Harnessing Event App Data to Drive Future Event Success

In the competitive world of events, leveraging data and analytics is paramount to achieving continued growth and success.

The insights event organisers gained from the data analytics component of our platform can significantly enhance your event strategy for future years. Using a real event as a case study, let's call it Guidebook Marketing Conference for privacy reasons, let's explore how event app data can support and propel your event strategy.

Understanding App Engagement

One of the first metrics to consider is app engagement. For instance, during the Guidebook Marketing Conference, 768 attendees downloaded the app. This initial figure provides a baseline for understanding your audience's willingness to engage with the digital tools provided. It is also a great starting point to demonstrate to your sponsors that people are engaging with the app, and their presence need's to be amplified.

Other key insights included:

• Session Counts: This is how many times the app was opened. For me this the ROI demonstrator. You can really start to create a narrative about your audience, their engagement, and their willingness to keep coming back to the hub of event information. It is important to have everything in one place.
• Duration: We talk about duration as the average time spent in the app per session. If you have put the time in to build out your app, this will reassure you when you can see people spending time here.
• Sponsorship ROI: High engagement metrics can attract future sponsors by demonstrating visibility. When you think about YoY event revenue growth, we need all the inventory at our disposal, and your app is a key revenue driver if you take the time to build it out properly.

Evaluating Event Components

The data collected through the app can reveal which parts of your event were the most successful. The insights tab in our GuideBuilder allows event organisers to see:

• Popular Sessions: Sessions with the most views and engagement. This great on a couple of fronts. How is the content landing? You spent hours researching your agenda, so this can help you understand which sessions resonated the most with people. You can also demonstrate ROI for your speakers. They have given up their time to be at your event, and you can use data to show them it was worth it.
• Underperforming Content: Identifying sessions that received less engagement. We all know within the event, you may have sessions that just fell short. Your app can help you to identify this ahead of time and during the event. This will enable you to create feedback forms and surveys to drill into why people may not have engaged with certain types of content. Look for any parallels that may be happening.
• Content Planning: Use this data to tailor future event content to audience preferences. When you have that event wash-up and take the time to assess all the components of the event, your data becomes more powerful. Use this to begin the following years strategy.

Personalizing Attendee Experience

Features that allow attendees to build their own schedules offer valuable insights into user preferences. Key metrics to consider:

• Schedule Building: Which sessions were most added to personal schedules. You want to see which sessions are becoming the most popular. If you have limited spaces in certain rooms or tracks and you see the demand for a certain session by people adding it to their app schedule, you can work with the venue to get more chairs, tables or whatever is needed in the room to make it comfortable. No one likes that feeling of half the audience stood at the back of the room.
• Popular Tracks: Identify topics and speakers that drew the most interest.
• Speaker & Sponsor Value: Demonstrate high engagement to attract top speakers and sponsors. You can use the data in your pre-event communication to get speakers and sponsors excited - and build their anticipation ahead of coming to the event. Your data also supports your on-site communication and post-event.

Enhancing Sponsorship Value

Sponsorship impressions are critical for demonstrating ROI. Having a clear plan for your data and how you communicate can be a huge win when selling app sponsorship. Having had the challenge of selling event sponsorship myself, I know how important it is to be able to present clear and concise data to give a clear indication of ROI and allow sponsors to see the value.

Data from the engagement tab can show:

• Sponsor Impressions: Number of views for each sponsor. This is a brilliant way to build in the advertising component of being present in the app. It also helps sponsors understand the value of building a strong profile within the app. Our collaboration feature gives your sponsors the chance to really build out that presence.
• High ROI for Premium Packages: Highlight the value of premium sponsorships. You can target certain parts of the app to offer more exposure for your big-ticket sponsors. From push notifications, custom surveys, pinned social posts and much more, your data will allow you to show how this is simply a no-brainer.
• Targeted Audience: Ensuring sponsors their content is reaching the right audience.

Boosting Social Interaction

The interact feed within the app is vital for fostering community engagement. You can begin to strategise ways in which to increase action here based on the data you are seeing. You can analyse this in real-time during the event. (You can even use our new Leaderboards feature) Metrics to focus on include:

• Activity Levels: Number of shares, comments, and interactions. You want to see how much people are actively engaging around social sharing and connecting with one another. If this is an important component of your event, it's important to track.
• Gamification: Use leaderboards and points to increase engagement. We just dropped this new feature and it's a great way to build habits with your audience and get them to engage with app in certain ways. (If you want to know more about this get in touch)

Continuous Improvement

Successful event management is about continuous improvement. We know how hard it is to increase growth and build upon success. Data gives you the detail you need to really think about your events' long-term health and strategy.

By exporting data and creating detailed reports, you can visually represent your event’s performance. Steps to take:

• Data Export: Use data to create detailed reports and visualizations.
• Team Meetings: Use reports to brainstorm improvement strategies.
• Actionable Insights: Reflect on what worked well and what didn’t, and innovate for future events.

Conclusion

Event app data is a powerful tool that not enough people are utilising. It can transform your event strategy. And you need to lay out the areas that it will enhance that going forward, by:

• Analysing Attendee Engagement
• Evaluating Event Components
• Personalising Experiences
• Enhancing Sponsorship Value
• Boosting Social Interaction
• Committing to Continuous Improvement

...you can ensure your events grow in success year after year.

Spend time delving into your event data, export and share it, and use it to tell the story of your event’s impact. It helps you create post event narratives for social, for stakeholders, for internal business partners and much more.

This approach not only helps in celebrating your current successes but also in strategically planning for future growth. If you want to talk more about how your mobile app data can support event growth, do get in touch.

Or check out Guidebook here.