8 Tips to increase your mobile event app adoption rate

Mobile event apps have rev­o­lu­tionised the way events are organ­ised and expe­ri­enced.

Accord­ing to a 2014 report by Guide­book, 91% of event organ­is­ers said that event apps pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed their attendee engage­ment, and 81% of atten­dees said that they used event apps to access event-relat­ed infor­ma­tion. As time has passed, it seems that the use and impact of event apps have only become more wide­spread and sig­nif­i­cant.

This means that invest­ing in your event app and increas­ing its adop­tion rate is cru­cial to ensur­ing the suc­cess of your event.

How­ev­er, the suc­cess of a mobile event app depends on its adop­tion rate, and it can be a chal­lenge to get atten­dees to down­load and use your app.

That’s where these eight tips come in. With the right strat­e­gy, you can increase the adop­tion rate of your mobile event app and ensure that atten­dees are ful­ly engaged and informed through­out your event.

From under­stand­ing your audi­ence to pro­vid­ing incen­tives and lever­ag­ing social media, these tips are tried and test­ed by lead­ing brands and event pro­fes­sion­als.

So, let’s dive in:

1. Before The Event

1. Start promoting the mobile event app in advance

Pro­mot­ing your mobile event app well in advance is essen­tial to ensure its suc­cess. Doing so can cre­ate buzz and excite­ment around the event, build antic­i­pa­tion among atten­dees, and increase the like­li­hood of app adop­tion.

Lead­ing brands such as Apple, Google, and Sam­sung under­stand the impor­tance of pro­mot­ing their mobile event apps in advance.

For exam­ple, let’s con­sid­er a tech con­fer­ence sched­uled to take place in three months. By launch­ing a pre-event pro­mo­tion cam­paign for the mobile app, you can gen­er­ate excite­ment and encour­age atten­dees to down­load it ahead of time.

Start by high­light­ing the key fea­tures and ben­e­fits of your app, such as per­son­alised sched­ules, inter­ac­tive maps, and real-time updates on ses­sions and speak­ers.

By pro­mot­ing the app well in advance, you can cre­ate a sense of exclu­siv­i­ty and excite­ment among your atten­dees, result­ing in a high adop­tion rate of your event app.

2. Create an engaging user experience

To increase the adop­tion rate of your mobile event app, it’s cru­cial to cre­ate an engag­ing user expe­ri­ence. By incor­po­rat­ing gam­i­fi­ca­tion fea­tures such as leader­boards and scav­enger hunts, atten­dees are encour­aged to engage with the app fun and com­pet­i­tive­ly.

Addi­tion­al­ly, inter­ac­tive maps make nav­i­gat­ing the event venue eas­i­er, ensur­ing atten­dees don’t miss out on any ses­sions or activ­i­ties. By inte­grat­ing social media, atten­dees can con­nect, share their expe­ri­ences, and pro­mote engage­ment with the app and the event.

Over­all, these fea­tures work togeth­er to cre­ate an app that stands out and pro­vides a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence for atten­dees.

3. Leverage social media

Lever­ag­ing social media is a pow­er­ful way to increase your mobile event app adop­tion rate. Pro­mot­ing your app on social media chan­nels allows you to reach a wider audi­ence and gen­er­ate excite­ment about the event.

One way to lever­age social media is to cre­ate a hash­tag for your event and encour­age atten­dees to use it when post­ing. Anoth­er way to lever­age social media is to use it dur­ing the event to pro­vide updates on ses­sions, activ­i­ties, and any changes to the event sched­ule.

2. During the event

1. Establish a help desk for your event app

Estab­lish­ing a help desk for your event app is cru­cial to ensure atten­dees have a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence using your app. A help desk pro­vides atten­dees with a point of con­tact for ques­tions and tech­ni­cal sup­port, show­ing that you val­ue their expe­ri­ence at the event.

A help desk can take many forms, such as an in-per­son or vir­tu­al sup­port desk acces­si­ble through the app. Whichev­er form it takes, it should be eas­i­ly acces­si­ble and vis­i­ble to atten­dees.

For exam­ple, imag­ine you’re organ­is­ing a large-scale music fes­ti­val with a cus­tom event app. To estab­lish a help desk, start by des­ig­nat­ing a team of knowl­edge­able staff mem­bers who will serve as the pri­ma­ry point of con­tact for app-relat­ed inquiries.

These staff mem­bers should be well-versed with the app’s func­tion­al­i­ty, fea­tures, and trou­bleshoot­ing pro­ce­dures so that atten­dees can eas­i­ly reach out for assis­tance when­ev­er they encounter issues or have ques­tions about app usage.

2. Provide incentives

Pro­vid­ing incen­tives in your event app is an effec­tive way to increase app adop­tion and engage­ment. By offer­ing exclu­sive con­tent or expe­ri­ences through the app, you can encour­age atten­dees to down­load and use the app more fre­quent­ly.

Incen­tives can take many forms, such as access to exclu­sive con­tent, dis­counts on mer­chan­dise, or entry into prize draw­ings. By pro­vid­ing these incen­tives, you cre­ate a sense of exclu­siv­i­ty and val­ue for atten­dees, which can increase their engage­ment with the app and the event.

3. After the event

1. Measure success & optimise the app for future events

Mea­sur­ing the suc­cess of your mobile event app is cru­cial to opti­mis­ing it for future events.

By analysing app usage data, feed­back from atten­dees, and any issues that arise, you can iden­ti­fy areas for improve­ment and make data-dri­ven deci­sions for future events.

Mobile event apps pro­vide a wealth of data that can be used to mea­sure suc­cess, such as adop­tion rate, ses­sion atten­dance, and engage­ment lev­els. By analysing this data, you can iden­ti­fy which fea­tures are most pop­u­lar and which need improve­ment and adjust your strat­e­gy accord­ing­ly.

2. Share highlights & follow-up

Shar­ing high­lights and fol­low-up infor­ma­tion through your mobile event app is a great way to keep atten­dees engaged and informed after the event. By pro­vid­ing a recap of the event, shar­ing pho­tos and videos, and offer­ing fol­low-up resources, you can extend the event expe­ri­ence beyond the phys­i­cal event and main­tain engage­ment with atten­dees.

Exam­ple: Sup­pose you’re organ­is­ing a music fes­ti­val and have cre­at­ed a mobile event app. Now to increase its adop­tion rate, you can high­light the app’s user-friend­ly inter­face, gam­i­fi­ca­tion fea­tures, per­son­al­i­sa­tion options, push noti­fi­ca­tions, and social media inte­gra­tion among your atten­dees.

Dur­ing the fes­ti­val, you can active­ly pro­mote the app’s ben­e­fits and incen­tivise atten­dees to down­load and use it to win prizes. You can also pro­vide a tuto­r­i­al and demo of the app for those who are not famil­iar with mobile event apps.

After the fes­ti­val, you can send a post-event sur­vey to gath­er feed­back and fol­low up with users who down­loaded but did­n’t use the app. You also share suc­cess sto­ries and tes­ti­mo­ni­als from users who found the app use­ful on social media. This helps to cre­ate buzz around the app and encour­age more peo­ple to down­load and use it for future fes­ti­vals.

3. Announce the winner of the event

If you organ­ise any kind of com­pe­ti­tion, announc­ing the even­t’s win­ner through your mobile event app is a great way to cre­ate excite­ment and engage­ment among atten­dees and pro­vide clo­sure to the event. By reveal­ing the win­ner through the app, you can ensure that all atten­dees are informed and have access to the infor­ma­tion.

To announce the event win­ner through your mobile app, you can cre­ate a noti­fi­ca­tion or mes­sage sent to all atten­dees. This noti­fi­ca­tion can include the win­ner’s name and any rel­e­vant details about the prize or award.

Wrapping up!

In con­clu­sion, increas­ing your mobile event app’s adop­tion rate is cru­cial to your even­t’s suc­cess. By fol­low­ing these eight tips, you can cre­ate an app that your atten­dees will love to use.

Remem­ber, your mobile event app is essen­tial for keep­ing atten­dees engaged and informed through­out the event and for pro­mot­ing app adop­tion for future events.

So, don’t over­look its poten­tial and imple­ment these tips to enhance the over­all event expe­ri­ence for your atten­dees.

Weezevent helps you plan your event with its tick­et­ing and reg­is­tra­tion, access con­trol and mar­ket­ing and CRM solu­tions.

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