In today’s rapidly evolving event landscape, the buzzword on every organizer’s lips is attendee engagement. But what exactly does “attendee engagement” mean, and why has it become the cornerstone of successful event planning?
Understanding the essence of attendee engagement and its significance can transform how we approach event planning. It shifts the focus from merely gathering an audience to actively involving them, turning each event into a dynamic, interactive experience that delivers real value to everyone involved.
How MTA Maximizes Attendee Experiences
Senior Director, Customer Experience (CX) Conor Barry shares how Miller Tanner Associates is leveraging both technology and innovative approaches to captivate your audience and ensure their active participation.
Q: Events (both live and virtual) are on the rise and the key focus, regardless of market, has been the significance of attendee engagement. Let’s set the stage a bit and give a foundation for the importance of the overall attendee experience. To start, planning events, whether for small or large groups, comes with a variety of needs and challenges. What would you say is the most common challenge sponsors face when planning for a life sciences event?
Conor: By far the most common challenge sponsors face is not only measuring but demonstrating ROI. Often some of this ROI is not quantifiable (such as the networks/relationships being formed during life science events) but is of huge value to future studies and research cycles.
Sponsors often only focus on the quantitative metrics (attributed revenue, lead count, etc.) and need to also take into account qualitative metrics such as lead generation, brand visibility, and attendee sentiment and engagement to justify their investment.
We’ve found that it’s equally important to assess the long-term impact of sponsorship activities, including brand loyalty and ongoing relationships formed during the event.
Q: On the topic of additional event aspects to consider, what would you say are some event management best practices to which MTA closely aligns?
Conor: As an overarching point, I’d have to say making sure that you’re being strategic from day one of the event planning process is important. Establish what success looks like for all stakeholders – guests, sponsors, speakers, and the planning team. Aside from that point, I’d summarize additional best practices under four main points:
- Planning Timeline Development: MTA is committed to building comprehensive timelines that are adaptable to change, but ensure all parties are clear on what is a priority at any stage of the planning process.
- Risk Management: Our team is dedicated to identifying potential risks and developing contingency plans to address them far in advance of moving on-site.
- Attention to Detail: We’re hyper-focused on attention to every detail, no matter how small, to ensure a seamless event experience for our sponsors, customers, and guests.
- Audience-Centric Approach: To know your audience, we take extra time to clearly understand your needs, preferences, and expectations of the event.
Q: Tell us what technology or innovative practices MTA uses to maximize not only attendee engagement but the general attendee experience.
Conor: There are several key technologies that we leverage but the most exciting are the inclusion of digital signature (eSign) and the Attend app. The addition of these products to our events’ “toolkit” ensures technology is at the core of elevating the attendee experience and drives engagement throughout the event.
The usage of digital signature (eSign) allows us to reduce paper/wet ink use on site and the user experience is seamless as our attendees sign in for sessions using iPads. Digital signature allows customers to access real-time information on attendee check-in status, review attendee signature count, and enhance the check-in experience for attendees significantly. Most importantly, it offers consolidated reporting post-event that is fully digital and secure via its data authentication features that ensure data integrity.
We brought on board the Attend app as we were looking for a way to enhance the guest experience in a fully digitized and mobile-friendly method while also offering more seamless, interactive, and inclusive opportunities for the attendees.
Q: We understand that a main factor that indicates the success of an event is attendance. With that key focus in mind, how does MTA ensure that life science sponsors are sure to achieve their goals?
Conor: That is the question of the year, now isn’t it?! MTA supports our sponsors in a number of ways to reach their goals regardless of the type of event they’re hosting, but if I had to consolidate it, I’d capture it in three main methods:
- MTA is committed to educating our customers using a data-first approach.
- Utilizing invite data analytics allows our team to build a deep understanding of the persona we are targeting for each event.
- Building highly targeted marketing campaigns and invite strategies that are customized to align with the target audience’s preferences and drive engagement.
- MTA leverages seamless registration process technologies.
- MTA invests in building cutting-edge technologies that support a smooth guest registration process. This enhances the conversion rates with the target audience and ensures that the first touchpoint our audience has with our customers’ events is a good user experience.
- MTA is continuing to invest in technologies that innovate the on-site guest experience and positively enhance guest sentiment towards each event.
- Integrating live polling and real-time Q&A sessions during presentations fosters interaction and keeps attendees involved.
- Paperless check-in experience for guests using the latest industry technologies to digitally sign in for on-site event sessions.
- These technologies also bridge the gap between speaker and audience when the event is a hybrid experience.
As we look to the future, the possibilities for enhancing attendee engagement are constantly evolving. By staying open to new ideas, technologies, and strategies, we support event organizers to reach their event goals by innovating and elevating the event experience along with ensuring that every event is an opportunity for growth, connection, and engagement.
