Two organizations, Cvent and the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) recently spoke to PCMA about their experiences with mobile apps and how they are improving the user experience over time.
Below is a synopsis what mobile means to each organization and how you can use these findings to integrate mobile into your next meeting.
CVENT
“(Mobile is) about making it as easy as possible for attendees to engage with each other, or your speakers, or your staff or your sponsors. It’s so much easier to reach out using a mobile application,” stated Matthew Donegan-Ryan the Director of Mobile Strategy at Cvent.
Five key items that Cvent has learned by integrating mobile apps into their event planning and execution strategy:
- Gamification can lead to a 100-150% pickup in engagement metrics.
What is gamification? It is game playing, typically completed on a web-based app to encourage engagement with a product or service.When does it fit? Gamification is a great tool for interactive presentations and trade show displays when you are giving attendees a hook for paying attention to your message. Making it fun and interesting, helps attendees learn. - 95% of users prefer to obtain travel information from a native app versus a web app. What is the difference between a native and web app? Native means the app is on the mobile device and does not use the Internet. A web app is generally cloud based and totally relies on event WiFi solutions.I believe the reason many attendees are reticent to rely on WiFi is because they have had a bad experience with it at a meeting. As WiFi becomes more prevalent, faster and stable, I think attendees will want to access cloud apps on a real-time basis.
- Smartphone users spend 85% of their mobile time using apps and 15% using the web. Social channels, email and conference apps such as Evernote, Office for iPad, and Prezi are great if attendees are renting iPads and can easily take up 85% of that time.Don’t assume everyone has a smartphone and remember, not all apps run on all platforms. If you are replacing paper and want attendees to take notes, you are best served by an iPad or
- 76% of trade shows attendees choose which exhibitors to visit before the show. By putting all information about each exhibitor online and allowing attendees to review that information while they are at the show, attendees and exhibitors alike are making the most of their trade show experience.
- ~50% of meeting planners say 2014 will have more of a technology footprint than the past.
AALU
At its 2014 Annual Meeting held last week, AALU’s Assistant Vice President Grant Lebens spearheaded their 4th generation mobile app.
This app offered attendees the following features and benefits:
- Full online agenda
- Speaker bios, including videos
- Ability to create a customized agenda
- Access to all the slide decks – 3 weeks before the meeting
- Communication with other attendees
- Social media integration
- Reduction of paper
“We try and put as much material on the app as possible,” stated Lebens.
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