It's no secret that conference attendees are increasingly expecting a mobile experience at the events they attend. However, as technology advances, having a basic mobile app isn't enough. Below is a list of five important mobile features for your next conference.
Surveys
It's important to collect feedback from every event. Surveys help organizations determine which education sessions were the most engaging, which networking events were the most productive and even which lunch item was the most delicious! The difficulty with surveys has always been convincing attendees to fill them out and then manually recording and analyzing the results. Mobile surveys solve both of these problems.
With mobile surveys, attendees can be automatically prompted to complete a survey at the beginning or end of each education session. The surveys can be quickly and easily completed, and once the conference is over, there is no need for manual entry of survey results. All the data is captured electronically and ready to be analyzed.
Check-In
The conference check-in process should be as painless as possible. By enabling a mobile check-in option (using QR codes included in the conference app or other methods), attendees can be check-in "on the go" rather than being forced to wait in a line. Mobile check-in functionality can also be used to check-in attendees for individual education sessions since a staff member can scan people using their own smartphone. This is a particularly nice piece of functionality for sessions associated with continuing education credits where attendance is mandatory and must be tracked.
Social Networking
An important aspect of most conferences is the opportunity for attendees to network with one another. A mobile application that allows attendees to edit their profiles and connect/communicate with other attendees directly from their smartphones facilitates this process. Having that kind of instant access to networking functionality also stimulates participation which can be difficult for organizations just launching their private communities.
E-Commerce
During a conference, associations have a captivated audience of attendees. As a result, conferences are a great opportunity to sell additional products such as books, continuing education materials, and merchandise. Allowing attendees to purchase products directly from their smartphones makes the checkout process as easy as possible. Attendees can also be asked to contribute donations from their mobile devices during the registration or checkout process.
Bluetooth Beacons
Bluetooth beacons are far from a conference "must have", but they are an interesting piece of new technology. Bluetooth beacons are small devices that can be placed in strategic locations around an exhibit floor. Once in place, they can collect data about how many attendees visited each booth as well as how long they stayed by detecting Bluetooth-enabled smartphones. This data can be very valuable to both conference planners and exhibitors.
Summary
Conference technology is evolving rapidly. What was considered "ahead of the curve" a few years ago is now "par for the course". Adopting a premium mobile conference tool, like ClearVantage Mobile, can help your organization better serve your attendees needs. If you are a current Euclid client, you can utilize ClearVantage Mobile, which is a part of the ClearVantage Association Management Software product suite and integrates directly with other ClearVantage products that you use.