You’re exploring event apps for your next event, but you’re unsure whether attendees will download your app? Do you feel that event marketing for your app can take up much of your time and effort?
According to EventManagerBlog, 29% of event professionals reported less than 35% of their attendees downloaded their event app. This is a real problem! Our experience shows that event engagement increases when at least 50% of your attendees download the app. Event apps can boost attendee engagement by over 77%. Event apps also offer many tangible benefits for event organizers. Leveraging event apps can help you realize significant ROI from your events. We have seen that with some simple app promotion strategies, you can ensure upto 65% downloads pre-event.
Event App adoption
Yet most organisers feel that app marketing is an additional task at hand. Given your hectic schedules especially closer to the date of the event, you may feel overwhelmed with the task of promoting apps. Yet, to ensure that attendees download event apps, an app promotion strategy is a must.
The good news is that event app promotion is not such a hard task. There is but a little effort involved in ensuring app downloads.
Plugging in app promotion as part of event marketing strategy can help you create a much better impact.
App promotion methods are subjective to the type of your event. Listed below are some of the simple event marketing steps for your app that we recommend . Consider these for promoting app downloads and adoption.
App availability before event – Ensure apps are available for download at least 2 weeks before your event. Look for event apps that offer the flexibility to change content without the need to publish the app to the app stores. Also see the event app with rich, relevant event information. Your attendees don’t want to download an app that is blank, and with no relevant content.
Email marketing about the app – When you send out EDMs to your attendees, speakers, and sponsors, include a short highlight about the event app. Sending out one or more exclusive emailers detailing why your attendees need to download the event app can also be helpful. Plan for these EDMs in the 2 weeks lead up to your event so it stays fresh in your attendee’s mind.
Integrate with Social Campaigns – Looking at app promotion as an isolated activity is a rookie mistake. When you have your social handles, print & broadcast media active, you don’t need to look further. Plug in your app promotion content into these channels. Introduce event app details
Familiarity – When you are familiar with the features of your event app you can influence your audience effectively. If you don’t use the event app yourself, it can be quite pointless to ask your audience to do so. So make sure you and your on-ground team downloads and actively use the app.
Content – Keep your app content up-to-date. Keep your attendees’ interest alive even pre-event. Publish event trivia, photos from event planning, quotes from speakers, and all event related updates. Make sure that your attendees look forward to seeing fresh content every day. Interesting, relevant and timely content is a great way to trigger app promotions.
Incentivize attendees – Educating attendees about the value of the event app is one way to trigger app promotions. In addition, you should also consider other incentives. Offer special discounts, goodies, VIP check-in, special seating. Running contests in the app for early adopters can help create a buzz, that could trigger organic downloads.
At-venue app signage – Make your event app visible. Provide a chance to download the app during the event. Printed posters of the app at registration desks, QR codes to app URL on delegate kits, app details on event background displays, short announcements etc. can help promote adoption.
In-session promotions – Reminding attendees to rate sessions or post questions will encourage app usage and downloads during the event.
Create a community – Don’t stop at pushing information. You want your attendees to engage with your content. Once you reach a certain threshold of users on the app, start publishing polls, or posts seeking inputs from your audience. Use data from these polls to attract other attendees to also download and participate in the event community.
Conclusion
Do not just focus on creating an event app – focus on creating the experience around your event app. Promoting an event app does not need to be an isolated activity. When you channelise a small percentage of your event marketing efforts to include event app promotion, it can positively impact app adoption.
About Us
The AidaIo platform is focused on driving engagement and getting you up close and personal with your audience. We have built a suite of features to create interaction and engagement. If you’re looking for more ideas on rolling out an event app for your next event, visit our website www.aidaio.com. You can also write to us at [email protected]
