Listen up trade shows, conference and event producers!
We work with event planners in all industries – daily. We’ve been in the business of attending trade show or conferences for years. Kim and I both have experiences in operating events, in fact, one of Kim’s events that she started in Phoenix over 16 years ago, is still going strong even through she hasn’t been involved with it in many years.
We understand its tough for sponsors to quantify ROI for exhibiting at trade shows. Companies have only so much money in the budget to spend each year and event producers and planners are looking for added value to sponsorships and mobile is seen as a way to reach out to engage with attendees.
Sponsorships to Mobile = Attendee Engagement Soars
What can sponsors expect when adding value by integrating mobile to sponsorship packages?
As a trade show host or producer there are things you can do to provide more opportunity to enable sponsorships to want to use mobile.
[PODCAST 32: Trade show sponsorships – Why they’ll choose YOUR event!]
The easiest way (at least in our opinion) is to offer mobile updates and tracking option for sponsors. Whether to include it in the base price of the sponsor package or as an upsell; its up to event producers to know exhibitors and sponsors well enough to determine what is going to make more sense from a selling standpoint to close them on buying into the platform.
How do mobile updates work when they’re combined with trade shows?
Similar as the same strategy used for grouping attendees, mobile updates are based on the same strategies integrated to mobile making it easy to deliver an mobile-first experience.
Group attendees by type:
- regular attendees
- VIPs
- speakers
- volunteers
- sponsors
- exhibitors
Set up the mobile update passes to work in conjunction with an events confirmation emails include the correct link to initiate the ads to the mobile wallet from the beginning.
This is the time that attendees are going to follow directions with the least amount of resistance.
A basic “ticket” pass gives the opportunity to engage and communicate with each created group or as a whole with mobile updates. When its time to send a reminder about the event, its as convenient as filling out a form.
Remember that these mobile updates are seen on the smartphone lock screens.
Adding this strategy should start well in advance and continue on after the event. This is an opportunity to feature different sponsors while keeping attendees up to date on what is happening prior to the event. By rotating and changing up links – all attendees are URLs are tracked by the sponsors , providing a better ROI.
Mobile updates keep everyone in the loop – When?
During your show:
- attendees will get reminders of what’s next on the agenda;
- sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers will know what’s happening when something changes (along with attendees)
- sponsors can continue to track the URL from mobile updates
After your show:
- Engagement continues on by sending thank you messages based on categories
- survey requests with one tap
- Sponsors mobile offers for a limited time using specific link
[PODCAST 14: Learn to use mobile event tickets to gain more sponsorships]
This is a phenomenal way for sponsors to track ROI and for event producers to track engagement, easier than typing in URLs as attendees walk through an event.
These strategies provide event producers and sponsors added value to help them determine the success of the event. Providing them with the means to easily monitor their success at your show or conference is not something they are seeing every day.