AppBurst’s “Best Event Industry Articles” series aims to share insight related to the event industry from around the internet with a focus on mobile technology. Content sources range from event industry-specific blogs to major technology websites and everything in between. Along with original Apps For Events blog posts, we hope these summaries serve to better educate our readers on mobile technology and the many benefits of event apps.

Volume 6 articles come from Velvet Chainsaw, Event Manager Blog, and Business 2 Community.

Three Secret Ingredients of Event Content Marketing

Events are all about shared content and mapping out goals to best convey information to attendees is vital. Everything from creating catchy session titles to adding Q&A’s for increasing audience takeaways can make a big difference. Innovation to improve content marketing also fits the idea of going mobile with an easily accessible agenda and speaker information: 

“Take a look at the agenda before arriving at the event to see which sessions and speakers make the most sense for you to see… Make every event useful (and not a waste of your time and money) by making a connection with the sessions you sit in on.” Read more. 

Attendees also have a responsibility to take the initiative; urging people to perform due diligence before the event is made even easier with a mobile event app containing complete program information and speaker details like bios, related sessions, and abstracts. 

Reasons Attendees are Resistant to Changes

Change is typically a great thing for events, yet event planners and organizers need to understand when attendees resist change and when it might be better to keep things the same. Balancing the process of keeping old attendees happy with attracting new ones attendees with innovative changes is an important consideration. 

“As conferences grow, they become different events over time. That difference is not necessarily good or bad. However, the event is not the same as it was in the past.” Read more. 

In addition to a loss of familiarity, six other reasons why an event’s current attendees might be resistant to changes are discussed from loss of memories and comfort levels to feeling rushed as sessions become shorter, much can take away from the old days. Utilize event app polling and surveys to ask loyal attendees what they like most about the event and make sure to keep these elements whenever possible. Feel free to evolve, but not at the expense of existing attendees. 

Push Notifications Drive a Mobile App’s Success

Recent studies about mobile app engagement and retaining users show a strong correlation between push messages and user longevity. The takeaways are especially pertinent for event planners and organizers hoping to turn an event app into a year-round tool; a process that requires engagement outside of the popular event month. 

“App engagement is heavily determined by a user’s decision to accept or decline push notifications…After 90 days, one third of users who accepted push notifications were still using the app, compared to just 11% who didn’t. Mobile marketers have a huge incentive to encourage users to opt in and continue to use their app because push notifications are so integral in app engagement and customer retention.” Read more. 

Users also launch an app almost three times as much per month when they have accepted push alerts. Make building early trust a priority to keep attendees on board with push notifications; show the value of an event app beyond the meeting or conference itself with evergreen content. 

Seven Friends Every Successful Event Planner Needs 

Plenty of experts are needed to ensure the best possible meeting, conference, or trade show. Using a lawyer to draft contracts and finding a great travel agent larger groups come to mind, but so too are friends possibly found via a mobile app development company: a technically savvy contact and a graphic designer. 

Working with a mobile app development company offering in-house graphic designers gives event planners an extra resource for everything from designing splash screen and app icon graphics to ensuring the theme and color schemes in the app fit applicable branding.

“[A graphic designer’s] assistance extends beyond their obvious ability as a service provider… They can also weigh in on the UX and UI of your.. event apps.” Read more.

A product specialist tasked with managing a mobile app project can also be a go-to resource for tech-related questions and have a “true understanding of the technical side of events [to] open you up to innovations and connections you may never have considered on your own.”