Event Technology – Is it Worth Investing?
Events are a hugely prominent part of the marketing strategy for so many businesses, and there are a variety of event technologies out there designed to make your events better, more engaging and more efficient (like our very own event apps). However, making sure that any event technologies that you use represent a positive return on investment (ROI) for your business is very important. So the main question is, is event technology worth the investment?
Event Insurance Services, an insurance provider offering policies for exhibitions, stallholders, craft fairs, conferences and more, recently created a whitepaper on event technology, and their analysis indicates that event technology does provide a measurable return on investment. In this blog we’ll take you through a few different ways that event technology can bring you a positive ROI.
(1) Increased Efficiency
Utilising event technology can bring you a positive ROI by saving you time on administrative tasks throughout the planning and running of your events. Event management software can also be used to make your events more efficient by reducing the wastage of your events; for example, by helping to prevent the overordering of goods to be sold to eventgoers. Making your events more efficient with event technology allows you the time to focus on improving other aspects of your event; and can even help you save money by planning your spending more efficiently.
(2) Increased Engagement
Event technology can also bring you a positive ROI by helping to improve the overall experience for attendees at your event, which will have the knock on effect of improving attendee engagement: one of the principle metrics for measuring the success of an event. A more engaged attendee also means a higher chance of them coming back for the next event, or even buying any goods or services promoted at the event.
Event Insurance Services conducted a study on the impact of event technology on overall attendee satisfaction (using Pathable’s own mobile event apps as an example), posing the question “If you have used a mobile event app at your events, did you find that the app had a positive impact on overall satisfaction?”. 69% of people answered ‘yes’ to this question, and only 4% answered ‘no’, with the rest having not used event apps before, which is indicative of the impact event technologies like Pathable can have on your event.
(3) Measuring Success with Data
Event Technology is particularly useful for gauging attendee satisfaction. This is very important as it allows you to collect some form of data and analytics from your events, which in turn allows you to improve and optimise your events to be even better; and a better event means a more engaging event. In short, event technology can be used to measure the success of your events much easier.
Increasing the amount of actionable data you can pull in from all your events is also excellent for allowing you to make data backed decisions. In can be difficult to know exactly what needs improving, but with event technologies like RFID wristbands requiring user registration to use, you are provided with some valuable marketing information such as email addresses, and live event reporting, meaning you can easily optimise your events to make them more valuable to the attendee, based on real data.
(4) Increased Sponsorship Opportunities
Event technology is also a great way to attract more sponsorship opportunities, by giving your events a unique hook that can draw in sponsors. Just as one case study noted in Event insurance Services whitepaper, you could use event tech in the form of a live podcast booth, to invite sponsors and other people of interest to participate in, or contribute to, a podcast (or something similar). This would mean that you have something unique to offer sponsors, which in turn allows for promotion long after the event, making it much easier to gain sponsorship opportunities.
These are just a few examples of how the use of different event technologies represent a great ROI at your events; from increasing the efficiency of your events, to making them much more engaging, event technologies are one of the best ways that you can make your events stand out from the crowd, and they are well worth the investment. To read more on the topic of event technology and ROI, you can read Event Insurance Services whitepaper: Event Technology – Is it Worth Investing?.
