Data: A Key Element To Creating Better Event Experiences
Learn from Alon Alroy how event experience leaders can create personalized experiences using data, purpose, and connection in the era of hybrid events.
As a new wave of events emerges, blending in-person and virtual experiences, expectations for event experiences have increased. In this article, Alon Alroy, CMO and co-founder, Bizzabo, discusses how event experience leaders can create personalized experiences using data, purpose, and connection.
We have entered the age of event experience. How we work and live has changed drastically over the last two years. So has how we gather.
As event experience leaders, we have reached a decisive inflection point. Bizzabo’s aggregated data shows in-person and hybrid events held on Event Experience OS increased 255% between Q4 2021 and Q2 2022, while virtual event volume remained steady. Expectations for all types of event experiences have never been higher. As we work to meet this moment, event experience leaders must design with intention and create opportunities for community building. The best way to tailor these efforts to each audience? Use event data to power personalized event experiences.
Data: The Bridge Connecting Events and Business Outcomes
A discrepancy often exists between what you seek to achieve through your event experience and what guests glean — we call it the Event Impact Gap™. Data helps close that gap, but only if you know what kind of data to collect and how to use it.
Prioritizing a data maturity model will help your team avoid thinking of data in a vacuum and instead see every event touchpoint as part of a thread running through your events, surfacing insights to align event efforts with key success metrics.
Data maturity includes:
- Data capture, including the ability to gather granular data like demographics and session attendance
- Data integration, connecting your data to business systems and enabling you can act on it in the future
- Data utilization, applying integrated data to create more powerful event experiences
- Data translation, using actionable data insights to inform high-level decision-making and power your event experience strategies
By embracing a data maturity model, you empower your teams to maximize their available resources, learn from past wins, and enhance areas ripe for improvement. What results is a virtuous cycle, where each event fuels the next, and every data point is an opportunity.
See More: Virtual Events Are Boring: How to Up Your Company’s Game Through Creative
Purpose: The Power of Designing With Intention
It takes a mix of science and art to deliver successful events, whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid. Different dynamics drive each experience. Virtual attendees are not looking for a shallow carbon copy of an in-person event, and in-person guests want more and better ways to engage with each other outside the traditional cocktail hour.
Your event must offer an attendee journey that stands out. Zeroing in on your event’s purpose is key to designing unforgettable experiences and achieving your desired outcomes. Your event goals should drive every decision, from the audiences you target and venues you choose to the agenda you develop and the technology you use to execute the event.
Collecting data and acting on data insights must be integrated into your planning process. Do not collect data just for the sake of collection. Have a purpose in mind, or you will end up overwhelmed with more data than you can address. To avoid data overload, determine three to five key success metrics you want to measure. Then, align your data collection efforts with those specific metrics to identify the factors contributing most significantly to your event’s success.
And while you might choose the food for your event, you are not cooking each dish. Why approach data as if you need to become an expert chef overnight? Hire an event technologist and a data analyst contractor to extract more meaning from your data to gain insight for future planning.
The right (and easily accessible) information empowers you and your team to test new ideas and follow where the data leads. Experimentation can apply to anything from registration forms and email marketing subject lines to in-session polling strategies and other event messaging.
Consider how you’ll employ surveys and 1:1 interviews to pair your quantitative data with qualitative insights directly from your attendees, speakers, and sponsors. Ensure the data you plan to collect from participants matches the format of your event. Customize questions to capture the distinct experiences of virtual and in-person audiences.
Remember that success metrics have changed, too: they are not only about attendance but also engagement. Look for an event technology platform to help you measure return on attention (ROA) to understand your event’s success, no matter the format.
Finally, carry your sense of purpose through to post-event conversations. Ask for detailed, constructive feedback, problem-solving recommendations, and creative ideas for future events.
Connection: Using Data to Foster Belonging
The past two years of virtual and hybrid events changed our approach to networking. But the need for connection remains the same. Events remain central to building relationships: according to LinkedIn, 80% of professionals say networking is critical to their career success. Faced with the challenges of creating networking opportunities in each setting (in-person, hybrid, virtual), our commitment to nurturing attendees’ connections must expand its scope.
Successful event experience leaders think beyond the event agenda. They imagine how to plant the seeds of connection before check-in and how to nourish them long after an event’s end. Leveraging data is essential to fostering a community around your event.
Use the registration information you gather, along with your existing customer and experience data, to build personalized experiences enabling more attendees to connect. But do not stop there: technological advancements have made it far easier for event organizers to collect robust insights from both virtual and in-person events.
See More: How to Move Your In-Person Event Online
Event experience leaders are taking advantage of solutions like wearable technology to offer attendees a customized networking experience while offering organizers unmatched data capture. While not every event budget can include wristbands, high-tech badges, and other wearables, adding even one component will contribute to your overall data insights. Combined with pre- and post-event surveys, this behavioral data empowers your team to optimize community-building opportunities before, during, and after an event.
Attendee expectations for event experiences have not just grown more exacting than in the past; they have evolved. The world has changed, and we cannot simply return to business as usual. The events industry received a gift when we had to pivot our plans during the height of the pandemic. We had a creative opportunity almost no one gets: a moment for reinvention.
As we reimagine where and how events take shape, we must focus on planning with purpose, creating community, and seeking data-driven insights to offer unforgettable experiences that elevate the potential of all events.
In this age of hybrid events, how are you creating personalized experiences? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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