Michael Giglio is the founder and President of LSAV POWERHOUSE, where he is responsible for strategic direction, assembling top sales and operations teams, and driving the culture that keeps company employees wanting to come to work every day.
Apps are the hot new way to communicate with your event attendees. In fact, many attendees have grown so accustomed to seeking information from apps that they expect your event to have one. But how can you tell if your app is truly successful at engaging their attention? And how can you improve it to deliver the results you want?
By studying the analytics – or history of usage – within your app, you can get a clearer picture of whether or not and how well your app performs. With this valuable data, you can then make smarter decisions about how to design your app for maximum adoption and engagement.
Here are four basic metrics to review to ensure you get the most ROI from your event app.
App Downloads
This is perhaps the simplest yet most powerful analytic of them all. If attendees did not download your app to begin with, then the tool was not compelling enough for them or was too difficult for them to access. A successful app starts with overwhelming adoption. So, check your numbers. What percentage of attendees downloaded your app in advance? How many waited until the day of your event? What percentage failed to adopt at all? The numbers tell a story.
App Traffic Patterns
Once you know how many attendees downloaded your app, you can put a finer point on what they actually did inside of it. Which sections of your app got the most usage and by whom? Are attendees using the social media features or its ability to recommend 1:1 connections? Did they post in the after-party photo gallery or download presentations from various speakers? In-app traffic patterns will guide you to plan better for next year, making some sections of the app more robust, while cutting or transforming others that don’t perform.
Session Entry/Exit Scans
Presentations are a huge part of any event and everyone wants to know if their yearly line-up was successful at connecting with attendees’ educational desires. If your event requires a badge scan for session entry and exit, and that scan is linked to your app, this can be a great way to gather data on who attended which sessions and for how long. Knowing the rate of attendee perseverance (through an entire session), as well as how many went to each session or part of that session, can help you make better presentation decisions for next year. It can also help you tweak the kinds of educational content you are making available within the app itself.
Presentation Downloads
If content is a focus at your event, the rate and type of presentation downloads can tell you much about how useful attendees are finding your app. Throughout the event, check to see if and how attendees are engaging with videos, slide shows and other tools offered by various presenters. How many presentations were downloaded? Are just a few attendees completing most of the downloads or are there a wide variety of attendees? If attendees find your app’s educational content valuable, you’ll know because presentation download numbers will be robust.
Your event app is a powerful tool for engaging with your attendees but is it really delivering what they want? Check your analytics. Study them. Let the numbers tell you a story. And from that story, make your next event app the best it’s ever been.
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