Keep Attendees Coming Back with an Event Community
How can event organizers keep attendees coming back so they stay engaged year round? Some will say that the idea of an event community is a pipe dream. The answer, however, may just be a matter of finding the right tools and tactics. Combine the best event technology with a solid community management strategy, and you have the winning formula.
For decades, attendee attrition has been an issue for B2B event organizers, and it’s a costly problem. When you lose a certain percentage of attendees every year, you end up devoting a big chunk of your marketing budget to attracting new audiences. If those funds were just redirected to nurturing attendee loyalty in the first place, they could have twice the impact.
What’s the Secret to Success?
Whether it’s through an event app or a virtual event platform, event technology can help you reduce attendee churn. That’s because it provides the foundation for an event community. For associations, it also means delivering the kind of year-round engagement that gives members added value for money on their annual fees. Your annual conference may be one of your biggest selling points, but your association can offer so much more with an event community.
Looking for more information on how to get started? EventMobi has created a new guide to help you learn key strategies for building an event community that will keep attendees coming back time after time.
Download the free eBook The Secret to Successful Attendee Retention: Year-Round Engagement to learn the most successful strategies for managing your event community!
Use this handy guide to learn how to:
- Foster the mindset of an always-on, always-evolving community that can deliver new opportunities with every visit
- Create continuity and context for events through discussions, content and interaction
- Transfer fragmented engagement from multiple platforms onto once easy-to-use centralized platform with a single login
- Upcycle event programming into higher-touch engagement on the community platform
- Host discussions, consensus-making, co-creation and other pre-event concepts on that platform
- Monetize the community via value-added touchpoints and exclusive content
- Gather valuable data and insights that can be used to develop community and event programming.
Why an Event Community Is Good for Your Event Marketing Budget
The benefits of maintaining a loyal attendee base can’t be denied. For example, the chances of converting an existing customer are 60% to 70%, while the likelihood of converting a new prospect is 5% to 20%. Existing, satisfied customers are also more likely to convince others to buy. This logic applies as much to events as it does to consumer purchases.
There are already many year-round engagement tactics, but they are not necessarily the most efficient ways to build a community. Some organizers use year-round tactics such as advertising, monthly magazines, content offers, and pre-event discounts to draw attention to the annual event. However, it’s a fragmented approach that often lacks the continuous, two-way engagement necessary to build a community and cultivate attendee loyalty.
How Event Technology Helps Grow an Event Community
Virtual event platforms helped keep attendees connected during the pandemic, but the rise in event technology also presents another opportunity.
Why not bring all of your outreach initiatives under one roof with a user-friendly platform? Event technology can be the answer to year-round engagement, even for in-person events.
Whether it’s an event app or a virtual event platform — or the all-in-one event management platform that EventMobi specializes in — the right tools matter. This kind of digital connectivity will keep attendees engaged at all points between your major events.
Why an Event Community Is More Cost Effective
Beyond providing your attendees with more value, an event community can also make your event tech more cost effective for you in the long run.
The more small-scale events that you hold, the cheaper it becomes on a per-event basis. Even in terms of the time invested in learning a new platform, it’s more efficient to use the same event technology for all your community needs.
Moreover, hosting a series of smaller events throughout the year means more opportunities to attract (and retain) new attendees. Smaller, more affordable local gatherings and webinars can even be a stepping stone to attending your annual conference.
Is an Event Management Platform Enough?
Of course, executing all of these ideas takes work. Adding yet another engagement platform isn’t the only thing needed to build a community that will keep attendees coming back.
Event technology gives you the tools necessary to build the foundations of an event community, but you still need an overarching strategy — and someone to manage it. In other words, a skilled community manager with a concrete plan is as essential as your event platform.
Grow an Event Community for Long-Term ROI
In conclusion, the benefits are potentially enormous for organizers that make the leap from virtual event platforms to event community platforms — well beyond increasing attendee retention.
In the long run, building on the engagement that’s already taking place around online events will give you better ROI. And when it comes to revenue growth at in-person events, there are equally clear benefits. Keep the conversation and enthusiasm going by centralizing access to all your event’s resources and networking features on one platform.
Watch the video below to see EventMobi’s VP of Product Marketing & Events, Thorben Grosser, explain how you can use your event space for year-round community engagement.
Interested in finding out more about how the EventMobi Event Platform can help you keep your community engaged year-round? Book your personalized demo today!