News & Views

Three Tech Tools for Event Success: Before, During, and After

March 1, 2016 | By: DCI

Have you read our recent post on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for events? High-tech innovations certainly make an impact in producing flashy, unforgettable events; however, facilitating face-to-face interactions and new relationships must remain a primary focus for event planners. Fortunately, there are  plenty of tech tools that can assist in strengthening an event’s performance in these areas as well.

These three innovations will aid in streamlining your next event from start to finish.

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Participation Matchmaking

One of the ultimate goals of any event is to make new connections. In order to create the most effective and efficient use of the networking experience, a substantial amount of prep work ahead of time is done to gather background information on attendees in order to make the best first impression – from stalking company biographies, LinkedIn profiles  and Twitter feeds, to anything Google could reveal.  After all that prep work, who has time to study everything uncovered? Enter the new generation of “Participation Matchmaking.” Websites and apps will do all of this research for you, so you can focus on the important things: learning more about the people you are meeting with and making actual connections with these people.

For example, Charlie sifts through hundreds of sources and automatically sends you a one-pager on everyone you are going to meet with at the event. The app, or website, uses sources such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Google+, Facebook, etc, and in just a few clicks, you can have it working its magic for you. The only downside that is the app is only compatible with a Google Calendar, so this might be the reason to start switching your appointments over to Google! Another similar platform, Intros, provides more reporting functionality so that you can capture networking data to analyze the connections that are being made at your event and the conversion to sales.

 

 

Real-Time Event Management

Event organizers can use apps, social media and digital command centers to interact with guests in real time and respond to their needs and requests on the spot, creating a new conversation between organizers and attendees. This new level of interaction also challenges event organizers to be more flexible to their attendees’ needs where reasonable, creating an overall higher level of engagement and satisfaction. Most event apps include a designated section for an “Event Concierge Service” that acts as a messaging service for guests and organizers to answer any questions or provide feedback during the event in real time.

 

 

 

Virtual Swag Bags

Tired of spending countless hours and substantial budget putting together hundreds of gift bags to give out to guests at the end of the night, only to wonder if they even use any of the items provided? Or worse, if any of your brands’ prized products wound up in the trash like yesterday’s news? There are two companies, Eventbaxx  and VirtualEventBags, who are disrupting this event norm by turning them into Virtual Swag Bags.  Here’s how it works:

1. Create: First, you and your partners select the giveways that you will be providing to your guests, and the possible coupons, customized codes, media ads, videos, high res photos, and social media. You can even have the content filled by sponsors at a cost by sending them an invitation to the virtual gift bag creation website. Then you upload all these files.
2. Share: Once the bag is complete, you import the attendee list to the website or generate a customized e-mail template and share the Virtual Swag Bag. It can be shared before, during or after the event.
3. Analyze: Once you’ve shared the Virtual Swag Bag, success can be tracked in real time with data analysis to verify ROI. Measure general and specific stats for each piece of content from exhibitors, partners or sponsors, or the bag as a whole. Export the results and share the success with the entire team.

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What other innovations will you be including in your events this year? We’d love to hear from you! #eventprofs #meetingprofs