Event organisers, listen up. We think there might be a gap or two in your mobile strategy – with all of this talk about using event apps to engage attendees, did you forget about all the other stakeholders that are part of your event? It’s natural to want to create a mobile strategy that focuses on attendees – after all, without them at your event you’re left shouting into the abyss. But taking time to engage your speakers, sponsors and exhibitors is important too.
Speakers
Your speakers are great advocates for your event, well positioned to help you deepen relationships with your attendees by prompting them to whip their smartphones out. This can be as simple as prepping them to remind people about your event app in their opening remarks but there’s opportunities to get a bit more creative too. Like, what if your app delivered a questionnaire that directly related to the topic of their talk? You can also use your placeholder slides (before a speaker loads his or her own deck) to prompt mobile activity – how about asking an open, conversational question and pointing people to the event hashtag?
Your app is also a great way for speakers to connect with attendees. This is beneficial for those attending the event because they can scope out talks in advance and pinpoint which sessions suit them best. But speakers also get to win over a whole event-worth of potential new fans by delivering content straight to their smartphones.
Engage your speakers to leverage smartphones in the audience – Source
Exhibitors
Just like your speakers, your exhibitors also stand to reap the benefits of mobile at events. From pushing out incentives to encourage people to stop by their booth to direct networking opportunities within the app itself, they can leverage mobile to generate plenty of tasty new leads.
A mobile strategy that keeps them in mind is a real value add for your exhibitors, giving them another great reason to invest in your event and come back year after year. Make sure your exhibitor welcome pack includes plenty of details about your mobile offering and how exhibitors stand to benefit. Offer exhibitor training to get them up to speed on using your app and support them to make sure all of their details are filled out – we promise they’ll love you for it!
Sponsors
Mobile opens up a whole world of opportunity for event sponsors by adding a whole new dynamic channel of communication with attendees. Now, alongside your printed materials, website, on-site advertising and activations and whatever else, sponsors also have your app. Not only does this new channel give them extra brand exposure (and so much more, since there should be multiple opportunities within your app to share sponsor messages) it also gives them DATA. Tasty, tasty data.
Being able to provide numbers relating to click-throughs, content downloads, social media mentions and so on is like catnip for sponsors. Set expectations early on about the kind of exposure they’re likely to achieve via mobile and follow up with a nicely formatted report that they can share with their team. This will make them feel more comfortable with their investment, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be back to do it again.
Data = sponsor catnip – Source
Stakeholder Success
The key to winning over each of these stakeholder groups with your mobile strategy is education. Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed – make your speakers, sponsors and exhibitors feel included by taking the time to let them know how they personally will benefit from your event app. Training is also critical – take the time to tour them around your app, walk them through a profile set-up and show them features that they can leverage. And of course, ask them for their feedback and advice. Nobody understands their business better than they do, so find out how you can support their goals. You’ll rack up some serious brownie points for showing that you’re listening.
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About Noodle Live
Noodle Live brings a seamless social experience to events, conferences and exhibitions using a combination of mobile applications and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) swipe cards to streamline information sharing.
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This post was written by Clemi Hardie, founder and MD of Noodle Live.