Engaging your audience is the cornerstone of a successful event, especially at a conference where connections, learning, and memorable experiences are key. Event engagement goes beyond just entertainment; it’s about creating a dynamic environment that encourages participation and meaningful interactions and leaves a lasting impression on your attendees.
This article explores 17 innovative ideas to boost engagement at your next conference. It will help you create a conference that not only meets your goals but also delights and inspires your audience. By focusing on engagement, you can elevate your event, strengthen your brand, and ensure your conference is a success.
What is event engagement?
Event engagement is a technique employed by event planners to boost attendees’ connection and involvement in order to make the event successful. It may help companies improve customer experiences and build their reputation. Event participation is essential to its success and is not only a catchphrase. Your event planning and execution may be greatly enhanced by comprehending and evaluating your attendee involvement, strengthening your relationships with the audience.
Why does event engagement matter?
Creating a dynamic experience that builds relationships and creates a lasting, favourable image of your company is the key to engaging guests at an event rather than simply providing them with entertainment. Focusing on involvement is essential for a successful event for the following reasons:
Boost brand perception
Attendees who are actively involved are more likely to think well of your business. Interactions with speakers, sponsors, and others generate positive buzz beyond the event.
Measures success
Metrics related to engagement, such as survey results, social media activity, and participation rates, offer important information on the event’s success. High involvement indicates a successful and significant experience.
Drives attendee value
Attending events allows people to interact and engage. Attendees actively involved in sessions, network with exhibitors, and form meaningful relationships eventually derive greater value from the event.
Personalisation is key
When the event is customized to the interests of your audience, it produces a more meaningful experience. This can result in higher attendee satisfaction, a greater chance of repeat participation, and fruitful word-of-mouth advertising.
By putting an emphasis on engagement, you can turn your event into a potent platform for connection, brand promotion, and long-term benefits for both your guests and your company.
How to Develop an Impressive Attendee Engagement Strategy
An engagement strategy is a documented plan outlining the most effective ways to communicate with your audience. A strategic engagement strategy helps organisers concentrate on particular aspects of an event and how to enhance participation and the overall experience. Some tried-and-true actions may be taken to guarantee a more successful event through involvement. When developing your event engagement plan, keep the following points in mind.
Your Approach Should Be Attendee-Specific
Engaged attendees benefit everyone. The audience receives a return on their time and financial investment, sponsors are happy, and sessions are full and lively.
Recognise Your Attendance
Your ability to keep your audience interested will increase with their knowledge. This covers their degree of industry experience, the things they hope to find at the event, and their expectations. Use this information to plan ways to interact with them in workshops, seminars, break-out sessions, and panel discussions that are probably going to be interesting.
Make Sure of a Good First Impression
Act to streamline and simplify the attendance registration process as you go through it. Prepare for common questions and provide preemptive responses. To reduce confusion, have enough personnel and signs. Seek to impress your audience as soon as you can, avoiding any early mistakes. One important tool for accomplishing this is an automated registration procedure. First impressions may establish the tone of the entire event, which is important. Stay clear of anything that might hinder communication, such as speed bumps.
Maintain Contact with Your Audience
Examine the best ways to stay in contact with attendees during the gathering. Your website, SMS messaging, social media, message boards, announcements, and on-site video screens may all be used for this. Certain applications can effectively engage your visitors and improve their experience. Make sure to publicise events extensively and notify people as soon as any changes occur. Testing the room’s temperature during an event and making necessary modifications is possible via real-time communications and involvement.
Make Networking Opportunities
A good plan for engaging attendees at an event should prioritise networking possibilities. Even while networking might happen naturally at events, it is much too crucial not to plan ahead and promote. According to surveys, most participants like networking; thus, events should be organised. As part of your plan, you may set up lounges or rest spaces where guests can unwind and take a break. This may provide a more laid-back environment for networking among guests.
Establish the metrics for measuring successful engagement
Determine the metrics you’ll use to assess the effectiveness of your visitor engagement efforts, including surveys, session attendance, social media reviews, vendor interactions, and comments made after the event. Establish new, more ambitious goals for engagement by using the engagement activities from past events as a benchmark.
Best Event Engagement Ideas
Implementing the useful event engagement ideas below will boost attendance and pleasure and produce a memorable and exciting occasion. You can also use the event activation ideas we’ve supplied to get the most out of your gathering.
1. Tailored invitations
Our first suggestion for increasing event participation is to tailor the invites to each individual guest to make them feel unique at your event. We also suggest providing an easy-to-register website, sending out customised emails, and sending out regular text messages with event updates.
2. Social media engagement and event hashtags
Social networking is vital in the fast-paced digital era. Running and using social media platforms might aid in expanding your brand. As a brand, you may use these event engagement tips as your strategy. Launch hashtag campaigns that encourage content creation from your fans. Repost real user-generated material on social media, such as a live Twitter stream, to strengthen your relationship with your audience.
3. Survey and polls: Find out event engagement tips on what your attendees want
Reaching your marketing objectives using social media is advantageous. Try conducting online polls and surveys to interact with people. Find out what the participants of your event want and address any uncertainties. This will allow you to engage with them more deeply and provide them with a customized experience.
4. Maximise Email marketing
This trick has the potential to increase event attendance. This is a great way to get people to your event and get them involved in activities since people love free stuff. To keep things interesting, give event attendees access to the host, VIP tickets, and more. Establish a deadline for entries and reservations to create a sense of urgency.
On-site Event Engagement Ideas
It is essential to keep attendees interested and having a good time during the event. To help achieve this goal, consider the following options for on-site event involvement.
5. Live social media wall
Use a social wall at your event to increase attendees’ participation. These boards can display campaign feeds, user-generated material, and live social media feeds from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
To appear on the screen, encourage others to post images and mention your event using the hashtag. In addition to improving the event experience, these digital social wall displays offer insightful data on what appeals to your target demographic.
Using AI-powered social media walls at events is a fantastic method of keeping attendees interested and giving the impression that the event is more contemporary.
AI technology can automatically filter and present relevant material to ensure that only the most interesting articles are displayed. You can customise your wall’s appearance to fit your event’s theme but keep it modest to maintain.
6. Photo booth
Another tool for increasing event attendance is an event photo booth, which may provide access to a larger audience. Encourage consumers to use your branded hashtags when they post about their clicks on social media. You may utilise a unique background with your logo and colour scheme and an event photo booth to keep your brand visible.
7. Gamification
Gamification of the event is another fantastic concept for increasing attendance. This improves your communication with the audience and heightens their enjoyment. Create activities or games that let users earn points that may be exchanged for gifts or other incentives later. AI-powered social media walls allow you to quiz users and discover what they’re thinking.
8. Engaging keynote speakers
Are you trying to come up with ideas for engaging conference attendees? This one, though, may do wonders for you. Partner with prominent figures in the field or well-known orators to effect change and connect with a wider audience. This tip can also assist you in organising engaging workshops and conferences that maintain a dynamic atmosphere.
9. Interactive registration process
Use customised QR codes to ensure a seamless arrival experience for your guests. Their check-in procedure may go more smoothly as a result. But do you want to make things even more exciting to increase event participation? Permit participants to earn incentives or points for finishing registration activities, such as scanning several QR codes at various locations.
10. Experiential sessions
Use this engagement strategy by offering immersive sessions to your event guests. Permit them to try out demonstrations of your goods and services. Event engagement technology can help people test out your product, which is a terrific way to encourage them to chat about what you have to offer, learn more about your business, and discuss what they think and want to see. You’ll be able to improvise and provide stronger performances going forward.
11. Monitor engagement
Are you thinking about organising a virtual event and would want some suggestions for virtual event engagement? You don’t need to search any further. Consider utilising a platform that provides insightful data about your attendees’ involvement in virtual or hybrid events. Presenters may utilise these insights to engage participants in virtual or hybrid sessions more successfully, and this data can help you make better decisions in the future.
12. Make new connections with networking opportunities
Meeting new people is the main goal of events! Market your event as an opportunity to network with business people in the field and promote conversation between speakers. To create a buzz, use a social media hashtag. By putting an emphasis on making connections, you can turn your event into a noteworthy networking event that benefits your company.
Post-event engagement ideas
The event is still in progress. Now, let’s concentrate on what will happen next: continuing the discussion beyond the event. We’ll look at strategies to keep in touch and build relationships with your guests even after the event has ended.
13. Post-event testimonials
Recall that even when the event concludes, your involvement doesn’t end. Obtain commendation from the audience: Get comments and endorsements after the event.
Display images and comments from attendees of your event! To foster trust, display gratifying comments on your website or electronic screens.
14. Survey and feedback forms
Surveys are a treasure trove for brand event engagement. Ask your guests for comments to find out what they liked and didn’t like. Additionally, you can get suggestions from them concerning future goals. Find out what they wish to watch after this. Maintain a high level of participation at your event! Utilise input to make the next events better.
15. Send a thank you email
Following up with guests with personalised emails might help you maintain contact after the event. In a thank-you note, include a summary of the event, highlights, and details about future events. You may build your community even more by expressing gratitude to guests, thanking them for coming and providing a discount for the following year’s event.
16. Host a social media contest to fuel post-event engagement
You can organise all of the participant-generated content with a social media contest held after the event. You may display this feed on your website and social networking accounts. Using social media to promote events may help you create dependable connections, lengthen visitors’ stays on your website, and successfully boost revenue.
17. Share with them an invitation to another event
Inviting attendees to another event is a powerful way to maintain engagement and build lasting relationships. By offering an invitation to a future event, you can keep the momentum going and show participants their involvement is valued.
Highlight the unique aspects of the upcoming event, whether it’s a chance to network with industry leaders, attend exclusive workshops, or enjoy special entertainment. Personalise the invitation to make it feel special and relevant, ensuring attendees see the added value of staying connected with your organisation. This strategy fosters a sense of community and encourages continued participation and loyalty.
Wrap up
In conclusion, enhancing event engagement is essential for creating memorable and impactful experiences that resonate with your audience long after the event has ended. By implementing tailored strategies before, during, and after your conference, you can boost participation, foster meaningful connections, and elevate your brand’s perception.
Prioritising event engagement ideas for conference activities not only ensures the success of your event but also strengthens relationships, drives attendee satisfaction, and sets the stage for future opportunities. Focusing on these key ideas can turn your next conference into an engaging and rewarding experience for all involved.
