Conference & Meetings World Issue 101 — July / August | Page 24

Data
Take the digital leap
CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, EVENTSCASE, JOSE BORT, EXPLAINS WHY CLEVER USE
OF DATA SHOULD SEE THE END OF EVENT FEEDBACK SURVEYS
You have a keynote talk
coming up in 5 minutes.
How would you rate the last session?
Please, tap to rate.
How many contacts
have you made today?
t’s taken a few years, but
we’re starting to move away
from a period where
guesswork crept into key
decisions around marketing, agendas,
features and improvements. Without the
data and - perhaps more importantly -
the technology to gather and make sense
of it, experience and intuition had a habit
of leading the way.
Fast-forward to 2019 and concepts like
‘big data’ are being welcomed with open
arms. By pulling vast quantities of
information from all the interactions
with our apps and websites, it’s possible
to shape our events around facets of the
attendee experience.
A notable casualty of the transition
from old to new is the humble feedback
form. It’s almost instinctive to have
delegates voice their praise and concerns
at the end of an event. Yet, when
considering questions like ‘Who was
your favourite speaker?’ and ‘What
would you like to see?’, we have to
consider their role in a new era of
predictive analytics.
For example, QR-code scanning
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
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allows us to put hard figures on the
number of people attending keynotes,
workshops and networking sessions. On
mobile apps with built-in calendars for
pre-saving sessions and meetings, we
can determine the most popular speakers
and influencers by looking into page
traffic and bookmarks.
These same apps use push
notifications as a way of forging a direct
line of communication with each
attendee. ‘How did you rate the last
session?’, ‘How was your lunch?’, ‘How
many contacts have you made today?’. By
continuously asking questions at relevant
points, we are catching people in the best
frame of mind.
Marketing attribution is slightly
different. Many channels offer a clear
view of ROI - in this instance the
strategies that drove ticket sales, website
traffic and app downloads. By tracking
the source of conversion, we can expect
fewer requests for ‘How did you hear
about us?’.
As well as providing a new grade of
insight, data from apps and on-site
technologies are tackling the
ISSUE 101
Reply
Snooze
“Without
the data,
experience
and
intuition
had a habit
of leading
the way”.
Right: Jose
Bort, CEO and
Co-Founder,
EventsCase
informational voids that affect us all. Our
experience is that, out of 100 attendees
that receive a feedback form, only 20 will
complete it, which means 80% of our app
users being completely ignored.
Through opt-in for data collection,
events are able to gain a much wider
view of people’s thoughts and
preferences. The industry could actually
do much worse than learning from
retailers, who have grown to appreciate
the value of data permissions in light of
GDPR. Many apps require opt-in for
user tracking as standard - a benefit that
cannot be understated.
Data has the potential to revolutionise
our industry, bringing new waves of
personalisation to the attendee
experience, and allowing more people to
have their say. We don’t expect feedback
surveys to die out tomorrow; there are
still some things that a digit cannot
express. What we hope is that events
realise the value of their
information, and take
the leap into continuous
learning, evaluation and
improvement.