Written by Miranda May
You’ve got that big event coming up that you’ve been planning for a while; perhaps it’s a tradeshow, a conference, or a networking event, and you want it to run as smoothly as possible. With over one-third of US adults owning smart phones (Pew Research Center, 2011), it’s safe to say that investing in a mobile app will significantly make a difference in the success of your event. With a multitude of app features to choose from, you can customize your app to suite the needs of any event. With today’s advancement in mobile technology, the sky is the limit! Many people ask us, “But what app features will make my event a success?” or “How can I convince them to download it?” We’ve put together the top five mobile app features that have proven to be a sure hit at a variety of events.
1. Map – You want to give your attendees a reason to pull out their phone and use your app (“Where am I going next?”). Providing your guests with a map will ensure that your guests will know how to navigate around the venue. This is great for larger events, like tradeshows, expos or conferences. When paired with geo-location services, your guests will also be able to see their exact location, in real time. The easier it is for your guests to navigate around your event, the smoother (and less hectic!) things will run.
2. Schedule — As your guests prepare for the event, they will want to know what speakers, performers, or other important activities will be available to them and when. From prior events, we’ve noticed that one of the most clicked app features is the schedule. This is also a great way to predict the attendance of your event, as your attendees will want to download the app prior to your event to plan out their activities.
3. Tweet Wall — With a Tweet wall, your attendees will be able to participate in the conversation with your event’s appropriate hashtag via their Twitter handles. Even if a user does not attend the event, he or she can still participate in the conversation and get a current newsfeed during the event via the app. Through this, your guests will be encouraged to share their thoughts, photos/videos about the event; thus, bringing more attention to it across social media platforms.
4. Scavenger Hunts — Why not make your event fun? We’ve noticed a great deal of success in features like this. Placing QR codes around your event, and encouraging your guests to scan the code to redeem points encourages your guests to roam around your venue and discover everything it has to offer. You can reward your guests with prizes, or enter them in a drawing for reaching a certain number of points. Thus, this feature pushes your attendees to use the app throughout the event.
5. Networking — There’s nothing more frustrating than loosing an important contact’s business card from an event (“Where did I put that thing?”). A networking feature can certainly avoid this issue and make networking much easier for your attendees. A feature like this can assign each user a unique QR code that is linked to his/her personal information. Within the app, users can save other contacts by quickly scanning other guests’ QR codes. Once the code is scanned, the contact is automatically saved in the app, just like that. With this, your guests can stop worrying about that plethora of business cards they have to hold onto, and start focusing more on the event itself. This feature can be exceptionally successful at all types of networking events; including conferences, meet-ups, expos and more.
Lastly, if you’re interested in increasing the event revenue out of your app, then you want to have banners, which third parties can sponsor. This, if used in conjunction with the five suggested features above, will surely make your event a success. For more information about Parallel 6 or the features that we can incorporate into your next event app, please click HERE.
