Conference or Coffee? Where are your attendees going after check-in?
Do these things in order to know
As an event marketer, you spend months meticulously crafting the perfect mix of activities and content for your next event. But how do you determine if attendees play an active role in keynotes and general sessions, or prefer to hang out by the bar? The way your attendees experience your event will undoubtedly change the way you engage with them post-event. Here are the 4 you things to know about tracking your attendee's whereabouts:
1. Invest in tracking content consumption with the attendee experience in mind
We all wish we could track every metric possible occurring on the event floor, but this may require more staffing than we have available to us, and it can be too intrusive and difficult. We suggest having a healthy mix of both active and passive tracking to maintain a great attendee experience. What is active vs. passive tracking?
- Active tracking simply involves scanning an attendee when they enter a session. This can include access control should the session be a paid session, or content specific to a certain type. We recommend active tracking if it’s important for you to know who is consuming this content.
- Passive tracking involves tracking an attendee without an intrusive scan, by leveraging BLE, RFID as a means to know what content attendees are consuming. We recommend passive tracking should you desire knowing who might be consuming content within a common area on the expo floor, or perhaps a large keynote of general session. Scanning can be too intrusive and virtually impossible in these areas.
Knowing what content your attendees are consuming is very important, but so is your attendee experience. Choose the technology that best suits your needs. Click here to learn more about active vs. passive attendee tracking.
2. Enable your attendees to opt-in with evaluations
Marketing feedback at an event is art. From an attendee’s perspective, there is nothing more frustrating than listening to a presentation that resonates very well and then trying to extend the conversation with speaker or a subject matter expert after. Use your evaluation tool to allow attendees to opt-in by asking a simple Boolean logic question: Are you interested in speaking with a subject matter expert on this topic? Capture these hand-raisers and act upon them during the event. Click here to learn more about our EventHub Mobile feedback application.
3. Keep your sponsors in mind
While your current and future customers demand most of the spotlight at your events, don't forget about your sponsors! Happy sponsors are a key ingredient to the ongoing success of your events strategy. It is important to understand how sponsors engage with your event. Do they frequently attend? Are they involved in sessions and staying engaged? If you go any lengths to track attendee whereabouts, be sure to track unique sponsor visits and capture their feedback wherever possible. Passive tracking can also show unique visitors on the show floor, dwell time and traffic by time of day. If your conference had 2,500 attendees, and there were 2,500 unique attendees scanned on the show floor, you’re batting 1000!
4. Be prepared to be surprised
With a completely new set of individuals at each event, expect a few surprises. Each visitor will have their own intentions going into your event; some falling outside the intentions you set for them. Some folks may attend only for the networking, free food, free hotels, and the beloved conference swag. This attendee persona is common, so it's important to keep an open mind. With the right analytics suite, you may find that the aforementioned attendee hanging out at the bar for the entirety of the conference was already a key buyer of your product. And when in Vegas, right?
