Keep up with the trends to make your event management perfect!

Everybody loves an event. They are becoming one of the main aspects of any business, this is a great way for you to meet your current customers and future prospects. Managing an event takes time and a lot of planning. Businesses need to make sure they are up to date with the trends that are constantly evolving.

Many of the event trends are around technology. As I said above, businesses need to keep themselves up to date with all trends as when it comes to managing an event, technology is vital due to the constant digital transformation.

Event Trends

• Attendee Experience
• Digital Marketing
• GDPR

Attendee Experience

Technology holds a persistent influence on the event experience for attendees.

Some of the ways the technology trends will change for events is due to Artificial Intelligence and digital transformation.

One way the attendee experience has been influenced by technology is Chatboxes and Apps. Chatboxes and apps are a huge trend. This is why businesses should use this to their advantage when planning an event. These two technologies have the potential to change the attendee experience and enable smarter event management for organisers.

Event organisers have high expectations of their event experience, so they want the technology to advance the experience not make it complex. Chatboxes are a perfect fit for a conference type event, they have an easier access for attendees and can also host your agenda and content online.

Having the content hosted on an app also saves on cost as you don’t need to spend money on printing collateral and agendas.

1. What are the chatboxes use cases for events?

An enabled chatbox can act as an assistant to answers attendee’s questions on demand, collect feedback and drive interaction. With this, you can also alert on demand notifications for any change to the agenda. A chatbox can really simplify navigating through the event for the attendees.

To give you an example, I helped organise an event last year that was receiving 100 attendees. We thought let’s create an app to help the attendee experience. To gain the interactions and download the app, we attach a competition to this where the person who posted as many social posts throughout the app would receive a prize. What the app included was:

This helped bring the audience together as they were all interacting with each other, which also benefited when it came to networking.

The use of chatboxes has come from the increase in Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality technology.

Digital Marketing

With the digital world becoming so fast paced, companies are now taking advantage of digital marketing to boost sales, brand awareness, communication.

The events industry is also pushing this to help organise, promote and enhance the experience. Some of the most popular ways of digital marketing are.

Social Media

73% of event planners believe social media to be the most effective tool for marketing events.1

Everyone uses social media nowadays. Again, why not use this to your advantage as a business to promote your event. Social media is always good to expand your reach and get people talking about your event. Use your social channels to make noise and a buzz about your events to give your followers something to share also. The best way to create engagement is to much on all channels and set up event listings on website like Facebook, Eventbrite and LinkedIn.

Email Communications

Email marketing still seems to be the strongest marketing tactic. With most people connected with the digital world, emails can be accessed anywhere and anytime. Use email to build excitement in the run up to your event, sending through any offers and competitions that will encourage people to attend.

Online Video Content

More event planners are embracing video. 66% using video as part of their marketing strategy.

Online Video Content is becoming a vital digital marketing tactic. This is also beneficial for businesses that don’t want this to be a big expense. Video is the perfect visual tool to promote events. If you have filmed previous events, why not use this to your advantage by showing your prospects what you have done before and what to expect.

GDPR

Everyone knows that GDPR has been at the top of businesses strategies. As so much data comes from different resources, there is an increasing concern over consumer protection and privacy. This is no different within the events industry as you can gain information from social, apps and other methods.

As the world becomes more tech savvy, the events that have more consistent success are the ones that have a transparent data policy.

GDPR is top of the event management process as the clients trust you to keep their data safe, this also leads to when following up on the attendees.

Event trends are constantly changing due to the digital world we live in. Event management is always keeping the attendees front of mind. This relates back to always remember to organise attendees experience, marketing strategies on promoting the event and keeping attendee’s data confidential.