Case Study: Meeting Expectations Doubles Attendee Event App Adoption Year-Over-Year
About Meeting Expectations
Meeting Expectations specializes in designing and executing strategies to achieve event and association management goals. Their clientele includes organizations like the Atlanta Chapter of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM-Atlanta).
The Event Goal
For their annual ‘Spotlight on HR’ conference, the Meeting Expectations management team wanted to set a new record for member adoption and engagement on their Event App.
The Back Story
2014 was the kickoff year for Meeting Expectations’ annual HR conference, and they knew they wanted to incorporate an event app to help engage their audience.
Partnering with EventMobi, they were able to achieve a 43% adoption rate. While this was not a bad start, their team felt that they had missed opportunities to promote the Event App and integrate it into the overall event experience in a meaningful way.
How They Did It
Meeting Expectations learned from the prior year’s Event App execution and decided to invest in the following tactics:
1. Use a Short And Unique Event App Name
Giving their Event App a distinctive but simple name made it easier to find in the app store. Searching for the exact event name, “Spotlight on HR”, in the app store was more likely to return the right results than searching for “Atlanta Human Resources Conference 2015.” Plus, it was much easier for attendees to remember!
2. Promote The Event App on the Event Website and Registration Page
The Meeting Expectations team understood that the event website was the first place their attendees went looking for information about the event, so they made sure that the app download link was featured prominently there.
Tip to promote your event app: If it’s possible to have the Event App ready in time for potential attendees to download it after registering, this is a great chance to encourage adoption long before the event start date.
Recommended Read: Take a look at what your registration page could look like using EventMobi’s platform.
3. Mention The Event App in The Paper Guide
Meeting Expectations continued the tradition of a printed guide for this event, but used it as another way to promote their Event App with a strong call-to-action and a short link.
Tip to promote your event app: If you decide to create a hardcopy guide in addition to an event app, save yourself some hassle and use it mainly to share high-level information while directing attendees to the app for the logistical details. This will make it easier to manage version control while putting together the printed guide, as minor changes won’t require a reprint.
4. Reinforce The Value of The Event App Through Event Design
Marketing your event app in the right places is just the first step. It’s also critical to make sure that you integrate it into the event experience in such a way that attendees have to download and use it, or risk missing out. The Event App Meeting Expectations created for Spotlight on HR wasn’t an afterthought and played an important role in the onsite event experience.
Throughout the event, the Meeting Expectations team sent several alerts about activities in the exhibitor hall. This made sure everyone knew what was going on and reinforced the importance of engaging with the Event App to stay in the loop during the event.
5. Ensure Sufficient WiFi to Download The Event App & Use The Interactive Features Onsite
For Meeting Expectations, since they promoted their Event App in marketing communications leading up to the event, many of their attendees had already downloaded it by the time they arrived onsite. This reduced the load on the venue’s internet bandwidth at the beginning of the event.
For more quick and easy tips on how to develop a killer marketing and promotional strategy to increase your event app adoption rate, read our guide.
A Few More Tips on How to Make Your Event App An Integrated Part of The Event Experience
- Approach your most noteworthy speakers who are speaking early on in the event, and ask them to integrate a digital Live Poll or Q&A section into their presentation. This will require attendees to download the Event App to participate.
- If you’re still using a printed guide, you could print the high-level event details that aren’t subject to change on paper (like speaker bios, venue maps, etc.) and use your event app to create a schedule with session times and locations. This will make it crucial for attendees to download the Event App.
- If your event is taking place in a few different venues, be sure to announce early on that all reminders, room changes, and shuttle timing will be sent in real-time as direct notifications and alerts on the Event App. No one wants to be out of the loop and end up in the wrong room (or the wrong venue!) at the wrong time!
The Results
Meeting Expectations’ attendee event app adoption numbers went through the roof, jumping from 43% to 86%! That’s a 115% increase in a year-over-year comparison.
