This is the age of big data, customer engagement and the social business, yet 90% of organisations believe they are not maximising the audience insight they gather at events via interactive technology.
This key finding of research (IML Worldwide survey of 350 global companies during December 2012 to understand key trends in use of technology to harvest audience responses) we recently conducted is very concerning, particularly in an era when budgets are squeezed and the need for every marketing activity to deliver measurable ROI has never been more important. Effectively, it indicates that organisations consistently ‘leave value in the room’ and miss the opportunity to capitalise on intellectual capital when they hold an event. From the perspective of increasingly time-poor attendees, bombarded with calendar invites, it is essential that events work hard to differentiate themselves and offer value and insight.
Today technology plays a pivotal role in gaining insight
There is little doubt of the contribution that interactive event technology has in helping businesses gain invaluable audience insight. Indeed, over 80% of survey respondents reported that they felt it was important when contributing to measurable ROI of an event, and almost half said that the insight gathered was important for driving business decisions.
Today, common forms of communication such as social media, email and general advertising are all key sources of disseminating information to an audience. Beyond these, technology is a key enabler in harnessing audience insight. Indeed, with the right tools, organisations can encourage conversation, facilitate collaboration, capture opinion and engage in content. But how do businesses go about this, and what can they do to ensure audience insight is harnessed in an effective way?
Steps to ensuring technology plays a valuable contribution
Because every meeting is an opportunity, a valuable one, to foster understanding and capture opinion, the steps to harnessing the insight are key, and planning prior to an event will ensure success. Therefore, mapping out fundamental objectives will be critical to gaining the most from what technology has to offer. With this in mind, before any event you should ask yourself these questions:
What are we trying to achieve?
What will be the most effective way to engage the audience?
What are the right times to do this?
What will help the audience to contribute?
How should the day be structured?
What are the most effective mechanisms for generating content?
How should we manage everything?
Only then can the right set of tools be applied.
Interactive event technology today benefits both the organiser and attendee
The number of devices available to the marketer or event organiser today is vast. And as audiences gain more adept at using technology, so it advances. Indeed the notepad, smartphone and other such handheld devices have helped revolutionise interactive technologies in the events market.
Today, in-meeting handheld devices are available that allow attendees to actively participate these can include handheld devices which feature high quality built-in microphones and queuing systems for speakers. Users can text on the same device, and messages are displayed on monitors either in front of a whole audience or to just the speaker. Recording options are also available, as are enhanced voting solutions.
Tablets provide meeting attendees with quick and easy access to large amounts of content; audiences can engage by contributing or commenting on the subject matter and voting results can be displayed quickly. Connecting to other social media platforms for ongoing collaboration via a tablet is also a hugely compelling advantage of some tablets.
Electronic voting devices are one of the key tools in the armour of the event organiser and allow for instant voting, which gives immediate insight into the audience’s opinions which can either be used for analysis later, or projected for everyone to see and discussed immediately.
The technology is there to support your events and meetings–however, you need to understand what it is you need to achieve. Only then can technology help deliver on ROI.
And at a time when ROI is a prerequisite, successful events will be those run by informed meeting stakeholders that recognise the merits of the technological solutions available to them, then selecting and incorporating them into their events as appropriate.
