It’s hard to imagine that only a couple of years ago event technology was in its infancy, as today the event market is oversaturated with innovations and novel tech companies. Latest solutions are all aimed at making the life of event professionals easier. However, sometimes the abundance of suppliers can complicate things for already busy event planners. They have to spend time on choosing providers, testing their technology and identifying which of the solutions available would best suit their particular needs.

No doubt, that today the success of an event does depend on technology. For this reason, many planners are ready to invest a significant part of their time and event budget on coordinating suppliers and introducing event tech into their meetings.

Being an event tech supplier ourselves, we understand these problems from within. Therefore, our primary goal is to create a perfect solution for our clients. We ensure that our products are simple and user-friendly so that busy event organisers do not have to spend a lot of their time on learning how to use various features or how to get the most out of them. We always educate our customers and support them when necessary, making the process of technology integration very simple and straightforward.

At TapFuse we also aim to help event planners be more efficient when it comes to identifying possible partnerships. We work to reduce organisers’ workload with coordinating suppliers and assuring that all stakeholders have a great event tech experience. This ensures there are no surprises in the form of unexpected connection issues or difficulties accessing the event app during periods of high audience activity and engagement.

Event tech suppliers should take this important step and simplify the overall process for event organisers.

Event tech suppliers should take this important step and simplify the overall process for event organisers. They must move away from the standard approach of just offering a software product and leaving the rest of the issues for the event organisers to sort out. Similarly, they should start thinking more strategically and attempt to understand the conjunction of challenges that meeting organisers face and offer a simple solution to these.

These solutions will include working in collaboration with other event tech suppliers towards successful events. Offering solutions together and complementing each other will allow event tech companies to provide their customers with a more holistic approach as well as significantly facilitate the organisational aspects of the event planning process.

Here is a list of advantages that event collaborations can offer meeting organisers:

1. Provide the best expertise

Being experts in their own specific niches, smaller event tech companies that work together will be able to provide event organisers with better solutions.

2. Save time

Event organisers will not have to spend a lot of time trying to find the best players in different tech areas. This means more hours for event planning and organisation.

3. Reduce the workload

Event tech suppliers will be able to help busy event planners coordinate, implement and oversee the processes related to the event tech integration.

4. Save money

Working together allows tech providers to offer complex solutions for a better price. Reduced workload means more can be spent on other important tasks.

5. More flexibility

Small companies are more flexible and can provide tailored solutions according to the particular needs.

6. More data analysis

By blending their services, tech companies are also able to provide event planners with more data on the event performance.

7. Improved event experience and attendees’ engagement

Companies that work together already have their internal processes in place. Moreover, well-established communication channels and deep understanding of the particular challenges related to the distribution of workload will lead to an improved process.

All the above points made us reconsider the relationship between event organisers and event tech suppliers. As a result, TapFuse — an event software company decided to partner up with Simpli-Fi — a hardware supplier to improve our customers’ events, save time for meeting planners and guarantee perfect implementation of our technology on the event day. The results of this collaboration can already be seen through increased engagement, positive feedback from our customers and high attendee satisfaction. Moreover, we have been nominated for the Event Technology Awards 2017 in the category Best Technology Partnership.

We aim to provide a better service by unifying our efforts and complementing each other. As an event app supplier, we provide event organisers with key engagement, communication and content management tools in a single intuitive software platform. The collaboration with a professional wifi provider gives us the confidence that thousands of visitors will stay connected with the help of reliable, scalable and flexible technology during the events.

Moreover, working together allows us to offer not just an event tech tool but rather a complex solution to our customers’ needs as we are able to offer:

• Fully managed service
• Event software and wifi strategy
• Enhanced sponsorship tools
• Live scribing
• Enhanced analytics and tracking of ROI and ROE

This means less need for event organisers to oversee the processes related to the use of technology, higher engagement on-site and much more data for post-event analysis.

Using technology at events is important, but so is the understanding of how to get the most out of it. Having the attendee-first approach in mind, event tech providers must work hand in hand with each other in order to guarantee better event experience and higher levels of audience satisfaction in the first place.

If a couple of years ago the principal reasons for attending events were mostly educational, nowadays networking and interaction with the people who work in the same field, as well as collaborative problem solving is what gives conferences real value. Undoubtedly, learning is still important, but having a chance to meet great people, who can help you grow professionally, often works in synergy with the benefits of educational sessions for many attendees.

This change in attendees’ preferences together with the development of technologies that facilitate networking, has transformed live events and made planners rethink and redesign their approach to organising face-to-face meetings. The tech conference Collision, for example, used an algorithm that allowed investors and start-ups to easily match. Similarly, Oracle OpenWorld started to look beyond the standard conference formats and decided to redesign common areas into organic attendee-to-attendee engagement spaces.

This change in attendees’ preferences has transformed live events and made planners rethink and redesign their approach to organising face-to-face meetings.

For those who attend a conference better networking results in new valuable contacts and leads, whereas for organisers in an overall positive experience and loyal future visitors. That’s why keeping the importance of interaction in mind, event organisers should take an active role in assuring plenty of opportunities for easy and effective networking.

Let us split the event networking experience into three parts and identify what attendees are looking for at each stage of the event. Also let’s try to find out how organisers can respond to the visitors’ expectations and guarantee the best interaction experience possible.

BEFORE

Audience expectations

Usually attendees start to show interest in an event weeks before it actually takes place. In preparation for the meeting they start monitoring social networks and other online channels in order to find information about who else will be attending the event, which speakers are going to be of particular interest to them and for the best way to start a conversation with other attendees. They will want to establish connections and engage in conversations way before the event is live.

Organiser’s actions

So how can organisers improve networking opportunities at this stage? The answer is by creating an online community — a place where event attendees can share their thoughts, exchange ideas and have access to the network of like-minded people who are going to the meeting. Luckily, nowadays a variety of technological tools easily allow to connect attendees online through event apps, groups on social networks or simply by using a dedicated event hashtag on Twitter or Instagram.

Building a website for a particular event is also a good idea. First of all, it will guarantee simple access to event information, and secondly, it will help to market your meeting to potential customers. Today, in order to create a microsite it is not necessary to hire a team of programmers and designers, many of event tech suppliers offer this service, sometimes as a complementary one to the app development.

Furthermore, at B2B events, the attendees might want to connect on LinkedIn or follow each other on Twitter, therefore, one must make sure that attendees’ and speakers’ profiles on your event app or website include links to their respective social networks’ profiles.

DURING

Audience expectations

When people arrive on-site they are looking to make valuable connections, ask questions and the opinions of industry thought leaders and discuss problems and challenges they face with like-minded people. The main obstacle here is that some attendees might feel uncomfortable asking questions in front of a big audience and it can be intimidating for them to approach a group or join a discussion.

Organiser’s actions

Online discussions prior to the conference often contribute to more productive face-to-face networking on-site as the attendees might have already met and interacted with some of the conference participants.

However, this doesn’t mean that networking opportunities cannot be improved even further with the implementation of conference networking spaces, optimising the format of the event and including networking-focused activities such as ‘table topics’ discussions or discussions via event apps. A good idea for improved live interaction might be to split delegates into smaller groups or organise “brain-dating” sessions during which the attendees are paired with each other based on their interests or areas of expertise.

Technology, and event apps, in particular, can be an extremely useful tool when it comes to networking and interaction at the venue. Features such as 1-to-1 meetings, direct messaging or discussion boards facilitate communication among all of the stakeholders making it easier to take the first step and start a conversation. Integration with social media enables attendees to share their live experiences with the online community and make new connections there.

The Q&A feature or the possibility to leave comments on presentation slides helps to establish a meaningful dialogue between the speakers and the audience leading to even more networking and interaction.

AFTER

Audience expectations

After the event is over the attendees for sure will try to follow up with their new connections, potential clients or partners. They will want to develop further relationships through communicating online or simply stay in touch with people with similar interests. In addition, they might want to discuss several topics further or talk about new ideas and collaborative projects.

Organiser’s actions

At this stage, event organisers need to make sure the attendees have access to the list of the participants with links to their LinkedIn or Twitter profiles. Event app profiles with the social media links, bio pages on the meeting microsite or a simple list of emails could be a great solution to this.

Do not forget to nurture further communication through publishing relevant content in the online community, engage attendees to participate in group discussions on social networks and encourage them to keep interacting online and face-to-face.

The meetings’ priorities are changing pushing the educational content to the second place and making interaction even more important for attendees. Stepping away from a standardised conference approach and moving towards new event formats will provide the audience with the opportunities for quality networking and active participation. Knowing what attendees expect to get in terms of networking at each stage of the event can help planners to meet the audience expectations and take the networking experience to a whole new level.

Event networking: meeting the audience expectations was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today, it seems the event industry is mostly talking about audience engagement and ways of increasing it. However, only a few are asking the question — WHY increase it in first place? Engaging attendees became the main goal for many meeting organisers. In pursuit of more immersive experiences, more interactions and more of everything, people forget that engagement is only a means to an end and not an end in itself.

WHY

The word “engagement” itself is often overused and depending on the meeting goals it could mean completely different things. For example, how do you understand engagement in the context of your particular event? If the primary goal of your meeting is to sell a product, probably an engaged audience will the one that responds to your marketing messages and feels an emotional connection with your brand. Both of which you hope will lead to increased product sales. If you are an association representative you will expect active participation of the stakeholders. For corporate events where the main purpose is to teach and train employees, listening, interpreting and analysing would be synonymous with engagement.

The word “engagement” itself is often overused and depending on the meeting goals it could mean completely different things.

The main point therefore seems is to understand why to engage your attendees and what is it that you are trying to achieve in first place.

HOW

Only when you have answered the WHY, can you move on to the next step and think about HOW to increase the audience responsiveness.

How can one get to know their audience better? Get to know your audience demographics, their interests or pain points. Look at your competitors and evaluate their target audience. Get to know your visitors on a personal level, monitor social conversations or think of conducting a pre-event survey.

How are you going to deliver your message? Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used to effectively communicate your ideas. What is your story going to be about?

How can you increase learning outcomes? Consider changing the format of the conference if appropriate, making it more interactive and enjoyable. Instead of gathering a large number of people for a session, try organising small workshops where the attendees’ can feel more comfortable, free to express their thoughts and get valuable feedback on their opinions and not just theory and dry knowledge.

How can you make the attendees interact more? Reorganise your meeting space, create more opportunities for networking, put up stands with different topics where people could gather around or dedicate rooms for interaction and collaboration.

These are only some examples, but the main idea is to think creatively and come up with a number of fresh and interesting “how to” points.

WHAT

The next step is to decide what tools will work best for implementing the above ideas.

Once you have identified what engagement means for your event, and how to bring out more of it at your next event, try to think of what increased engagement is going to look like in your particular case.

Do you expect the audience to ask more questions during the sessions?

Are you waiting for the attendees to start communicating online or sharing live experiences on social networks?

What tools can help you to achieve your goals and most importantly what tech tools are you going to use in order to measure the engagement?

MEASURING RESPONSE

Technology has given us the opportunity to measure events performance at unprecedented levels. Event tech facilitates the evaluation of the return on investment and makes it possible to measure the return on engagement.

The data on audience engagement received through event management and communication software can be divided into two groups — quantitative and qualitative. Whereas quantitative data reflects the frequency of audience activity and allows to measure the participation through a number of KPI’s, qualitative data provides organisers with valuable information about the quality of participation. It helps to understand how involved the audience was before and during the event and what topics they were most interested in.

This information allows event organisers to improve the WHY and HOW of the future events and provides them with an opportunity to engage the audience more purposefully.

Why, How and What? Audience engagement in action was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A famous name on stage doesn’t guarantee a great speech. After all, a memorable presentation is not so much about who is giving a talk, but rather how the talk is going to deliver the ideas effectively. Once the purpose of your next event is defined and the topics are selected, you must have a clear idea of what you want your speakers to talk about.

The success of the presentations doesn’t depend solely on those who are giving a speech. As an event organiser you are also responsible for what is happening on stage. Therefore, in order to provide the best event experience possible, make sure you guide your speakers through the whole process of preparation. Although there is no clear definition of what an ideal presentation should look like, it’s always good to move towards perfection, constantly incorporating new ideas and trying out practical suggestions.

When you hear someone say: “great presentation”! What speeches or events come to mind first? What did you particularly like about those? Why was it so memorable? Let’s try to answer these questions using TED Talks as an example.

It is impressive how TED speakers and organisers can engage and inspire the audience. Each presentation captures the audience’s’ attention from first seconds and holds it until the very last moment. The secret behind this great success is partly revealed by the TEDx Speaker’s Guide where the event organisers share some guiding principles on how to make a perfect talk.

Less is more

To begin with, the TEDx organisers limit the talks to 18 minutes. They are quite sure that in order to make an idea unforgettable one doesn’t need to spend an hour on stage. This works because attendees can stay focused on the subject only for a short period of time. If your event topic requires a more detailed explanation try to change the speakers every 15–20 minutes.

EventTech Tip: In order to keep the audience focused during the presentation try using tools that engage the audience. Consider launching live polling through an event app, enabling your audience to leave comments on the slides or ask questions in real time with the help of a Q&A feature.

See the difference between goals and tools

A lot has been said about the importance of storytelling in engaging the audience. However, according to the TED creators, telling stories and evoking emotions are only tools on the way to a greater good — communicating your ideas effectively. Remember not to confuse the goals with the means that help to achieve them.

EventTech Tip: The event app allows your speakers to start sharing their ideas even before they are on stage. This direct interaction between the speakers and the attendees creates anticipation and builds a common ground for better engagement during the future talk.

Why should they care?

TED talks make the audience feel emotionally engaged. The subjects they choose are viral and relevant to the wider audience. They often talk about happiness, technology, knowledge, psychology among others. The themes that really matter to most of us. Think about what motivates your audience. Once you know what makes your attendees’ hearts beat faster, you will have a great topic for your next event.

EventTech Tip: Event software allows organisers to analyse the attendees’ behaviours, identify the pain points and the subjects that matter to the audience. Based on this data the event can be improved live or can be modified for the next year edition. The attendees will care even more about the topics presented by your speakers if they are given the opportunity to take part in the planning of the event. Use event apps to get suggestions about possible presentation topics and let your attendees influence what the next session is going to be about.

Describe the images, but not in writing

When working on a presentation make sure that it is simple and visually rich. Try to reduce the number of slides with bullet points or remove them all together. Our brain is not capable of effectively reading and listening at the same time. If your speaker’s presentation is text heavy, the attention of the event attendees will constantly be shifting between both. As a result, they will remember less, get more tired quickly and have less fun. Each slide should support no more than one idea. If you take a look at the Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s talk you’ll notice how simple and clear his presentation is. It mostly consists of images and photos with no additional text at all.

EventTech Tip: Digital Scribing feature complements the speech with real-time visuals. This allows the audience to feel even more engaged with the talk.

Remember that a great speech is the result of hard work of both the speaker and the organiser. TED talks would have never been so powerful without the organisers’ team constantly supporting and guiding their speakers throughout the preparation process. Interesting and relevant, appealing and memorable, engaging and interactive — that is how every presentation should be like, and you as an event organiser have an important part to play in this.

Four characteristics of a good presentation (inspired by TED) was originally published in Marketing And Growth Hacking on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It will take you approximately 7 minutes to read this article. However, taking into account the fact that the human attention span in modern society is on a downward spiral, chances are you might not reach the end of this post without becoming distracted.

Researchers state that since the mobile revolution, our attention spans have fallen to 8 seconds. Can we really only focus on a task for such a short period of time? This topic of course is quite controversial and has been questioned and scrutinised a lot, however there is no doubt that information overload influences the way we consume and absorb content.

There is no doubt that information overload influences the way we consume and absorb content.

There are almost one thousand million websites in the world today, around 7 000 tweets are published every second, and the cumulative human knowledge on average is doubling every 13 months. The scale of this is even more noticeable once you realise that until 1900s this happened every 100 years.

No wonder that in a world where we are constantly bombarded by data, the average Joe simply doesn’t have enough time to consume even a tiny part of the content available. As a result one can logically conclude that the consumer attention span is becoming shorter and shorter. The consequence of this is that marketing campaigns and promotional content from brands have even fewer opportunities of being heard.

Conferences and other live events have a better chance of succeeding in this race for attention, as real-time experiences and face-to-face communication remain the best way of building relationships with your audience.

In order to break through this never ending information influx, it is important to understand when and where your message will be relevant to both your attendees’ needs and their emotional state.

Having all this data floating around and easily accessible, explains why modern event managers are rethinking their approach to organising events and trying to use the latest technological innovations. Below we provide some useful ideas that will help you to align your event content strategy with the needs of today’s easily distracted audience and improve their engagement and concentration.

Goodbye conferences

Traditional theater-style conferences had worked quite well for years. Or we just didn’t know any better. However, it’s about time to move on to more engaging meeting formats that are able to catch the audience’s attention and turn a visitor from a passive spectator into an active co-creator of the event.

The fact that people who actively participate in the learning process can memorise more than those who perceive information passively has been demonstrated empirically. Active learning enables several regions of our brain responsible for forming new memories to get functionally connected. Therefore, participation in workshops, answering polls during a session or asking questions when a speaker is giving a talk turns on your attendees’ brain.

An engaged audience pays attention to what you say and do. Adding the elements of entertainment can assure that your attendees will feel more involved with the experience and consequently pay more attention to everything that happens around. The desire to drop in the elements of festivals and trade shows into specialized professional events in order to make meetings more entertaining and attention-grabbing is reflected in the recent trend of festivalisation.

Furthermore, in order to capture your audience’s ever shortening attention span, your next conference can become an unconference — a participant-driven meeting where the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the event. Rather than having a 100% pre-established event program consider giving the attendees the possibility to self-organise a certain number of sessions. Today event technology allows to easily submit topics for discussions and incorporate the most popular ones into the event schedule.

Delete, delete, delete…

In the recent article published by Inc. keynote speaker and communication adviser Carmine Gallo provides an example of the presentation that Google CEO Sundar Pichai used at the company’s 2017 developers conference. The first thing that catches one’s eye is that there is a significant amount of white space on each slide. Most of the slides contain photos or images and go accompanied by a few words that describe them.

It’s impossible for us to do two things at once. Paying attention to a speaker and at the same time trying to decipher a text-heavy presentation is a difficult task for our brain. Multitasking is a term that was originally applied to computers. When a human mind tries to perform two things simultaneously, the focus on switching between the two of them impairs the ability to concentrate on one particular task. Therefore, using too many words and bullet points is not the best option for our ever-shortening attention span. Make sure that your speakers’ presentations are engaging and “brain-friendly” — and your particular event will prove that there are exceptions to the “8-second rule”.

Another way to maintain attendees’ engagement is to create relevant visuals in front of the audience while a speaker is giving a talk. Live scribing makes the audience emotionally connected to the content and guarantees more memorable experiences.

You have 153 unread notifications

The latest Raconteur Business Events Report shows that the number one event technology organisers are going to use this year when planning meetings and events is social media. There is no doubt that the benefits of sharing content on social networks are immense for both marketing and educational purposes. However, with declining attention spans, it is quite likely that your next message will go unnoticed.

Kevan Lee in his article at Buffer suggests the ideal length for everything online. According to the post, the ideal length of a tweet is 100 characters, the 40-character Facebook posts receive 86% higher engagement than others, and six words is the perfect length for a post headline. Of course, the length of your articles is only one of the ingredients of the marketing mix. However, it’s still good to remember to keep your messages short and to the point.

Various research confirmed that visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared. Therefore, try to prepare high-quality images and infographics when working on your content strategy. If you are planning to use videos, make sure that the first eight seconds are engaging and attention-grabbing.

Catching moments

When it comes to event tech, the Event Industry Report published by Eventbrite states that this year only 18% of event organisers will not use apps at their events. Being one of the most effective marketing and communication mediums, event applications enable managers and sponsors to get direct access to their target audience and capture their attention more easily.

An event app is a dedicated platform where like-minded people share and discuss their topics of interest. The content published there is likely to be 100% relevant, and consequently people will spend more time on it. Unlike social media, where users become easily distracted by promotional messages or irrelevant content, a dedicated event app can assure less distracted and wandering attendees, less external noise and no never-ending social media feeds.

Event apps notify attendees when the important information is shared. Push notifications can be sent in a precise moment in time, when they will be relevant to your audience needs or emotional states. Remember that your audience is also likely to pay more attention if the announcements bring valuable information such as changes in a schedule or the start of a session they were planning to attend. Try to avoid sending too many promotional messages or information that your attendees might consider irrelevant as instead of becoming a point of interest this may turn into another distraction.

Your visitors will stay more focused during a session if they have a two-way conversation with the speaker rather than just receive a one-way stream of information. Such app features as Q&A, live polling or a Social Wall will provide the audience with high-quality dialogues on-site.

Due to the information overload and the strong presence of digital technology in our lives, we are all becoming more easily distracted. More content and less time to consume it means our attention span is shorter than ever. Trying to face this challenge, event managers are rethinking their approach to organising conferences and events. New event formats emerge turning the classic theatre-style conferences into immersive interactive experiences. Using the latest technology and applying best practices for on-site presentations makes attendees more focused and helps avoid external distractions during an event.

The ever shortening attention span. Are attendees affected? was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In pursuit of results, events are changing and adapting to capture the ever shortening attention span of the modern attendee. Organisers try to impress the audience by involving all the senses and conferences are being transformed into captivating real-time experiences.

Today’s business meetings tend to integrate the elements of trade shows and exhibitions to spark excitement and create interest of visitors and consequently generate more business opportunities. Moreover, festivalisation of meetings together with the creation of multi-industry experiences is another new way of engaging the audience. Organisers mix serious B2B meetings with the elements of entertainment specific to festivals to generate more excitement. Gathering people from different industries and business areas under the same roof makes it possible for the collision of thoughts and ideas, generates more interest during the event and attracts new delegates.

However, the fundamentals of any event are the same: to share knowledge and connect people. What is changing is the way this knowledge is generated and consumed. If a couple of decades ago the main goal for attending conferences was to learn about the latest updates in the industry, nowadays, in the hyperconnected world the latest information is just one click away.

The purpose of live meetings has shifted from simply consuming the content to providing a space for discussions and creative problem solving.

Moreover, a new problem has emerged: there is not enough time to digest the enormous amount of data available. Therefore, in order to compete in the overcrowded market, event managers must find a way to provide their attendees with content that is:

• Good Quality
• Relevant
• Timely
• Entertaining
• Easy to digest

Entertainment with information

You might have heard about infotainment. The term itself appeared in the late 1980s and was used to define the transformation in the way leading media channels delivered news. Paying more attention to divert the public rather than to inform, the media became part of the entertainment industry. This happened due to the exponential rise in the availability and quantity of news as a consequence of globalisation and advancements in technology. In competition for people’s attention media started to use tabloid techniques.

Although the term ‘infotainment’ is sometimes regarded with negative connotations to emphasise the loss of quality and objectivity in the presented information, let’s look at it from a different angle. What are the benefits of infotainment— the technique that allows event organisers to capture audience’s attention before the event and on-site.

It is worth mentioning that well designed and executed infotainment does not necessarily lead the loss of quality. Presenting content in a way that fascinates attendees and initiates a dialogue between all of the stakeholders is an essential step into their minds and builds a loyal community. The latest developments in event technology and the evolution of digital communication channels made it possible to boost infotainment to the next level by delivering content in a more engaging and timely manner. This can be achieved by using rich content and technology that evokes a strong emotional response.

The latest developments in event technology made it possible to boost infotainment to the next level by delivering content in a more engaging and timely manner.

Personally relevant and emotionally provoking — these are two defining characteristics of infotainment. Accordingly, the content delivered at live events must evoke an emotional response, be personalised and targeted to the particular interests of each attendee.

Pre-event infotainment

The goal of the pre-event infotainment is not to just provide entertaining information to familiarise attendees with the meeting program but also to create an environment in which people can share thoughts and become the co-creators of the future experience. Event applications are a great tool for sharing ideas and suggesting topics for discussions. Event management software, thanks to its integrated analytical features, allows managers and sponsors to get to know their audience better and at the same time makes it possible to personalise content.

Using technology at the pre-event infotainment stage not only allows to grow interest in the meeting but also to shape the event agenda. Managers and organisers can identify the attendees’ pain points as well as determine topics and speakers that generate greater interest.

In the world oversaturated with information, targeted content as well as more time and space for discussions is key to a successful pre-event campaign. Let your attendees entertain themselves by generating their own content, encourage participation on social media and push your audience to submit questions through the event app.

On-site infotainment

Inviting speakers who are experts in the field is essential for success of any event. However, infotainment implies that besides the ability to impart knowledge your speaker must also be a charismatic entertainer. To facilitate this and enhance the attendee experience, rich content such as videos or graphics can be introduced.

The information presented during a speech can be delivered in a more engaging way with the help of live scribing, a technique that allows speakers to create an emotional connection with their target audience.

What makes the content presented at live events different from the one found on the web or in an industry-specific magazine? The answer is obvious: the possibility to generate discussion with multiple people being involved in the real time. To achieve this, one needs to provide their audience with the best available tools that will enable live interaction such as live polling, a social wall or the ability to leave comments on the presentation slides. Delivering content in an engaging and dialogue-like manner will provide the attendees with an enhanced infotainment experience.

As mentioned previously, one of the major characteristics that makes the information relevant is its timely delivery. Make sure that the important updates and messages are sent on time to your attendees’ smart devices. Encourage the use of a dedicated event hashtag, mobile app alerts or push notifications. Remember that the alerts sent live must be relevant and to the point.

Without reaching the people’s hearts and minds most of the information is just a set of characters and sounds. Applying the concept of infotainment to live events can ensure that the story you are trying to tell will be heard. Using event technology gives you a way to build a bridge connecting a storyteller with the listener and makes it possible to deliver quality content in a timely and engaging fashion.

Creating engaging meetings: inform, educate, entertain through event tech was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many brands see event sponsorship as a way to increase visibility, build a good reputation and strengthen customer relationships. Although sponsoring a conference or a trade show can bring immense benefits to business owners, often the results of the investment do not meet one’s expectations.

In this article, we are going to look at the most common causes of a failed sponsorship and look at ways of avoiding them. But first, let us try to determine when sponsorship should be considered a failure.

The Return on Investment is a good indicator of event success, although at times difficult to measure. If the amount of money and efforts invested into a live experience do not bring a company the expected results, one can start talking about failure. Similarly, a sponsorship can be considered a failure when the event organiser is not able to demonstrate the value of the investment to the brand overall.

So what are the principal reasons that make brands fail as a sponsor?

1. Buying a sponsorship package as a product

How many times whilst looking for sponsorship opportunities you came across standardised, one-size-fits-all sponsorship packages? Most companies and associations split their offer into various categories or product-like packages. Each one of them includes a particular number of benefits for a set price.

According to the 2016 Associations Communications Benchmarking Report provided by Naylor Association Solutions, only 48% of associations offer some form of customization when it comes to sponsorship packages. Moreover, frequently this is only available for their best partners.

This is similar to buying biscuits in a supermarket — you pay the price and then choose between the options available. However, if you want to make something more suitable to your particular taste, you’ll have to buy the ingredients of your choice and bake it yourself.

Event sponsorship is not a commodity. It is an important investment, which requires work and dedication from both the event manager and the sponsor. Simply paying for packages with limited choices may not bring the desired results. Therefore, when deciding on what event to sponsor, be sure the organiser is ready to provide you with a tailored proposal as well as with the possibility to add the ‘ingredients’ you need in order to achieve your particular business objectives.

2. Not having a strategy

Many sponsors believe that the fact they invest money into an event will immediately boost their sales, increase their customer base and make the brand more recognisable. However, in most cases the reality is different. Paying for a sponsorship and doing nothing while expecting quick results is similar to waiting for a miracle to happen. Sponsorship is only a starting point in a long journey. Therefore, be sure you are off to a good start and have a long-term strategy ready in advance.

To begin with, identify the objectives and evaluate the potential effectiveness of your investment. Think carefully about what message you are going to deliver and which of the available communication channels you are going to use to win the attention of your target market. While standard branding opportunities might give you some additional exposure, without connecting directly with your audience your company logo on stage will be just another background image.

During the event, direct communication and timely created useful content must be a priority. Give your audience a chance to get to know you better by organising workshops, having a product presentation space and using speakers. Using event technology will help you to increase audience engagement on-site through real-time communication channels between the attendees and give you the possibility to share and exchange live content.

Building relationships with your customers and working on brand awareness is an ongoing process. Therefore, constant work and commitment are crucial after the event is over. Online communication channels like social media or a dedicated sponsored event app will help you grow the community, keep it engaged all-year round and encourage regular interaction with the brand.

3. Poor measurement of ROI/ROE

One of the biggest mistakes one can make when investing into a sponsorship is not having a clear understanding of the potential benefits in sponsoring this event. Nowadays, event technology allows sponsors and organisers to effectively measure both the return on investment and the return on engagement.

Characteristics such as brand awareness or word of mouth which were nearly impossible to measure a couple of years ago have become tangible thanks to social media and event applications. Brand reputation can now be evaluated by analysing the number of social media shares, capturing attendees’ feedback through real-time questionnaires and measuring engagement during and after the event with the help of event app analytics.

A failure always has reasons behind, and event industry is not an exception. If your sponsorship experience was not as effective as you expected it to be you must have done something wrong or haven’t done anything to make it a success.

“Buying” sponsorship package as a commodity, poor understanding of your particular goals and absence of a strategy to follow are the principal causes that push your efforts to the edge of the abyss. Well elaborated tactics, long-term involvement and implementation of the latest event tech solutions, on the other hand, will guarantee high audience engagement and bring positive results in the long run.

Why does event sponsorship fail? was originally published in Marketing And Growth Hacking on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sponsorship seems to retain its position as one of the most effective marketing tactics. This is clearly seen by looking at the growing global sponsorship expenditure. According to the report, the amount spent on sponsorship worldwide exceeded 60 billion dollars in 2016 and is projected to rise by 4.5% in 2017. Moreover, the expenditure has been constantly increasing over the last eight years. If companies are prepared to invest such vast amounts of money into this form of marketing the return they expect to receive must be worth it.

Nowadays, the value of the brand is determined by the loyalty of its customers. The focus has shifted from unidirectional advertising to building meaningful relationships. Event sponsorship gives companies an opportunity to achieve their objectives by connecting with their target audience through meaningful experiences. There is no doubt that sponsored workshops that provide learning opportunities or memorable face-to-face encounters are valued more than pop-up ads on a website.

Although the benefits of sponsorship for a brand are immense, very often companies are unable to get the most out of it as they fail to clearly see the range of opportunities available. Often event managers simply consider sponsorship as a way of paying for the event and securing income. While this approach might still work in a lot of cases, it prevents the organisers and sponsors from achieving the optimal results, often leading to unsatisfied attendees and “failed sponsorships”.

The solution might be shifting the priorities and seeing sponsorship as a strategic partnership. In other words, as an event manager, you should see yourself as a mediator between the two parties — the audience and the brand. You need to ensure that the former leave the event having learnt something and made valuable connections and the latter fulfilled their objectives.

The solution might be shifting the priorities and seeing sponsorship as a strategic partnership.

Below we provide some pieces of advice on how event technology can help you and your sponsors achieve a better return on investment and improve the sponsorship experience.

1. Understand the goals

Make sure that you have a clear idea about your sponsor’s’ objectives and your attendees’ goals. It is important to have an in-depth knowledge of your audience and its preferences as event attendees are the greatest source of value for your sponsor. Therefore, try to provide your sponsor with as much information about your audience as possible. This should include the number of participants, their demographics, interests and priorities.

Get to know your sponsor’s objectives and values. It is fundamental that you as an event manager understand what your sponsor is trying to achieve by funding the event. Remember that your sponsor is your partner and that your marketing strategy should fulfil their goals. Align the attendee expectations with the sponsor’s’ objectives and develop a unique strategy that will benefit both.

Here are some questions you might want to ask your event sponsor to better understand its goals and priorities.

• What is your target audience?
• What are your specific objectives for this event?
• How do you measure ROI?
• What ROI do you expect to achieve?
• How do you evaluate the return on engagement (ROE)?

Event tech, and particularly the data it provides, can help you greater understand your audience. Encourage questions through the event app or analyse the post-event feedback. Using a centralised communication tool will make it possible to match the attendees’ goals with the sponsor’s objectives as you will be able to see people’s reactions to sponsored content and workshops.

2. Educate your sponsor

Very often event managers forget about how important it is to explain to sponsors what are the benefits of investing into the event and educate them on how to create a meaningful connection with their target audience. It is essential not just to offer passive sponsorship packages, but to encourage your sponsors to actively participate and create unique event experiences.

Provide them with the information on previous events. Explain what worked best and suggest the strategy that will bring the optimal results. This will not only help increase the value of the event for all those attending but will also position your sponsor as a thought leader instead of an advertiser and improve the long-term return on their investment.

Technology can be a useful tool when gathering information on previous events. Using event management software or an event app with features such as data analytics and polls will give access to valuable insights on the attendees’ interests and popular discussion topics as well as gather targeted feedback.

3. Facilitate communication and networking

Events are all about sharing knowledge and building connections, and it’s your responsibility as an event organiser to make sure that your event sponsor will have the opportunities to interact with the audience during and after the event.

Face-to-face interaction is the gem of any relationship. Therefore, providing your sponsor with space for conversation and collaboration is more effective than placing logos around the venue. It provides the company with the opportunity to build real relationships with the attendees and not just make their brand logo more memorable.

While in-person interaction at the event is a great opportunity for the sponsor to get to know their customers, the relationships must be supported and nurtured after the event is over. Creating an online community around the brand through a sponsored event app is a great way for the sponsor to stay in touch with their customers.

4. Justify the investment

This helps sponsors get a clear understanding of the benefits received for the money they spend.

Depending on their goals, provide your sponsors with data on the event performance, and analyse the main indicators of their success. The return on investment and the return on engagement should be considered when evaluating the results. Remember that evaluating success will help you to justify the investment. At the same time analysing failures will enable you and your sponsors to make better decisions in the future.

CRM and event management software facilitate evaluation of the short-term financial gains. At the same time, it allows you to turn the audience engagement into a tangible metric and get a precise numeric equivalent for your sponsor’s brand reputation (ROE).

A key to a successful sponsorship experience is to look at the sponsorship as a strategic partnership. This approach allows one to consider the sponsor’s goals and objectives when creating a marketing strategy for an event or a conference. Latest event tech solutions help better understand the audience needs, create an effective communication channel and demonstrate both short- and long-term returns on the investment. Consequently, these will increase the event value for the event sponsor and guarantee future successful partnerships for the organisers.

Sponsorship as a partnership was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every action has an opposite reaction or, in other words, if you push something it may push back. This, of course, is a very simplified description of Newton’s third law. The truth is, this law can be applied to our daily encounters and not just the physical forces surrounding us. Throughout history the above rule proved us right again and again through social and political movements, tendencies in art and literature or trends in fashion and design.

Minimalism, as an artistic movement, was no exception. The style originated with the American visual art in the 1960s and emerged as a reaction against the rebellious and anarchic abstract works of expressionists. Soon it expanded to design and architecture, and finally its core principles became a life choice. Minimalistic lifestyle has evolved in response to consumerism and excessive acquisition of goods and services in the second half of the 20th century. One could argue that rapid globalisation and the change in our life pace has resulted in the emergence of this “opposite force”.

Towards simplification

Minimalistic tendencies not only influence certain social cultures but also impact the modern digital world. This is clearly seen in how the flat graphical user interface (UI) design with its simple elements, typography and colours came to replace the realistic design style, which was complicated by visual elements and textures.

It is becoming apparent that in the world of mobile apps the market saturation has resulted in reduced usage. Smartphone users have a high turnover rate for applications. They do not use most of them after downloading and even paying for them. People are becoming more picky and exigent when browsing through the app stores. According to a study published on Statista.com, the number of mobile apps downloaded worldwide grew drastically from 4.5 billion in 2010 to almost 270 billion downloads in 2017. However, an average smartphone user would only use 26 apps per month and only 5 of them on a regular basis.

Event apps are becoming a big part of event tech today and that’s why it may be important to start considering simplicity and minimalism when choosing an event tech provider.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

This was the early slogan at Apple Computer. Distinctive and user-friendly design together with the clear understanding of the essence of each product and its features were the main contributing factors that led to the company’s success. Maybe it is about time we start thinking about minimalistic aesthetics when choosing an event app? A simple and functional design will make it easier and quicker for the attendees to adopt the new technology. An intuitive user interface will reduce the time needed to get used to the app and will improve the overall experience for your audience.

Maybe it is about time we start thinking about minimalistic aesthetics when choosing an event app?

Concierge-style chatbots could help simplify event technology. Unlike the widespread event apps where a typical graphical UI is used, chatbots interact with the user through a simple and familiar conversational interface. Attendees can submit questions via chat and voice commands and receive an instant conversation-like automated response.

However, just like with any new promising technology, one has to wait and see whether it takes off. It is unlikely that the intelligent bot is going to replace event apps anytime soon, but it can be a useful addition, especially for the less tech-savvy audience. The advantage of chat bots is that they do not require installation and can be accessed through another messenger app already installed on the attendees’ smartphones. This obviously makes the experience even simpler for all those attending.

Getting the most, using the least

More work does not mean more effectiveness and a sophisticated web design will not guarantee a greater user experience. In the same way, a high number of app features neither makes the technology more user-friendly nor guarantees a higher level of adoption.

The Pareto principle states that approximately 80% of output is caused by 20% of input. Hypothetically, 80% of a company’s profit is most likely to come from 20% of its clients or products. Projecting this rule onto the event tech plane suggests that 80% of audience engagement comes from 20% of the features used.

In reality, the fact that an event app has a large number of sophisticated features does not mean this will result in higher adoption rates among the event attendees. As an event manager one should ask: What app features are used the most during my events? And consequently, reduce the number of unnecessary and ineffective tools.

Having to adopt a novel app interface with dozens of features can be overwhelming and instigate the so called “cobra effect”.

Although adding additional features may seem at first like an excellent opportunity to provide a better event experience to all those attending, the results might be the opposite to what was expected. Event attendees are already busy with trying to follow the schedule and planning their networking activities for the day. Having to adopt a novel app interface with dozens of features can be overwhelming and instigate the so called “cobra effect”. The law of unintended consequences will lead to a reduction in the event app adoption rates and you will be left scratching your head about what could have possibly gone wrong.

Remember that the primary reasons for people attending live events are networking and communication, and therefore the fundamentals of your event app must be based on the features that will encourage communication and content sharing, such as:

• Discussion and Q&A boards
• Speaker and attendee lists
• Direct messaging and meeting tools
• Social media integration

In the growing world of event technology event organisers should try to bet on simplicity. Event apps are there to make everyone’s lives easier and events more effective and enjoyable. Certainly not to burden the attendees with complicated visual designs or dozens of unnecessary tools. At TapFuse we believe that simple and intuitive solutions are going to be the ones that will transform the event industry to the greatest extent.

Why less is more when it comes to event technology was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It is difficult to underestimate the advantages of live events as marketing channels. Events facilitate communication between brands and their customers, build relationships, create communities and increase public awareness. However, in spite of being a great promotional tool, their impact can be difficult to measure.

When a company or a brand decide to invest a chunk of their marketing budget into events they have to evaluate their success or failure. That’s where Return on Investment (ROI) and Return on Engagement (ROE) come into play.

So what is ROI and why is it important?

Wikipedia defines ROI as: “the benefit to an investor resulting from an investment of some resource”. Calculating the ROI helps the event organisers convince sponsors that their investment makes sense by determining the number of tickets sold, booths occupied and revenues obtained.

However, short term financial gain is not the only reason for organising events. Events help increase brand strength, release a new product with style or further develop those valuable customer relationships. If an event aims to improve brand performance in the long run through increasing awareness and creating trust among its customers, solely considering financial indicators (ROI) of success does not give the best insight into the customer’s journey and the brand experience. In this case the qualitative metric of the Return on Engagement (ROE) needs to be considered.

An engaged audience is much more likely to take actions: browse through a company’s website, buy their products or recommend the brand to their friends and family, and consequently create better value in the long run. The aim of ROE is to determine the impact of the event on the brand strength in terms of audience participation, perceptual change or company visibility.

However, measuring one’s ROE might seem like a tough task to accomplish as interaction and networking at an event are difficult to quantify using the standard tools available. That’s why choosing the right event tech tools allows an event manager to capture and evaluate the important data on audience engagement.

One of the most important event technologies to get right is managed WiFi, which allows event organisers to use interactive platforms such as live polling or event apps to engage with the audience.

Event apps are a great tool for keeping the audience engaged on-site and after the event is over. Moreover, they not only increase the engagement and consequently improve the ROE but also allow to keep track of the data that reflects customers’ involvement and satisfaction such as:

• Adoption rate
• Number of conversations generated
• Social media shares
• Number of pageviews (profiles or sponsors pages)
• Post-event surveys
• Discussions

Live polling and Q&A stimulate interaction between speakers and attendees and at the same time create a collaborative learning environment. The results displayed in real time during sessions generate discussions and grab the audience’s attention.

Another technology that is worth considering when trying to increase ROE is digital scribing. Digital scribing, or graphic facilitation, is a process of transforming words into visually appealing stories. Visually rich content created in real time at an event keeps the attendees engaged and creates an emotional connection between visitors and speakers. As we all know emotions generate engagement which consequently leads to higher ROE.

To conclude, while measuring financial success is important, short term financial gains are not always the sole goal of event professionals. Very often an engaged and loyal audience is much more valuable. Using the right technology at events allows both sponsors and organisers to significantly increase audience engagement and improve ROE.

At TapFuse we strive to help event professionals achieve greater engagement with their audience and a greater return on investment. For this reason, we endeavour to deliver the best and the most user friendly event tech solutions. What makes this possible is combining our efforts with event tech specialists who are experts in their particular fields. Working in partnership with the pro wifi service provider Simpli-Fi and digital scribing gurus SmartUp Visuals we are able to help event organisers achieve higher ROI and ROE and transform ordinary events into engaging and fully connected experiences.

Originally published in the Conference News (April 2017)

Attendees’ engagement matters. From ROI to ROE was originally published in Talking Event Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.