All About Attendee Data
Knowing your audience is essential to planning. Knowing how to gather, filter and use attendee information is also crucial. Our webcast panel will reveal:
- Little known data processes
- Expert tools you should be using
- How to stay compliant with GDPR
Register now to participate in our March webcast.
Collecting attendee data is crucial for many reasons, chief among them is that a better understanding of your audience helps you tailor events accordingly. It's also essential in helping to define the value of the event. What's more, with today's event technology, data collection extends well beyond registration platforms and surveys.
Knowing which tools you need to measure the event data that matters most can streamline the process. It's the reason the subject is the centerpiece of our upcoming, CMP-credit webcast, "Audience Data: How to Get It and How to Use It". Our expert panel will answer your specific data-capturing questions and suggest processes and approaches that can be applied to a variety of meetings.
Ahead of the March 11, 2020 webcast, we explore seven ways beyond registration systems and post-event surveys to capture the event data that matters the most.
Event Mobile Apps
Event apps have made the whole journey of collecting the data at events easier, says the team at Hubilo, an event management software company. Effective event apps allow for the collection of engagement analytics by facilitating data through mediums such as Q&A sessions, live polling, session check-ins/RSVPs and gamification opportunities.
The event analytics grabbed from a mobile app can be used to better understand your attendees. For example, you'll be able to see how many people showed interest in certain speakers, or which exhibitors generated the most foot traffic on the trade show floor. This will help determine interest areas across different audience types.
Social Media Engagement
You can use social media analytics tools to maximize the reach of your event marketing. The Eventsforce team, for example, uses analytic tools that measure engagement numbers on their social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Using tools like Hootsuite, Eventsforce explains you can do things like see which platforms are the most effective in reaching your key audience, find out what content your followers are sharing and what they are engaging with. You can also assess conversions such as event registrations, sign ups, downloads or whatever you're looking to track.
Event Credentials
The Marketing Scope team equips its event credentials -- usually a badge or wristband -- with a QR code or embedded RFID chip. Both store data about the attendee and can be scanned at certain points and for various purposes throughout the event.
For example, attendees might need to scan credentials in order to enter a reception or a dining area. Or they might scan credentials in order to participate in an activity. The information gathered through each medium will again help you determine the most frequented aspects of your event.
CRM Software
CRM software (or event automation tools) are at the core of event data. CRM software offers a centralized system for capturing, tracking and reporting on real-time information including registration, ticket sales, email marketing, digital marketing, sessions success, etc.
Hublio says their planners use CRM to access aspects such as outstanding attendee payments recorded in their organization's finance systems.
Appointment Capturing
Did someone stop by a booth or engage in conversation with an exhibitor? During its events, the sales team at tech website Venture Beat enters notes and insights about one-to-one appointments happening in real-time. Those notes are then synced with follow-up systems that will personalize post-event feedback surveys.
Venture Beat explains that understanding the combination of leads -- who's casually stopping by a booth, who's having a more in-depth discussion via an appointment -- all define interest that you can use in both event marketing follow-up and to continuing conversations that began at the event.
Chatbots
Chatbots are relatively new across the industry and allow attendees to have conversations with event planners (via artificial intelligence surrogates) using platforms like the event website, Facebook Messenger or the text-messaging feature of their smartphones. According to Eventsforce, South by Southwest used a chatbot to provide attendees with automated assistance on demand.
More than 16,000 app users submitted 56,000 questions to the bot. As well as personalizing the attendee's event experience, all interactions and notifications on the chatbot are logged and available for analysis and reporting. Standard reports include usage by messaging channel, unique users, messages grouped by topics, notifications, external link clicks, human assisted requests and conversation updates.
Reviewing Data
The team at Connex, a multi-site facilities network, knows that data is essential in making more informed decisions. The power of data capturing, analysis and visualization can help bring your event to the next level.
Shana Thomas, Connex director of global events technology and marketing will join together with Ian Sequeira, vice president of research and measurement, Freeman, for Northstar Meetings Group's March 11 webcast, "Audience Data: How to Get it & How to Use It". Register now to get all of your attendee data questions and concerns answered.