It is well known that face-to-face events provide your attendees with an unparalleled opportunity for collaboration, education, and networking. What is often overlooked (and is becoming more vital with the rise in expectations for events to deliver measurable ROI), is the opportunity for organizers to collect a vast amount of data from their attendees and to turn that information into meaningful event insights.
Think about what you want to gain from your event and consider these four effective methods of collecting insights.
1. Attendee Interaction
Encourage your attendees to interact as much as possible, as often as possible throughout your event. The qualitative and quantitative data you gather is invaluable and – as an added bonus – attendees stay more engaged and empowered. There are a lot of great ways to incorporate interactive elements into your event. Try building polling questions into your sessions, utilizing a discussion board, enabling attendee-to-attendee messaging, or hosting a game or competition through the event.2. Social Media
The reality is attendees are accustomed to utilizing social media channels in their day-to-day life, and they will continue to use the tools that are most familiar to them. Integrating social media (through a mobile event app, a tweet wall, or even a social competition) can really extend the reach of your event beyond the venue. With a curation and analytical tool, exploring social media contributions can lead to valuable discoveries, including trending topics, event perceptions, and insight into influential users.3. Surveys
Collecting data before, during, and after your event is a key step in determining its ROI or ROO (return on objectives), making the use of event surveys a no-brainer. Collect better data with mobile, in-the-moment surveys that are brief, to-the-point, and contain a variety of question types.4. Mobile Event App Analytics
If you’re already using an event app, you are probably aware of the powerful analytics they contain. If not, you should know the possibilities! Not only can event apps provide detailed data following the event they also help you evaluate and improve your event in real time. Find out what your attendees are thinking and how your event is performing by taking a look at networking and schedule analytics, session performance, survey results and more. Make any adjustments or enhancements you can in-the-moment and further analyze the data to gain future event insight. Ever wonder what the maturity level of your meetings and events program is compared to your peers? Click here to get your benchmark.
