Whilst pre-event and post-event strategies warrant plenty of attention, it’s on-the-day that really counts towards event success.
If too much time and resources are spent on the pre-event marketing experience of would-be registrants and not enough time on actual on-the-day experience for your actual attendees, then you could miss your event’s goals completely.
Marketing Automation platforms make pre-event and post-event management a total breeze, and the good news is that, with the right tools (and the right platform), you can also manage events and registrations in real-time – improving the overall seamless, nurturing experience for those attending your event.
Real-time event management involves a huge amount of admin, that when executed manually can result in a huge workload for the poor soul/s assigned to the task. With Marketing Automation managing your event on the day becomes easier and less accident-prone, and performing management tasks online will also give a boost to your event’s results.
Let’s take a look at ways to manage your events and registration in real-time, using Marketing Automation software:
Mark Attendance Without Paper or Error
Marking attendance should be simple and straightforward. But with a clipboard in hand, and a queue of impatient registrants waiting for you to find their name amongst countless papers, marking attendance can be messy, stressful, time-consuming and prone to human error.
Some event managers give up on marking attendance completely when carrying out the task manually ends up failing them. The problem here is that knowing exactly who attended your event helps with analysing the success of your event and improving registration conversion rates for future events. It also makes a huge difference to attendee experience. If you know who attended, then you can send them post-event communications; continuing to nurture trust between your brand and your contacts.
If you’re managing your event online, using Marketing Automation software, you can improve on all the above issues by simply marking attendance with the real-time tools available to you.
At Swift Digital, for example, our Event Management tools allow you to either scan the QR codes on incoming attendees’ tickets as they arrive (which automatically marks them as ‘attended’ on the platform), or you can use online registrant lists, and ‘check’ them off directly for attendance. You might even save yourself the trouble by asking attendees to ‘check’ their checkbox themselves as they arrive. This means no long queues for your attendees, less work for your event managers, and practically zero human errors.
Make Fast, On-Site Registrations
Has someone showed up to your event who didn’t register? With fast online ad-hoc registration, either an Event Manager or the new guest themselves can fill out some quick details and hit submit.
On most Marketing Automation platforms, you’re able to make last minute ad-hoc registrations within the platform. This means you won’t miss valuable contacts who’ve just shown up. They’ll be added to attendee lists, and are therefore available for further nurturing and conversion.
Notify Registrants of Last Minute Changes without Hiccups
Is one of your guest speakers no longer able to make it? Have you had a last minute venue change? Is there a special parking venue that you’ve only just found out about?
On-the-day changes can lead to miscommunication, stress, and mess. But with integrated SMS marketing (such as the SMS module available in Swift Digital’s Marketing Automation platform), contacting your guests with last minute info is a breeze.
This is why conducting event management online makes the whole process of real-time management so much easier, and smoother. If you’ve got all your confirmed registrants available in a targetable list, then you’re able to target them with a “the venue has changed!” update via SMS in time before your guests show up at the wrong place.
This does mean collecting mobile numbers at registration, but with a quick note on the form outlining that their number is used for event updates only, your registrants will be willing and grateful.
Use Notifications to Further Improve Attendee Experience
Using SMS as part of your Event Management can also help with improving attendee experience, by using SMS communications as real-time notifications.
This involves some pre-event prep, but why not consider personalising your event’s experience for each registrant?
If your event is a larger one, with multiple talks, or workshops happening simultaneously – why not ask registrants (as they register via a form) which workshops or talks they are most interested in? Segment your registrants into mail lists according to their preferences, and send on-the-day SMS reminders when an attendee’s favoured sub-event is about to happen, and where.
As mentioned above, you’ll have to collect mobile numbers at registration for this communication strategy to work. You might want to give registrants a chance to opt-out of on-the-day reminders, in case they don’t want to receive multiple notifications at the event.
Manage your Event & Registrations in Real-Time with Marketing Automation Software
Whether you’re checking attendance, dealing with new guests, or looking to communicate effectively with your attendees – swapping manual management for real-time automated, online management will save you time, and panic.
Little real-time event management tasks can pile up, and result in total chaos when carried out ineffectively. That’s why using a Marketing Automation platform to take the pain out of on-the-day management makes perfect sense.
Try using Event Management tools via a Marketing Automation platform at your next event, and you’re guaranteed to notice the difference. Why focus on nit-picky tasks at your event, when you could be maximising the value for your attendees? Delegate your real-time registrations and other event tasks to an automated software, and focus on making your event a success.
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