Technology for Event Registration with Cvent

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When running and attending events, by now it may be safe to assume you are very familiar with the concept of personalisation. Personalisation helps your events become more engaging and exciting and yields better post-event results, including the want to attend future events, brand advocacy and higher quality lead generation. But the level of personalisation you provide is only as good as the data you have for your target audience. Providing tailored products, services, content or event experiences is only achievable when you have gathered the correct information.

For many event organisers, there is an opportunity to gather much of this personalised data using your internal marketing systems, where data has been captured via marketing tactics like web forms and progressive profiling. However, the reliability of the data in your internal systems is often questionable. Is the data up to date? Was it correct at the point of entry? Is the data enough (i.e. does it paint a full picture)?

It’s essential to take control of the information you gather at the point of registration, so you know who is coming to your events and exactly what they want. You can track when they arrive, what they interact with, conversations they have with your team and what they want following the event.

An Econsultancy survey of in-house marketers of client-side organisations and marketing agencies revealed 47% of client-side businesses believe ‘IT roadblocks’ are notable barriers to improving personalisation. For 51% of agencies, a significant barrier was an inability to translate data into action.

This is where event technology can help. Using a system that is designed to paint the full picture of your event attendees can mean the difference between a so-so event and one that leaves people talking for weeks after.

Using technology for event registration takes away the need for manual processes, minimises the chance of your team making mistakes and gives your attendees the experiences they are looking for. The right registration technology will integrate with your internal systems (meaning poor data is updated and corrected) as well as your onsite technology which helps attendees to quickly check-in, print badges and navigate your event.

Many event organisers have experienced the horror of making mistakes on badges and having to quickly handwrite new ones. It’s not the greatest first impression and again takes up time. With event registration technology, names can be quickly and easily changed onsite, and new registrants can sign up and check in there and then.

When people complete web forms, they tend to be sceptical about what might happen to their data and therefore are only willing to share the most basic of details, such as email address. Conversely, when registering for your events, it’s at that point that you have a unique opportunity to capture more information about your target audience than you have before.

Suddenly, the willingness to share grows to a point where you can collect valuable information on your attendees and use this to tailor events to their interests. It’s at the point of registration that you could discover a percentage of your registrants are interested in learning about specific topics or are on a vegan diet. You can use this information to create and drive them to sessions designed to suit their interests and to provide menus tailored to suit the needs of your audience.

Further personalisation can be achieved by using registration technology to set up different registration paths. This enables event organisers to tailor varied event experiences for different groups of people based on their registration type.

If you choose to use mobile event apps, your event registration data will automatically sync with your mobile app. Attendees will be able to access material about your event as well as giving them further opportunities to network and share information. This also unlocks the capability for sending information through push notifications where, based on their registration type, you can inform specific groups of attendees about things that are only relevant to them.

All this data ultimately leads to far better post-event follow up, as you can paint an end-to-end picture of your attendees’ event journey. Your audience is tech-savvy and appreciates the ease of use. Event registration is the first touchpoint of your event and it must be a user-friendly experience to ensure your audience completes the registration process and feels confident giving over their information. Using this data to personalise their experience before, during and after the event will make them more likely to engage and return to future events.

Molly Hookings
Author: Molly Hookings

Molly joined the editorial team in March 2019. She has several years’ experience working in broadcast and journalism, as well as marketing and PR. Past experience includes working for the BBC and independent publishing houses. If you have a story you think Molly might be interested in, please email: molly@eventindustrynews.com