gathered during the event from these features or attendee behaviors help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • • • •
Documents downloaded Surveys Live polls Badge game Lead retrieval
Post-Event Follow-up
Event Optimization Hosting increasingly engaging events entails learning from experience, an ongoing process. The information you’ve now gathered through interactive feedback allows you to more effectively evaluate every aspect of your event, and improve accordingly. You’re eliminating the guesswork. Balance what users told you prior to the event with what they actually did, what they downloaded and what they said in the live polls or on the message boards. This will allow you to develop more rounded profiles of your clients, and to target follow-up messaging based on those profiles. Keep the conversation alive. After the event, send out insights gathered from surveys and polls to encourage ongoing interaction and to get your guests looking forward to the next one. Share photos to remind them what a great time they had. The information you’ve gathered will help keep you more accountable to your customers. It’s an opportunity to ask: Am I meeting my customers’ needs to the utmost? Am I recognizing that customer service isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition? There are infinite opportunities to optimize what you’ve learned. Jettison what didn’t work; build from what did.
Metrics pulled after the event from these features help optimize events: • • •
6
Surveys Live polls Recent activity timestamp
Post-Event Follow-up
Intelligence and Revenue The intelligence you’ve now gathered is an invaluable source of ongoing revenue. It’s time to fully leverage it. You now know your clients better. You have a better sense of their interests. You’ve tracked their behaviors throughout the event: the sessions they attended, the vendors they visited, the documents they downloaded, and posted comments and photos. This is all actionable intelligence that will be hugely valuable to your sales team. Even better, you have their direct feedback through surveys and polls. You can also now leverage what you’ve learned as a guide in selecting topics for marketing campaigns, whitepapers, webinars and future events. Meet your clients’ needs by responding to what’s on their minds. Now check back in with your sponsors and exhibitors. The success of your badge games, lead capture and in-app ads means that your exhibitors are more likely to return next year, having seen a healthy return on their investment. Share with them what you’ve learned and strategize for an even more productive future. Encourage their feedback throughout—they’re pros too; take full advantage of their expertise. Lastly, you can share this information with your shareholders or board as evidence of the value of your events. Metrics pulled after the event from these features or attendee behaviors help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • •
7
Sponsors check ins and ads clicked Lead retrieval Live polls
Thinking Beyond: The Long-Term Value of What You Gather Gather Digital® provides event coordinators with a wealth of information generated from attendee engagement with the mobile app: an overview report, results of surveys and live polls, attendance breakdowns, exhibitor and session check-ins and more. There’s much to be learned from this intelligence. Now take all this wisdom and share it with your sales team. Coming soon from Gather Digital is a tool to help you do that more effectively, allowing that information to seamlessly flow into and inform your CRM. The savvy event planner uses the data produced from the mobile app, not only to continually improve events, but also to arm the sales and marketing team with actionable intelligence. For example, you can set up a protocol in your marketing automation system to send all participants who add a particular session a push message through the app reminding them not to miss the advanced session on that topic later this afternoon. That information can be tracked and integrated with your CRM and marketing automation system. Or if a participant uses the app to view a presentation on a topic, that too can be tracked in the CRM and a salesperson can follow up to learn more about their interests. A customized event app offers enormous opportunities to learn more about attendees and to share what you’ve learned. It’s an opportunity to listen, to continuously engage, and to better prepare for your next event. It’s an opportunity to enhance your company’s bottom line. Event-generated data gathering has been revolutionized. It’s time to take full advantage.
8
Gather Digital Can Help Gather Digital’s enterprise customers include five of the world’s largest financial services companies, the nation’s leading pharmaceutical/life science organizations, premier technology firms and Fortune 1000 corporations. We work with international, national and state associations, as well as forward-thinking academic organizations. Address: 1512 Franklin Park, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Phone: 919-932-4266 Email: [email protected] Web: www.gatherdigital.com
Analytics for Event Planners
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Unleashing the Potential of Event-Generated Data
2
Preparing for Your Event
4
During Your Event
6
Post-Event Follow-Up
8
Thinking Beyond: The Long-Term Value of What You Gather
Unleashing the Potential of Event-Generated Data You can learn more from your events than ever before. Opportunities created from bringing people together, gathering their insights and evaluating their behavior, are huge. Mobile technology is the catalyst. The depth and scope of information now at your fingertips allows you, the event planner, to host consistently more engaging and productive events. Further, it offers you the opportunity to work in concert with your sales and marketing colleagues to drive business and increase revenue for your organization. Customized event apps on participants’ smartphones are your access to insights—far more insight than you could possibly gather from a registration website, paper surveys or printed brochures. Event apps allow you to learn what’s on attendees’ minds when they arrive. What are their interests? Which sessions do they plan to attend? What do they hope to learn? Who would they like to meet? You can then offer to-do lists, conduct live polling and host message boards to learn how that preliminary information maps against what your guests do as your event unfolds. What sessions are they in fact attending? Which additional activities are they drawn to? What are they downloading? Having gathered this intelligence, what are you now going to do with it? • You’re going to more effectively manage this event—making changes and additions on the fly—and prepare for enhancements to the next. • You’re going to better meet your guests’ needs and heighten their experience. Through the app, they’re networking, connecting with like-minded colleagues and sharing ideas with one another in the app. Embrace the collective wisdom to share knowledge using on-the-spot polling capabilities. • Meanwhile, you’re arming your sales colleagues with actionable customer-specific insight. You’re gaining a greater return on your event investment. You’re offering access to your sponsors’ website and sending qualified leads to your exhibitors’ booths, thus providing them with a greater return as well. And you’re giving your marketing department ideas for future webinars and thought leadership documents. In sum, you’re more effectively meeting both your immediate objectives and your long-term goals.
Fully Leverage the Potential Prior to your event, schedule strategic planning sessions with your sales and marketing teams. Discuss the data that together you’d like to collect before, during and after the event. Ask one another some questions: How can we more fully take advantage of a gathering of so many of our important clients? How should we stage surveys and polls to shape more complete guest profiles? And how will we react to particular pieces of real-time information: right away or after the event?
1
Preparing for Your Event
Event Optimization Learning what you can in advance will, obviously, allow you to host a more engaging, and lucrative, event. As participants select the sessions and other activities they plan to attend, you’ve got a sneak peek at what’s going to be popular, and can prepare accordingly. At the outset, you probably have a pretty good hunch of which breakout sessions are going to attract the most attendees. But you could be wrong. Maybe there’s a sleeper in there—a topic that just started trending yesterday. Who tagged which session as one not to be missed? Is there a buzz afoot? Room too small to seat them all? Fix that fast. Knowing in advance who’s going where gives you an opportunity to swap rooms or roll back a partition. And if an attendee signs up for a session that’s maxed out, or if she’s double-booked herself, she’ll receive a message alerting her. Survey your attendees in advance about any number of things—topics they don’t see addressed on the event agenda, their thoughts on the state of the industry—and use that information to trigger discussion throughout. Also, consider questions like, “What’s your favorite non-work activity?” or “What adjective would your closest friends use to describe you?” Populate answers in the attendee profile area for great conversation starters. Or allow your participants to build their own profiles with bios, photos and contact information.
2
The app provides a personal, in-hand itinerary. Attendees can create their own agendas and adjust on the fly. The meeting planner can see what sessions participants are selecting. Say there’s a key customer you’d like to provide with some white-glove treatment, now you know their intended schedule.
Pre-Event metrics from these features help optimize events: • • •
Capacity planning Participant-chosen “My Schedule” Surveys
Preparing for Your Event
Intelligence and Revenue Mobile event apps are excellent tools for improved customer/client service and revenue generation. Information in such depth and scope simply can’t be gathered by any other means. While precluding the cumbersome, messy nature of paper surveys, mobile apps allow you to gather valuable intelligence in advance that your sales team can then act on throughout the event—answering questions, sharing relevant documents, steering to on-site sources—or follow up on post-event. A good idea is to create a matrix of the kinds of information you’d like to collect. Then determine how to act on that information. For example, if an attendee checks into a session on cloud computing or downloads the session presentation, should they be contacted while still on-site? If so, who should do it and how? And how should those actions be scored and integrated with your customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation systems for follow-up? Now consider what that interaction or follow-up should look like. What processes need to be put in place? How can content and messaging in the app support those? The app is also a forum for sponsor and exhibitor ad banners and images. They can be placed on the home screen or alongside individual session descriptions. The ad might provide information on where and when to find the exhibitor’s booth. You can also measure the number of clicksthrough to the sponsor or exhibitor’s website. Also consider offering lead retrieval services to your exhibitors for increased ROI. Remember: The more you plan how to optimally utilize the power of your app— bringing your sales and marketing teams into these discussions—the more effectively you’ll leverage its revenue-generating potential.
3
Pre-Event metrics from these features help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • •
Surveys Session check ins Exhibitor ad banners
During Your Event
Event Optimization Interactive feedback allows you to check the pulse of your attendees throughout the event: What did you take away from this afternoon’s keynote? Or conduct an in-session live poll: How many social media channels do you regularly use? It allows you to bolster a sense of community: Which off-site activity did you find most fun? Garner the wisdom of the group: Which customer segment should be our focus for 2017? You can also solicit questions from your audience and if you see a pattern, you’ll know to address that topic in more depth in the future. Gauge group opinions and gain consensus on key questions using discussion boards. Post your findings—in-app and on monitors in common areas—along with comments to keep your guests updated throughout the event. These conversations add texture and help generate richer participation. Attendees feel more invested because they’re helping shape the proceedings. They’re being given the opportunity to actively engage with peers and gain valuable industry insight. Rather than being guided through a scripted agenda, they’re getting customized, dynamic content. And you, the host, are getting feedback in real time—in time, for example, to perhaps schedule an encore performance of a hit session. And certainly to more effectively strategize for your next event. Or consider the concept of the “unconference”: Attendees vote on topics they want to learn more about, and then the most popular among them become sessions on the last day of the event. It’s a great way to maintain enthusiasm to the very end. To-do lists are also great motivators. Prior to the event you can provide each attendee with a personal in-app list of things to accomplish throughout the event. It’s a convenient way for them to keep up with their schedules. You can track who has completed which tasks. And if it appears they need a nudge, you can send a gentle reminder, and perhaps direct them to where they can get assistance. Attendees can also earn continuing education credits, track their progress and access a real-time credits-earned graph right in the app. You get extensive reports to send to accrediting organizations and your participants can get a certificate of completion.
4
Metrics gathered during the event from these features help optimize events: • • • •
Live polls Discussion board To-Do lists Continuing education credits
During Your Event
Intelligence and Revenue There’s so much intelligence to be gained with a customized event app that translates to your bottom line—information that you just can’t gather through any other means. For example: Knowing what documents your guests download offers insight into their interests, which can then be relayed to your sales team. When appropriate, a rep can follow up right away, on-site, offering additional information and direction on where to learn more. Or you can add that participant to your marketing automation system to receive the next offering on that topic. Likewise with attendees’ survey and real-time poll responses and information they post on message boards about what’s resonating with them or what they’re looking forward to. Being able to collect all of the questions from the audience, as opposed to just the few from people who get to the microphone first, makes the mobile app a superior way to understand customer questions and perspective. Address unanswered questions in another forum or follow up directly with the specific customer. Gamification is a great way to further engage your guests, and it’s fun. The leaderboard displayed in-app and on a large screen makes for some good, friendly competition. Badges can be earned for attending individual sessions, taking surveys and live polls, posting photos and more. Again, this allows you to gain a more rounded view of attendees’ interests. Badges can also be earned for visiting exhibitors’ booths. Exhibitors get real value from increased attendee traffic. Really make your exhibitors happy and increase your event’s ROI by allowing them to capture leads quickly and easily through the app. The exhibitor scans each visitor’s badge with an inapp scanner (no additional hardware is required) and the person’s profile is recorded. Exhibitors have access to a detailed report, at any time. They can target the most promising leads—and they’ll pay a nice premium for this service.
5
Metrics gathered during the event from these features or attendee behaviors help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • • • •
Documents downloaded Surveys Live polls Badge game Lead retrieval
Post-Event Follow-up
Event Optimization Hosting increasingly engaging events entails learning from experience, an ongoing process. The information you’ve now gathered through interactive feedback allows you to more effectively evaluate every aspect of your event, and improve accordingly. You’re eliminating the guesswork. Balance what users told you prior to the event with what they actually did, what they downloaded and what they said in the live polls or on the message boards. This will allow you to develop more rounded profiles of your clients, and to target follow-up messaging based on those profiles. Keep the conversation alive. After the event, send out insights gathered from surveys and polls to encourage ongoing interaction and to get your guests looking forward to the next one. Share photos to remind them what a great time they had. The information you’ve gathered will help keep you more accountable to your customers. It’s an opportunity to ask: Am I meeting my customers’ needs to the utmost? Am I recognizing that customer service isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition? There are infinite opportunities to optimize what you’ve learned. Jettison what didn’t work; build from what did.
Metrics pulled after the event from these features help optimize events: • • •
6
Surveys Live polls Recent activity timestamp
Post-Event Follow-up
Intelligence and Revenue The intelligence you’ve now gathered is an invaluable source of ongoing revenue. It’s time to fully leverage it. You now know your clients better. You have a better sense of their interests. You’ve tracked their behaviors throughout the event: the sessions they attended, the vendors they visited, the documents they downloaded, and posted comments and photos. This is all actionable intelligence that will be hugely valuable to your sales team. Even better, you have their direct feedback through surveys and polls. You can also now leverage what you’ve learned as a guide in selecting topics for marketing campaigns, whitepapers, webinars and future events. Meet your clients’ needs by responding to what’s on their minds. Now check back in with your sponsors and exhibitors. The success of your badge games, lead capture and in-app ads means that your exhibitors are more likely to return next year, having seen a healthy return on their investment. Share with them what you’ve learned and strategize for an even more productive future. Encourage their feedback throughout—they’re pros too; take full advantage of their expertise. Lastly, you can share this information with your shareholders or board as evidence of the value of your events. Metrics pulled after the event from these features or attendee behaviors help increase customer intelligence and ROI: • • •
7
Sponsors check ins and ads clicked Lead retrieval Live polls
Thinking Beyond: The Long-Term Value of What You Gather Gather Digital® provides event coordinators with a wealth of information generated from attendee engagement with the mobile app: an overview report, results of surveys and live polls, attendance breakdowns, exhibitor and session check-ins and more. There’s much to be learned from this intelligence. Now take all this wisdom and share it with your sales team. Coming soon from Gather Digital is a tool to help you do that more effectively, allowing that information to seamlessly flow into and inform your CRM. The savvy event planner uses the data produced from the mobile app, not only to continually improve events, but also to arm the sales and marketing team with actionable intelligence. For example, you can set up a protocol in your marketing automation system to send all participants who add a particular session a push message through the app reminding them not to miss the advanced session on that topic later this afternoon. That information can be tracked and integrated with your CRM and marketing automation system. Or if a participant uses the app to view a presentation on a topic, that too can be tracked in the CRM and a salesperson can follow up to learn more about their interests. A customized event app offers enormous opportunities to learn more about attendees and to share what you’ve learned. It’s an opportunity to listen, to continuously engage, and to better prepare for your next event. It’s an opportunity to enhance your company’s bottom line. Event-generated data gathering has been revolutionized. It’s time to take full advantage.
8
Gather Digital Can Help Gather Digital’s enterprise customers include five of the world’s largest financial services companies, the nation’s leading pharmaceutical/life science organizations, premier technology firms and Fortune 1000 corporations. We work with international, national and state associations, as well as forward-thinking academic organizations. Address: 1512 Franklin Park, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Phone: 919-932-4266 Email: [email protected] Web: www.gatherdigital.com
