Considering an event mobile app for your next event? You’ve come to the right place!
Event mobile apps are a must for any organization seeking to increase interaction and engagement for their events.
In this post, we’ll review your options for creating an event app and what features you can leverage to create the best experience for your next event.
How To Create an Event Mobile App
There are two options for creating an event app. If you’re looking for a fully customized, standalone event app, you will likely need to hire a developer to create one for you from scratch.
Option #1: Custom Standalone Event Apps
While this does allow for more control and custom features, this route can be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to get right.
Still, for organizations with large event budgets, highly specific branding, or feature requirements (e.g. South By Southwest or the World Economic Forum), a standalone app can be the right choice.
Option #2: Container Apps for Events
Alternatively, most event managers opt to use event app solutions that utilize a container app to greatly reduce costs.
With a container app, event planners can utilize a purpose-built app creation platform to construct their event app, avoiding the design, development, and project management skills needed for creating a custom app from scratch.
Container apps like Yapp come with features typical of the most successful event mobile apps and take a couple of hours rather than weeks (or months) to set up.
Using a container app with strong editing tools is a great choice for event managers looking for a full-featured yet budget-friendly option for building an excellent event mobile app.
How to Increase Your Event Mobile App Engagement
Creating an event app does not have to be a big investment. And it can still deliver on attendee engagement, cost reduction, and help create a better event experience when done correctly.
Here are some tips on how to leverage your event app for an optimal experience.
Use push notifications wisely
Push notifications are a great way to keep attendees updated on important information, such as schedule changes or announcements.
However, overuse of push notifications can be annoying and may cause attendees to uninstall your app. So use them sparingly and only for the most important information.
Make sure the app is easy to use
Attendees should be able to easily find the information they’re looking for in your app. The navigation should be intuitive and the design should be clean and simple.
If your app is confusing to use, attendees will be less likely to use it. So try not to overload attendees’ attention with too many pages within your app. We recommend 4-6 max.
Include relevant content
Your app should focus on content that is relevant and helpful to attendees at your event. This often includes a schedule of events, speaker bios, session descriptions, maps, and more.
Again, including too much content will make your app seem cluttered and will make it more difficult for attendees to find the information they’re looking for. Keep it crisp and to the point!
Keep the app up-to-date
Attendees will expect your app to be up-to-date with the latest information about your event. Make sure to regularly update the app with any changes or new information.
For custom, standalone apps, this can be tricky because updating them sometimes means re-submitting them to the app store for both iOS and Android and awaiting a fresh approval.
The last thing event organizers want is to be waiting on an approval for a time-sensitive update while your event is going on.
With a container app, app store approvals are managed at the container level by the service provider, so that your event mobile app can be updated instantly.
Being able to publish event updates quickly and confidently can help event organizers focus their time on other aspects of event management.
Promote the app before and during the event
Make sure attendees know about your app before the event by promoting it in your marketing materials.
During the event, promote the app through signage, announcements, and interstitial slides. The more people who use your app, the more useful it will be at driving engagement with your audience.
Get feedback and make improvements
After your event, get feedback from attendees about their experience with the app. Use this feedback to make improvements for future events.
Event mobile apps like Yapp will even let you perform simple polls to get your users’ anonymous opinions about their experiences of your event. You can use similar features to collect feedback about each session your attendees participate in.
Now that we’ve discussed your options for creating an event mobile app and how to leverage it to get the most engagement from attendees, let’s wrap it up with 8 simple tips for a successful event overall.
8 Tips For a Successful Event
Embrace Modern Trends
By leveraging your digital event app, you can create a more modern and convenient event experience for attendees.
Paper event materials can be costly to print and ship. In addition, attendees often turn down single-page flyers from sponsors and certainly do not prefer to walk around with huge paper binders containing event information. Those days are behind us.
Event apps are becoming more popular and are a great way to enhance the attendee experience while lowering your own event costs.
Leverage Tech to Enhance Networking
One of the most important things attendees expect to do at your event is network. An event app can be a great tool for networking by enabling attendees to create digital profiles, share bios and contact information, and easily find each other online during and after the event.
Many conference attendees report that the most valuable takeaway is the relationships that they formed or strengthened during the event. A great event app can foster social engagement and help create space for these relationships to grow.
Appreciate Your Sponsors
Your sponsors are a big part of your event. They provide the financial support that allows you to put on a great event, so make sure you’re leveraging your event app to show appreciation for your sponsors.
Include their logos in the app and make sure attendees know who they are. You can also use the app to promote special deals or offers from your sponsors.
By showing your appreciation for your sponsors, you can build stronger relationships and ensure their continued support.
Additional Sponsor Tips
- Utilize eye-catching banner advertisements near the bottom of the screen, where a user looks to navigate through the app.
- A splash page that highlights sponsors for a few seconds is a great option to increase your top exhibitors’ reach.
- Sponsored push notifications are also a fantastic way to increase a brand’s visibility. Use these sparingly though!
Keep App Updated After Event
After your event is over, attendees will still use your app. They may use it to look up contact information for someone they met or recall the name of a speaker or a particular slide from the schedule of events.
The post-event experience should carry forward the positive energy from the actual event.
Use your app to stay connected with attendees after the event is over and make sure they have a positive experience.
Capture Data and Measure Your ROI
Make sure you’re capturing data through your event app. This data can be used to measure the success of your event and make improvements for future events.
You can track things like how many people used the app, what features they used, and how long they used it.
This data will be invaluable in planning future events and making your next app even more useful to your audience.
Make Sure the Event App is Compatible With Different Devices
Make sure your event app is compatible with different devices such as iOS and Android devices, and that everything works properly on different screen sizes. This will make it easy for attendees to use the app and ensure that all of their data is in one place.
Don’t worry about outdated platforms like Blackberry and Windows Phone. Their market share has shrunk to the point of irrelevance.
By making your event app adaptable, you can make sure that everyone can take advantage of its features.
Include Customer Service Contact Information
Include customer service contact information in your event app. This will ensure that attendees can reach someone if they have any problems with the app.
By including customer service contact information, you can make sure that attendees have a positive experience.
Conclusion
To wrap up, it’s important to ensure your event app is kept up-to-date and is promoted before and during your event.
To continue improving your app and event experience, get feedback from attendees after the event.
Also, be sure to optimize the attendee experience with helpful communication and interactive features, appreciate your sponsors, and capture data to measure your ROI.
By following these tips, you can leverage your event app to create a more modern and convenient event experience for attendees.
If you’re in search of a mobile app to assist with your next event or conference, Yapp can help.
Our full-featured mobile event app can help you collect all the information about your event in one location, making it easier for attendees to have everything they need on their mobile device.
Try it today!
