In the aftermath of the pandemic, the event management industry is witnessing a shift in how events are held. Moving away from virtual events, the attendees are back to engaging in face-to-face networking. Recognizing this trend, event marketers have been capitalizing on this demand by trying to attract as many guests as possible.
Getting more attendees at the conference is not something that can be achieved in a matter of a few days or months. This is why event management firms engage in year-long engagement campaigns that include sending promotional emails and pushing engaging content on social media platforms. What they often miss out on is understanding the role of data that can add to planning event registration strategies.
The tools and software help in creating a smooth experience at every step of the process right from online event registration to the survey forms they are provided to be filled up by the attendees towards the end of the event. Previously collected data can be used to make the attendee experience at the event better – beginning with using event-based analytics for online event registration for the event which will help in enhancing sign-up and re-attendance numbers.
What is event-based analytics?
To break it down in simple terms, event-based analytics is a way to track and analyze the interaction between the attendees and the event. The attendees and events form the core elements of event-based analytics.
Quite often, this term is used to refer to analytics activities that are based on a certain action being performed. As data streams arrive in real-time, companies are using complex event processing (to process data in real-time and extract consumer data) to predict customer behaviour and recommend products and services to clients to motivate real-time decisions. Event-based analytics is instrumental in implementing event registration strategies to make it a smooth process.
Ways to Use Data Analytics for Registration
Below are 9 efficient event registration strategies through which event marketers can incorporate data into their event registration process.
Reach out to the right people
When an event management company organizes an event, reaching out to the right people is the biggest make-or-break point that determines the success of an event. To find the appropriate target audience for the event, using the database is the right approach. Surveys suggest that over 64% of marketing executives suggested that making use of a data-driven strategy is crucial. To make sure that the event goes as smoothly as possible, audit the data to street clear of any inaccuracies before using it. This way you will know that the information being used to lay out event registration strategies is correct.
Next, look for the guests who have either attended some of the events organized by your company in the past or for the people who signed up for an event in the past that got cancelled. These are the people you must reach out to as there are high chances that these people may still be interested in attending your event.
Provide an easy-to-navigate event registration form
Your website is the obvious place the potential guests will come looking for more information about the event and for online event registration. Embed the form on the website. Highlight it in a way that people can find it easily and sign up.
Remember to add your brand logo to the form. If you have repeat attendees interested in attending the event, they will recall the special attention and care they were given during the past events and they will expect the same now.
Cut out any information requirements on the form that are not needed. Ask the attendees only for the relevant information that is required and capture the data with the help of a registration tool like GEVME.
Personalize the registration form
As we have discussed earlier, a lengthy and complicated online event registration form can turn away even the most interested guests. You may consider using a software solution that can personalize the event registration process and put forward various conditional capabilities.
By using conditional logic, the registration form gets prompted to make different changes as per the data being filled in by the registrant. The fields and questions can be added automatically to make the registration process unique to the user. For instance:
- If a question is answered in a specific way, automatically, an email is sent out as a response.
- If the potential attendee qualifies for certain discounts, the price should reflect that instantly.
- If a potential lead selects a specific attendee card in the card type, let the conditional logic add necessary fees to their ticket.
Personalizing the efforts with the help of data is not one of the modern event registration strategies. It will enable you to connect better with the attendees and provide them incentives to complete the registration process based on the data they provide.
Start by setting up an Event Tracking System
The first step to making the most of data analytics is to set up an Event Tracking System or ETS for the events at the venue. Arrange for the Event Tracking System that can be easily used without any software or hardware purchases to make the event an easier affair to handle over time. ETS is one of the most cost-efficient event registration strategies that can facilitate collecting data.
Begin the journey of tracking with data analytics in a simple manner. Implement a set of rules or form a template to capture the events and keep tracking the input of attendees as a string of text. Do not capture and process the data as it is entered, instead capture the events just as you define them. The best way to create an event tracking system is to first create the kind of events that the majority of users will enter into your system. After that begin defining the complex requirements needed for more advanced tasks. The bigger the events you host, the larger the volume of data captured which will make distributing the data more sensible.
Get insight into attendee behaviour based on data.
The data analysis is largely dependent on the choices and preferences of an attendee. Monitoring the attendee’s behaviour at events is important. Different ways to implement it include sending after-event surveys to understand how many people who signed up for the event turned up at the event. Attendee behaviour like this can also elaborate on the most popular topic at the event or the points of discussion the attendees were most inclined towards. While planning the next events, information like this is very valuable.
Retain top-tier speakers using survey data
After collecting data from surveys, you can infer which topics at the session were ranked the highest – likewise for the speakers. Circulating the survey as soon as the event concludes is important so that the information required for data analysis is fresh in the minds of the attendees. In your survey, include questions such as how well the attendees think the speakers did their job, what were their inferences from the event, and whether or not they would be interested in having the same speaker present at the next event.
This will give you a deep understanding of the attendee experience and help you understand how you can make the event better. The attendees may forget the detailed information long after the event is over so sending the survey forms just after the event makes sure that you will have all the information you will need to evaluate the event experience.
Cut time with streamlined registration
Picture this – you want to attend an event but choose to give up because the online registration process is taking too much time. People prefer brands that value their time. No one likes to spend their time writing and re-writing their basic information on a form. Guess what can make the job easier and more efficient? Data. Using the previously collected data can help optimize event registration strategies to fill up attendee forms to autofill all the information, which will reduce the amount of time and information required.
By doing so, an individual spends much less time filling up the form. The basic personal data can be reused by the event organizers to create a streamlined online registration process that will be highly appreciated by the guests signing up for the event.
Offer personalized session recommendations for first-time attendees
Each event is a mix of new attendees and the ones who have attended some events hosted by the same organizers in the past. Similarly, the events vary in size as well. The events that provide huge content offerings, and choosing which sessions to attend can seem a bit overwhelming. This is exactly where event registration strategies backed with data can come in handy.
Data can help in providing more personalized and accurate recommendations to choose as per the need. The attendees will appreciate getting whatever extra help they can get to make choices. Providing such kind of personalized services and care can prove to be a huge selling point for interested attendees looking forward to attending an event or a conference.
Benefits of data analytics
The event-based analytics do not just represent what is happening at the event but it goes on to explain the reasons for the same. Tracking the attendee’s behaviour and events goes way beyond registration strategies. If you align the event in such a way that there is increased engagement and regular attendees, you will be able to generate high revenue.
Having said that, let us now understand the various benefits of data analytics.
Better focus on value creation
Any event management company can bring about a better focus on value creation by focusing on higher levels of detail. By implementing a data-driven approach while hosting an event, greater emphasis should be laid on understanding the interests and preferences of attendees so that recommendations can be made accordingly. During this process, all the other unnecessary components should be ignored and the data about the choices of the attendees during the event must be taken care of.
Easy to expand the reach
One of the biggest benefits of data analytics is that these event-driven solutions let you expand the reach quite easily without moving the data from existing sources while allowing you to add more data simultaneously.
Real-time correlation with external systems
You can expect better integration and reporting abilities with real-time correlation along with external systems that enable supporting real-time dashboards, alerts, and reporting.
Measure the right parameters and improve
Customers nowadays expect a highly personalized experience that feels like it was designed exclusively for them. Without proper information and understanding about what is expected out of your product, it can be really hard for a brand to design a customer experience that offers personalization. Better engagement and efficient product adjustments can only be implemented by understanding the behaviour of attendees and what they expect from an event.
Quickly apply complex technology to problems
To extract insights from the collected data, you do not need to be a data expert. There are many event-based analytics software that provide no coding and low coding tools that enable teams to obtain answers to complex analytical questions. Software like this can help in increasing the efficiency manifold and allows the team members to gain benefits from the information obtained.
Democratize data across your business
Different teams within an event management organization can collaborate with the help of event-based analytics. As per a report by Gartner, “the companies that promote data sharing across verticals will outperform their peers on most business value metrics.” The data about user behaviour can help in making better strategies across different teams including product marketing, information technology, and customer service.
More Effective Event Promotions
Using event management tools that provide integration with CRM platforms, email marketing software, and social media streamlining solutions. This means the promotional campaigns can be carried out effortlessly with the help of data analytics so as to keep the audience engaged on social media and build further relationships with attendees.
Final word
Data-driven insights help in increasing registration for events by analyzing the data of the registrant so that the event sessions, schemes, and offers can be customized as per the needs and preferences of the audience.
The data collected from various sources – email marketing campaigns, data received from surveys and polls, and the information about the engagement among the guests is crucial to providing a personalized experience. This is one of the best ways to compare and analyze how good or bad the outreach tactics performed and which aspects of the event gained the most positive reactions.
Data analytics has become crucial for all organizations, especially now. The tools you are using must be equipped enough to take care of all the processes required to pull a successful event together and should help integrate the collected data into the main database. It is better to sort out the data analytics part well in advance than later on.
