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.
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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.
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:
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?
There are a few must-haves for your event app – not just for functionality but also in terms of opportunities and expectations.
Whether these items are essential or not is likely up for debate, but some of these are fantastic additions to any 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!