Events

Why your app would be better by being Native and not Hybrid.

Have you ever lost your phone?

What’s the first thing you told yourself – “Hmm… I’ll find it another time. Not at this point.”

Definitely not!

Once you lose your phone, all other priorities go out the window. In today’s world that’s how much we value our mobile device. It’s with you every minute of the 24 hours.

That leads us to the question we need to ask ourselves as App promoters & App makers. If the value of a mobile device is so immense, shouldn’t Apps we deploy be more reliable, respond faster, and give all the answers your customers need as soon as possible?

Let’s skip the topic on why users download an App. 85% of consumers prefer mobile Applications over the mobile website – Source.

Don’t be the 15% who disagrees. So fast forward to once they download your mobile Application. What makes them keep it? Rather, the question to ponder and solve is how good is  user experience of your App – Only 28% say mobile Apps offer a better user experience – Source

In today’s “SnapChat” world, consumers expect snap reactions from their Apps. Apps that take full advantage of the built-in capabilities of their mobile devices – GPS, address book, camera, Bluetooth etc.,

Consumers want to chat real-time, view directions, set reminders, take pictures and much more. They use gestures, swipes, and are willing to uncover hidden actions that adhere to the guidelines of the respective platform. Your App needs to feel consistent with core native Apps on their devices.

Consumers expect proactive and relevant information within the context of their location at a particular time. Apps are expected to push personalized content based on their actions, with the ability to share content socially. App makers need to integrate emerging technologies like ibeacon, virtual reality.  Apps are expected to work offline and degrade gracefully – not show a loading spinner.

Let’s correct ourselves – these aren’t expectations anymore. This criteria will make or break the success of your App. The customer experience of your App is more important to your brand than you might think.  Apps that look great but perform poorly, will damage your brand.

79% of consumers would retry an App only once. Only 16% give it more than two attempts – Source.

You may get a chance to get it right once. but most certainly won’t get a second one.

Native app is the uncontested winner

The core of ensuring a great experience is using native Apps. Not hybrid ones that are HTML5 websites packaged into native wrappers. Can’t tell the difference? A simple eye test is to launch your Application in airplane mode and experience it., You are going to know the difference!

A few years back, it was expensive and time-consuming to build native mobile applications. In today’s ASAP world it’s easy to give up on getting a good App partner or choose a hybrid App approach. But with a platform like ours, cutting edge technology exist that provide custom branded Apps with authentic native experience at prices that translate to huge ROI.

Your users will DEMAND a great experience. They will open your App and expect it to be intuitive and responsive. Native Applications are the uncontested winner in both cases. To quote Mark Zuckerberg – “The biggest mistake we’ve made as a company is betting on HTML5 over native”

A long lasting relationship depends on the quality of each encounter – not just the first one. So do NOT compromise.

You’re exploring event apps for your next event, but you’re unsure whether attendees will download your app? Do you feel that event marketing for your app can take up much of your time and effort?

According to EventManagerBlog, 29% of event professionals reported less than 35% of their attendees downloaded their event app. This is a real problem! Our experience shows that event engagement increases when at least 50% of your attendees download the app. Event apps can boost attendee engagement by over 77%.  Event apps also offer many tangible benefits for event organizers. Leveraging event apps can help you realize significant ROI from your events. We have seen that with some simple app promotion strategies, you can ensure upto 65% downloads pre-event.

Event App adoption

Yet most organisers feel that app marketing is an additional task at hand. Given your hectic schedules especially closer to the date of the event, you may feel overwhelmed with the task of promoting apps. Yet, to ensure that attendees download event apps, an app promotion strategy is a must.

The good news is that event app promotion is not such a hard task. There is but a little effort involved in ensuring app downloads.

Plugging in app promotion as part of event marketing strategy can help you create a much better impact.

App promotion methods are subjective to the type of your event. Listed below are some of the simple event marketing steps for your app that we recommend . Consider these for promoting app downloads and adoption.

App availability before event – Ensure apps are available for download at least 2 weeks before your event. Look for event apps that offer the flexibility to change content without the need to publish the app to the app stores.  Also see the event app with rich, relevant event information. Your attendees don’t want to download an app that is blank, and with no relevant content.

Email marketing about the app – When you send out EDMs to your attendees, speakers, and sponsors, include a short highlight about the event app. Sending out one or more exclusive emailers detailing why your attendees need to download the event app can also be helpful. Plan for these EDMs in the 2 weeks lead up to your event so it stays fresh in your attendee’s mind.

Integrate with Social Campaigns – Looking at app promotion as an isolated activity is a rookie mistake. When you have your social handles, print & broadcast media active, you don’t need to look further. Plug in your app promotion content into these channels. Introduce event app details

Familiarity – When you are familiar with the features of your event app you can influence your audience effectively. If you don’t use the event app yourself, it can be quite pointless to ask your audience to do so. So make sure you and your on-ground team downloads and actively use the app.

Content – Keep your app content up-to-date. Keep your attendees’ interest alive even pre-event. Publish event trivia, photos from event planning, quotes from speakers, and all event related updates. Make sure that your attendees look forward to seeing fresh content every day.  Interesting, relevant and timely content is a great way to trigger app promotions.

Incentivize attendees – Educating attendees about the value of the event app is one way to trigger app promotions. In addition, you should also consider other incentives.  Offer special discounts, goodies, VIP check-in, special seating. Running contests in the app for early adopters can help create a buzz, that could trigger organic downloads.

At-venue app signage – Make your event app visible. Provide a chance to download the app during the event.  Printed posters of the app at registration desks, QR codes to app URL on delegate kits, app details on event background displays, short announcements etc. can help promote adoption.

In-session promotions – Reminding attendees to rate sessions or post questions will encourage app usage and downloads during the event.

Create a community  – Don’t stop at pushing information. You want your attendees to engage with your content. Once you reach a certain threshold of users on the app, start publishing polls, or posts seeking inputs from your audience. Use data from these polls to attract other attendees to also download and participate in the event community.

Conclusion

Do not just focus on creating an event app – focus on creating the experience around your event app. Promoting an event app does not need to be an isolated activity.  When you channelise a small percentage of your event marketing efforts to include event app promotion, it can positively impact app adoption.

About Us

The AidaIo platform is focused on driving engagement and getting you up close and personal with your audience. We have built a suite of features to create interaction and engagement. If you’re looking for more ideas on rolling out an event app for your next event, visit our website www.aidaio.com. You can also write to us at [email protected]

AIDA Interview

Pallav Barah, Founder & CEO of AIDA, shares his insights on event technology and consumer engagement in an interview with T Radhakrishna of Elets News Network (ENN). The interview is featured in the eGov magazine’s April 2016 edition.

Read the complete interview here: http://egov.eletsonline.com/2016/04/m-powering-mice-industry/

After the successful launch of its first product ‘Carrot’ – a native mobile app for events, conferences, concerts, exhibitions, weddings and corporate events, AIDA has seen a keen interest from brands who want to continue conversations with their audience long after the event, and in creating memorable in-venue experiences. Pallav Barah, Director & Co-founder of AIDA, shares the company’s plans and technology products, apart from why consumer engagement is more than just marketing, in an interview with T Radhakrishna of Elets News Network (ENN)

How did the concept of Carrot evolve and what went into the making of the product?

Carrot is an idea that was born in a conference. We at AIDAIO observed a significant lack of digital connect at some of the conferences we attended. We spent three months speaking to event industry managers, attendees and sponsors to understand the dynamics, pain points and needs of the Indian event industry. We created Carrot keeping in mind the challenges in the event industry, including the lack of / minimal wi-fi connectivity at events, as well as the last-minute updates required to be made. The first Carrot app was sold even before the company was set up, and within six months of launch, Carrot was shortlisted under the Best Event Technology category at MICE – Asia Pacific Awards 2015.

When did it go live? What are the unique features of Carrot?

Carrot was launched in Novmber 2014 with a vision to bring the focus back on attendee engagement, and nurturing private social communities at events. The core value proposition of Carrot is the ability for event managers to design, theme and publish on their apps within one hour. Carrot is powered by a cloud-based backend that provides great flexibility and agility to event managers to manage last-minute changes, turn on/ off features, and even access content when there is no internet. Due to this flexibility, Carrot app can be used for any kind of event – business or technical conferences, medical conferences, networking events, exhibitions, trade shows and even weddings.

The backend also provides powerful real time analytics for event managers to monitor and react to the pulse of the event. Recently, Carrot launched some multilingual apps to empower event managers to publish content in more than 25 languages – Indian and Global. Its various interactive features increase audience engagement through polls, surveys, games, private chat, etc. We also have smart integrations with EventBrite to manage ticketing and registrations and with Uber to create a seamless channel for attendees to not just find the event venue but also book their ride to the venue.

What are your expectations from Carrot?

We expect Carrot to democratise event technology and enable every event big or small to adapt event technology solutions. Today, the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) industry in India is growing fast. More and more events have started to place the right emphasis on audience engagement, and to create an experience that converts passive attendees into brand ambassadors and influencers. This change is not possible without creating an interactive, conversational channel that can help the event brands hear what the consumer has to say, and react to it quickly. AIDA’s vision is to lead this change, and create the right technology that can complete the high touchpoint human interactions, without compromising on ease of use and consumer experience.

What is the roadmap for growth of AIDAIO?

We at AIDA have launched three products in the event technology and attendee engagement space within a span of 15 months. Carrot – native white-labeled event app; Ice – interactive digital games for product activations; and Hashout – live projected slideshows and social walls, are all geared towards creating a wow experience for attendees at events, and providing flexibility and real-time insights to event organisers. The road ahead for AIDAIO is to continue to provide end-to-end solutions, which can seamlessly cover the end-to-end experience of an attendee right from the time an event concept is created too much after the event.

Attendee engagement is a journey. Brands strive to build an emotional connect with a consumer. It begins with powerful messaging. But brands can sustain this only by creating amazing experiences, and building a community.

Events are a high touch point channel for brand to connect with a highly activated audience.

The journey of a brand’s connect with its attendees begins with Brand visibility, and progresses towards Brand activation, then engagement and finally creating Brand Ambassadors.

Technology is a great enabler for consumer engagement whether it is in events or elsewhere. Social media and cross-channel marketing strategies are quite powerful in reaching out to potential consumers. But, often brand connect and social communities stay out of sync.   It is important to have solutions that create a unified persona of the consumer across the different channels.

Also important, is the need to understand the consumer’s context, and target relevant content based on her location, interests and preferences.

At AIDA, we see this connect between brand and consumer evolve through 5 stages.

Introducing the Attendee Engagement Funnel

Guidance:  When a brand initiates it’s connect with consumers, it is crucial to guide, educate and inform them.

This is the first step towards understanding what a brand stands for, and what the consumer can gain from the brand.

In the case of events, the program schedule, speaker list, venue etc. serve the purpose of guidance.

But, bringing in an interactive aspect to this information can change the way a consumer receives this. Structuring content such that it leads a consumer on a journey of discovery, can help make Guidance a fun way to connect to the consumer.

Simple interactions, such as RSVP on agenda, guided maps; chat to speakers etc. can go a long way in establishing the ground for the next stage of Engagement.

Engagement: As consumers embark on their journey of content discovery, they find more and more reasons to engage with the brands. Even asking for more information or expressing an opinion about the brand’s content can be gratifying.

This engagement sets the grounds for brands to initiate 2 way conversations with their consumers.

In events, many of these conversations are primarily face-to-face. Can technology complement these face-to-face conversations? The answer is a resounding Yes.

Polls, surveys, event activity walls, 1 on 1 chat with organizers/ event partners etc. are easy to use technology complements. Games such as Treasure Hunts are an effective way to activate your audience. They can have a great time while discovering brand content!

Community: When people have a good time, they tell others about it. They create their own communities, and share their experiences. This is a key social behavior that brands can leverage. Social media is a space where most of a brand’s community building happens today. But, social media is an open forum. A consumer needs to sift through a lot of noise before they can find relevant content.

There is a need today to create a channel that can seamlessly combine social media advantages with the private social context of a brand.  White labeled mobile apps serve as a context aware channel for brands to achieve this.

Providing a space for attendees to connect to other delegates, share, like and comment on event activities, creating a social buzz in the context of the event, creating multi lingual content etc. can nudge even the passive attendee into being part of the larger event community.

Achievement: Sustaining the community connect, conversations is equally essential. Recognizing the influencers in the community, responding actively to the pulse of the community, identifying trending topics is a good way to begin. But, unless there is a sense of achievement that your consumer can realize from her engagement, this buzz is likely to die down.

Gamification is a great way to push the community engagement to the nest stage. Can you reward the active participants or even promote a healthy competition among the peers? Combine social conversations with in-venue gratification by launching in-venue gamified social walls.  Plan a crowd sourced social activity that can result in a larger achievement or reward for the entire community. For instance, if 50 photos are posted under the event hashtag in the next 1 hour, everyone gets a free coupon!

Brands no more need to worry about creating content, since the community has started co-creating content for them.

Influence: When the community is so highly activated, everyone is a brand ambassador. Even the passive consumer, is now an active influencer for the brand.

In the case of events, this translates into extending these conversations over and beyond the event. Turning them into a year long conversation channel, and as a lead up to the next edition.

So, what are you waiting for? Start your journey with AIDA today. Activate your passive consumer into passionate brand ambassadors.

We bet your events are informative, engaging, and fun. But do you continue to rely on printed material for distributing event information? Do you still use outdated technology for communicating with your attendees?

Attendees today have high engagement needs but low attention spans. They are smart, and are eager to converse. They carry smart phones and embrace technology with ease.

Why then are your events still in the era of printed-paper?

It is indeed time for you to consider an app for your next event. There are many benefits of rolling out a mobile app for your event. We have listed a few of these below.

1. Go Green, Go Paperless

Every event needs to distribute information about the program, venue layout, partners and promotional material, banners etc.  Printing may not be the most important item on your cost cutting list. Yet they have a larger impact on your responsibility to environmental sustainability. Besides, no one ever wants to go through a conference carrying a load of papers. Go Green. Now.

Putting up event information on a website isn’t good enough. Especially given the flaky nature of Internet in-venue. Mobile apps can easily be the channel for your event information. Go for the ones where you can publish last minute changes with ease. Your attendees must be able to access event information even when offline.

2. Stay tuned to Event schedule

Every event manager has had last minute changes to make in the program. Speakers cancel at the last minute. Partners may need changes to their promotional material.  Why go through the hassle of re-printing event material, when you can make changes in a few seconds?

Moreover, digital content is interactive and real time. You can push notifications and announcements through the app. You can even integrate your social channels with your app for a seamless end to end engagement experience.

3. Why start your event with a long queue ?

Every event begins with a really long queue. Your attendees wait in frustration, while your registration desk tries to sort through piles of registration badges, and lanyards.  Why start a great event with frustration ?

Mobile apps can create digital badges through QR codes. You can even issue your food coupons or limit access to sessions through these digital badges. Offer special treatment to your prominent guests or key speakers. Be notified of their arrival, and check-them in automatically.

4.    A digital emcee 

Let your attendees take complete control of their schedules. Attendees can create their own schedule by choosing lectures of their interest and get reminders for the sessions chosen.

Sitting in hall A, an attendee can now know what lectures are running in other halls.

They can also take notes in session. They can download presentation material. They can post questions too. Your event app can become a digital emcee.

5. Create an Event Community

Networking is a big part of every event. People attend events just to find the right people to meet, network and socially engage with.

Why not help your attendees network, setup meetings, reach out to your partners, and even reach out to you with ease ?

Event apps have created a new way of engagement that was previously non-existent in traditional events. Attendees can discover fellow delegates, chat, post comments & photos. They can respond to live polling, participate in games, and engage in conversations. As your attendees engage and network, you can glean powerful insights into their likes and dislikes, and trending topics. You can use these insights to respond and react fast.

6. More value for your Event Partners

Your event partners can get a themed digital booth in your event app. Attendees can view digital promotional content, sponsored notifications, product brochures, videos and much more. They can also reach out to your partners through the app. This is a great way for your partners to capture leads. What better way to show your event partners a great event ROI?

If you need more information about how Carrot apps can help your next event, reach out to us now.