From simplifying our ride services, money sharing, and food delivery to calming our minds and keeping us on task at work, apps have revolutionized the way we live. It’s now easier than ever to keep track of scheduled appointments, communicate with people, share documents and photos, and so much more. Similarly, event apps bring this same level of convenience while tailoring and enhancing the event experience. By streamlining communication, delivering real-time updates, and boosting engagement, event apps have the potential to significantly elevate your events.
Quick Links
- The Role of Event Technology in Successful Corporate Events
- Why Do Corporate Events Need Event Apps?
- What to Include in Your Event App
- Eight Tips for Creating the Best Event App
The Role of Event Technology in Successful Corporate Events
We can’t deny the benefits technology brings to our day-to-day lives, and that’s also true for corporate events. When it comes to the success of these events, event tech helps streamline logistics, promotes attendee engagement, and even gives planners valuable data-driven insights. From registration to wearable smart badges, technology helps simplify complex event processes, making it easier for both organizers and participants to navigate the event.
While streamlining logistics is a huge help for planners, event tech also brings an interactive element for attendees, such as virtual reality experiences or live Q&As. These features make events more dynamic and inclusive, encouraging attendees to participate actively rather than passively observing. This, in turn, leads to stronger connections between attendees and a more memorable event experience.
Plus, many of these features can be included in event apps. The right functionality within an app serves everyone and helps attendees keep track of scheduled sessions or activities. Beyond that, they can also help planning teams manage the audience and communicate with them on the fly, even if they need to segment communications to specific attendees.
Why Do Corporate Events Need Event Apps?
Mobile is where it’s at. As of 2024, there were approximately 4.88 billion mobile users in the world. That means you can connect directly with your guests through a device they are accustomed to using daily for communication and scheduling. Further, they’ll likely start using the event application before the event, which means you can leverage event polling and pre-event notifications.
As with any communication and scheduling tool, your app is essential for various reasons. However, their benefits go beyond instant access to attendees, and some of the uses noted above. In fact, event apps can also:
- Simplify registration, check-in, and administration
- Support branding and event theme
- Assist with marketing and engagement
- Facilitate event feedback and communication
- Create experience longevity with ongoing connections
- Leverage sponsorship opportunities
- Streamline oversight and management of attendees and sessions
- Gather real-time polling and analytics for various metrics, such as attendance
- Implement cost savings and revenue boosters
- Improve and simplify customer service
What to Include in Your Event App
Hopefully by now, you’re realizing that given the benefits, event apps are indispensable. Obviously, you want an event app that has the essentials, but what if you could also include a few additional features? What would that look like?
Essentials
There are a few must-haves for your event app – not just for functionality but also in terms of opportunities and expectations.
- Event branding: The application you build should not only reflect your brand but also the branding for the event itself. From color schemes and graphics to usability and features, the event app is your first opportunity to establish the essence of both your business and the event.
- Event schedules and session details: Access to the schedule and event information is the primary reason users will download the app, so failure to deliver on this aspect can cause considerable frustration. Electronic schedules and the ability to set reminders or add sessions to a calendar can reduce stress for attendees. Digital formats also save printing costs.
- Maps: The last thing you want is attendees having difficulties getting to sessions because they are struggling to navigate your venue. Site maps and even local maps are great features to include when creating your event app.
- Live, real-time polling: Polling your guests for reviews, impressions, questions, and more not only allows your team to adjust on the fly but also informs your guests about popular activities. For example, let’s say an informative session is offered each day or a vendor booth has great swag; live polling attendees’ favorite sessions or booths can bring these popular features to the attention of others.
- Social and networking tools: While social feeds and links to social media pages are engaging, apps can go a step further. Event applications with the highest engagement offer forums for conversations and opportunities for connecting and networking. Remember networking is one of the primary reasons guests indicate they attend events, so don’t miss this opportunity to deliver for them.
- Push notifications: Obviously, you’ll want to ensure your guests have the chance to turn these on or off, but many people have come to rely on reminders and real-time notifications. This is particularly useful if there’s a last-minute change or update to your event schedule.
- Speaker, vendor, and exhibitor information: Your guests will want information about whom and what they may see at your corporate event. Including listings in your app (with links to websites, social media, and more) can simplify the “research” process as attendees determine how they want to spend their time.
- Content library: From videos of sessions to downloads, you’ll want to have a repository for all content from your event in one place. As an extra incentive for downloading the event app, you may also want to include exclusive content (think videos with popular keynote speakers, insights from corporate leaders, and more).
- Registration: If an event has multiple sessions that require sign-ups ahead of time, this process can be streamlined within the app. Registration for these sessions can then point attendees to relevant information, such as venue maps and speaker bios.
Extras
Whether these items are essential or not is likely up for debate, but some of these are fantastic additions to any event app.
- Games, mindfulness, and relaxation tools: Whether you’re incorporating gamification to increase engagement or building in a tool to promote healthy practices such as meditation, having these features can take your event app to the next level. Not only do tools like these keep attendees in your event app, but they also suggest you understand the need to stop, slow down, and take a minute to digest.
- AI chatbot: Integrating an AI chatbot into your event app can significantly enhance the attendee experience by providing instant answers to questions, offering personalized recommendations, and assisting with navigation. This feature keeps users engaged while ensuring they have the support they need, reducing the need for additional customer service resources.
- Private scheduling: If networking is a primary goal for attendees, then facilitating and enabling them to make appointments and meet with new connections is a great add-on. By allowing users to schedule within the app, attendees can manage their time effectively. This feature also eliminates the hassle of coordinating via multiple channels, providing a seamless way to set up one-on-one or group meetings directly through the app.
- Sponsored content or ads: Your corporate event app is the perfect opportunity for you to leverage sponsorship opportunities. Given how frequently guests may be on the app, real estate in the app or sponsor-provided content are excellent perks to offer.
- Event shop: Not only is an event shop an excellent way to market your branded event merchandise, but if you have exceptional event gifting, your vendors can set up shop there as well, enabling attendees to buy extras.
Eight Tips for Creating the Best Event App
Now that you have a good idea about the functionality you’ll need, you’ll also want to consider other factors to ensure a great user experience on your event app.
1. Make it user-friendly
From navigation to personalization, make the app as user-friendly as possible. If your guests have to spend too much time navigating to find features or if the app just isn’t very responsive, they’ll abandon it fairly quickly, defeating all of your event application goals. Ensure attendees are able to have a seamless experience when interacting with the app.
2. Keep it secure
Including password protection is a good baseline, but creating comprehensive privacy, as well as the option to opt out of some data sharing, will go a long way toward building trust. If you want high adoption rates for your application, ensuring your app is secure is important.
3. Include the app in marketing efforts
How can attendees use an event app if they don’t know about it in the first place? In promotional emails, website popups, or social media posts, be sure to mention the app. It might be beneficial to include screenshots or sneak peeks about what features will be included to entice guests further.
4. Incentivize adoption
Along similar lines, a little nudge of encouragement can also get more people to use your event app. Whether it’s a registration discount when it’s completed through the app or rewards points for creating a profile, offering incentives is an effective way to get your attendees to download the event app.
5. Continue to promote your event app
From your initial marketing to the last day of your corporate event, continue promoting your application. Early adoption can help you get better sponsorship packages, but even late adopters can provide valuable feedback after your event. Encourage your presenters to direct attendees to the event app for downloads, follow-ups, and continued discussion. Adoption will drive engagement, and engagement will drive ROI.
6. Provide support for app use
In order for attendees to take advantage of everything an event app has to offer, it needs to first work properly. Having in-app support or a designated team member to handle app-related issues as they arise ensures issues are handled quickly and effectively.
7. Facilitate social sharing
Guests are already on their phones and social media, making it easy for them to share and promote your brand and event. Consider integrating features that allow attendees to easily post updates, photos, or comments directly from the app, encouraging real-time engagement and extending the reach of your event.
8. Analyze post-event data
Ideally, your event app captures attendee data. Whether it’s attendance metrics or tracking which app features are used the most, this information can help planners understand what worked well for attendees and what might need a little extra attention the next time around.
Ultimately, your event management is streamlined when you have one application to update and notify all guests of changes or new information. Additionally, your app also pulls valuable data for you through all phases of the event. It’s a win-win for you and the attendees.
If you’re ready to start building your next event app to organize and manage your program, get in touch with the Bishop-McCann team – we love to talk all things event planning and event technology. Our team is ready to leverage our expertise to help you create a memorable corporate event!
