Every Fall, the calendars of marketing managers across the country fill up with invitations to conferences and trade-shows. Lured by the promise of sales, networking, swag bags, and more, many of these conferences bring together industry professionals to push forward thought leadership, new products, and ideas.
Planning a conference is hard work, requiring the collaboration of venues, food staff, operations, and speakers. With many conferences spanning several days, the process is exhausting and requires pinpoint organization.
In recent years, conference planning has embraced digital transformation. From customized mobile applications to pre-event communities, the conference experience now extends beyond show hours. Given that digital transformation is a necessity for a successful event, many planners struggle due to limited budgets or time around curating engagement.
Wherever you stand in your digital experience journey, integrating technology with your event marketing can lead to new successes. In this blog post, we cover several ideas around how to build engagement leading up to your big event.
- Create an Application: Everyone is carrying a smartphone at a conference, so developing a mobile application makes sense. Using a platform like IBM Bluemix will allow you to create a solution that provides conference agendas, maps, and even networking tools that allow attendees to see who they can meet on the conference floor.
- Connect Your Attendees: Every attendee wants to know that their registration fee was worth it. By connecting your attendees prior to the event, you can do just that. Using a platform like WebSphere Portal can provide opportunities to connect before, during, and after the show for networking and sales conversations.
- Leverage Live Video: Some attendees may find themselves in the midst of meetings or on the go during critical conferences times, including the keynote. Live video can help reduce the fear of missing out and provide a channel for engagement for attendees who might not make it to the show floor. For organizations who can’t make breakout sessions at the same time, live video can be reviewed on-demand later on.
- Showcase Your Attendees: While attendees are at the conference, they will share specific experiences to their social media accounts. Leverage their attention for your own gain by highlighting their self-created content in your expo halls and collateral. One of the best ways to gain attention is through the promotion of conference-specific hashtags.
- Scan Social Media for Support: Finally, something is liable to go wrong at a conference and attendees will require support. Assign someone on your event staff to monitor social media channels to ensure operations are running smoothly.
With these digital experience event tips, your conference will be sure to run smoothly and help your organization achieve their goals. As attendees become more technology-savvy, having additional points of engagement will be key to retaining interest and repeat attendees.
Create Your Digital Experience
Are you looking to create a unique event or brand experience? See what our digital experience expertise can do by messaging one of our specialists at sales@perficient.com. Then download our WebSphere Portal 9 guide below to learn more about how to create sustaining communities.
Today’s organizations must be more connected to their customer than ever. As the buyer’s journey evolves, leaders must also adopt the right technologies to influence positive business outcomes. This post is a part of a series focused on helping enterprises develop the necessary strategies and best practices to better connect with their customers. Check out the other blogs in this series.
