Mobile apps are in the mainstream today, the question for the event organizers is not whether “do I need an event app to leverage on the event?” but rather “how does one improve the user experience through a mobile app and with the right content?”
You can maximize the leverage on your event by creating great content, which can significantly generate online interest for the event, as well as extend its life cycle and recall value. Let’s now delve into how you can plan and deliver your event content to create an engaging event.
Planning your Event APP content
Content planning can involve different strategies, depending on the goals of the event, which can start with:
Setting The Objectives
Do you need to persuade, to inform, to include, to join the event? Make the plan as detailed as possible, include numbers and other tangible measurements to ensure you can monitor and know when you get to the respective milestones. For example, if you are organising a local concert, then define the needs you have: reach 100K users (target audience – explained later) within November 15th with an expected ticket conversion rate of 1% (1000).
Are there other sub-objectives?
- Cross-selling of products or services to event attendees.
- Building your database for the future events etc.
Tip: Spend time at this stage, make sure you get an agreement from all the stakeholders before finalising the objectives and be sure that the set goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed (SMART Objectives). Once set, email all the stakeholders to be sure to document what was agreed to get them all on the same page.
Defining The Target Audience (TA)
The next step towards content planning is defining the target audience for your event app. Which of the event participants will be served most by the event app? Mostly, the answer to this is the “event attendees”. Following are a few questions that one must keep in mind when defining the target audience.
Start building your buyer persona:
- Demographics: Age, gender, location, income level, education, marital status and other details you deem important.
- Personality traits: attitude, values, lifestyle, interest and hobbies etc.
From the above, look at your current database on how many such users you can target and do you have enough target population to reach the magic mark (100K users based on the earlier example
). If the target users do not reach the required number (100K) you may need to modify the sub-objectives into “acquire new users” and “target existing users”, and respective goals.
Tip: You can increase your demographic set by understanding who are your competitors targeting and their customers. You can also identify current gaps in their campaign or bring in a new target segment if they fit into the equation.
Using Content Marketing Metrics
Identifying key metrics is vital for the content sharing success. An understanding of what is on track or not at the start of the campaign will help to measure your success objectively.
- Consumption metrics, which indicates the view or download rate of the event content.
- Share metrics, which indicates the number of shares for the content.
- Lead generation metrics, which indicates if the content has generated any leads for the event.
- Sales metrics, which indicates the number of event registrations from the various forms of content.
Delivering your Event content
Improving your attendees’ event experience is critical, not just for the event goals, but also empowering them with helpful information at their fingertips. The right event app for attendees is the right medium, capturing the essence of the event, thus enabling their ability to:
- Recall and share the event online, or with their friends or colleagues.
- Use their gained insights (through presentation slides, handouts, and notes) to understand the event better.
- Engage with the event and the organisers consistently.
Content Types
Content that you produce should answer general user questions about the event: why would they, (TA), be interested in your event? How can your content help them make a decision to purchase/promote?
Understand the content funnels and types, start with:
- Promotional campaigns: Are you offering some early discounts? And why should they purchase? Notification can be used here to talk about new content. This can also be presented using a landing page (or a promotional template).
- Exclusive campaigns: Create exclusive content based on your objectives and the target audience. For example, millennials are known to love video content that is entertaining and engaging. Others can include infographics, illustrations and photos.
- Social activity campaigns: Push content when their friends and followers perform an activity, to generate interest or desired result. Encourage conversation among the users (do not forget to moderate).
- Re-Permission campaigns: Reminders when they have exited the app without the desired result, e.g: Push Notifications – Retargeting your interested users should be one of your main strategies here.
- Transactional Campaigns: An interaction that leads to some transaction, a sign-up / purchase etc. Make sure your messaging is accurate and clear on the goals you want to achieve.
- Event details: It is easy to miss concentrating on the event details with all the promotion that is around. Do not forget to craft a great “events page” with all the required details, descriptions, videos, pictures, FAQs and any other content you feel is important (do the brainstorming).
Understand that majority of your users may come from outside the app. A strategy that helps to bring new users to the event part of the app can be useful.
- Which social media channels are appropriate for this type of content?
- What type of content should be delivered into each of these channels?
- Do you want to leverage email marketing?
Tip 1: The content needs to be app friendly and brief, especially when targeting an impatient generation. So, know your target audience and design your content accordingly.
Tip 2: The key is to choose the right campaigns/mediums for the objectives at hand, and not what is popular. For example, the Boeing current market outlook app by the aeroplane company is not here to sell planes on their app, but to provide interested users with the right information, to put a human face to their operations. So, the objective of each company may differ.
Content Calendar
Scheduling all the tasks including who does what is important, but keeping to it is even more critical. Sending timely calendar events to participants before the event, including first invites, follow-ups regarding confirmation, and reminders. The calendar planning must happen once at the planning stage, and the details need to be revisited when the content types and campaigns are agreed upon.
Tip 1: Keep the various content funnel templates (content at various stages) ready in advance. Running campaigns (delivery of content) and production (creation of content) at the same time creates speed mismatch and puts additional pressure on the teams.
Tip 2: Consider making the content easily viral: content outreach can be easily increased tenfold by making it easy to share and via marketing platforms.
Tip 3: Post regularly, make sure you control the frequency. The content should not be too frequent or otherwise.
Conclusion
A successful content strategy for your event app is about reaching your target audience at the right time and frequency. For this to happen, quantify your plan, involve all stakeholders, develop a content strategy, put-in a milestone check, measure and communicate. The key is making a plan, timely checks and improvising (backed by data) as needed.
About Us
Aidaio’s platform focusses 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. Visit our website www.aidaio.com/event-app to know more or write to us at [email protected]
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