Gleanin, the leading referral marketing platform for exhibitions, has today announced that visitors registering for events using the Gleanin Connect platform will now be able to use WhatsApp to broadcast their event attendance giving event organisers access to a new marketing channel.
Since the inception of Gleanin Connect, Gleanin’s social referral marketing tool, visitors have been able to broadcast their event attendance via social channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and invite their contacts via email. Today sees the introduction of the next generation of social sharing, with organisers now being able to offer registrants the opportunity to invite friends and colleagues via WhatsApp.
WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is the most popular messaging application in the world with a global userbase of over one and a half billion. By allowing registered visitors to invite their WhatsApp contacts to attend an event, event organisers who use Gleanin Connect will be able to reach new potential visitor audiences like never before.
Referral marketing is quickly becoming one of the most effective new channels for event marketers as visitors are more likely to attend an event when referred to by a colleague. Currently 15% of event registrations are completed over a mobile device and with a predicted 2.5 billion smartphone users by 2019, this is only set to increase.
Peter Richards, CTO, Gleanin comments: “We currently work with over 400 events worldwide and so have been able to carefully see trends in the visitor registration process. We expect mobile registration to steadily increase, as will the importance of a great mobile experience.
“Our company goal is to provide a technology which allows attendees to be able to broadcast their event attendance with their friends and colleagues via their preferred platform.”
Tamar Beck, CEO, Gleanin adds: “At Gleanin we passionately believe that mobile is the future for event marketing. Adding WhatsApp functionality to our platform means our customers now have access to one of the largest messaging platforms in the world.
“With any new marketing channel, reporting results is vital and so of course we track how many registrants share via WhatsApp and how many registrations that drives. For so long, registration has simply been a data capture exercise. But now, we can harness the power of the attendee to help extend marketing reach beyond what has previously thought possible”.
The additional WhatsApp functionality is immediately available to all Gleanin customers and their registrants. To find out more contact hello@gleanin.com.
Author: Adam Parry
Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.
