Putting on a successful event of any size is a hugely demanding undertaking.
A primary aspect of successful event planning is ensuring your show’s web presence is just right. After all, the event itself is only a couple of days in a much longer cycle. The site is your show’s year-round marketing, sales and information component and therefore getting it 100% fit for purpose must be a primary consideration.
An event site needs to meet the unique needs of each audience type it serves during the different stages of the event cycle.
In the lead-up, the website should be the primary sales and marketing channel, during it should be an up-to-the-minute news and information source. Once it is over, it should immediately become a future sales resource showcasing the event’s success stories.
Here are a few crucial things to consider when planning an event website:
Your site will need to function beautifully!
The user’s experience on your website will be seen as an extension of the event itself; ease of use online will imply a well-organised experience at the show. During the design process, there should be constant iterative testing to ensure your customer base is feeding back into the creation of your event tech. Nothing is cast in stone – action the feedback you receive, discuss user suggestions and keep evolving.
Your event site must look hot!
To attract top speakers, sponsors and attendees, your website must be a beautiful showcase for your event brand. Good design suggests an attention to detail and quality, which goes a long way towards inspiring confidence with your audience.
The online ticket sale and registration process must be completely frictionless.
Spend time getting this right; nothing puts off a potential attendee like a horrible, needlessly complicated ticket purchase or registration system.
Meeting the right people at an event of any size is hard.
The ability to intelligently match attendees to exhibitors, conference sessions, sponsors or even other attendees is now more crucial than ever. The addition of a ‘virtual attendee’ option with intelligent matchmaking as part of your ticketing model will allow attendees to make valuable connections at your event regardless of external factors which may prevent them from attending the show itself.
Your event will rise or fall on the quality and usability of its agenda.
Attendees must be able to see all available options across the entire duration of the show. The ability to quickly search, save, and sync sessions to external calendars is crucial and modern event attendees expect nothing less.
Give your exhibitors and sponsors extra value by offering rich promotional opportunities within online profiles and across the site.
With careful planning and excellent design, you can extend the reach of their show floor marketing activities through unique interactive features. Additionally, through unobtrusive use of online feature sponsorship, you can monetise your event website and turn it into a profitable part of your show.
Finally, it is vital to meet your site users where they are.
Look at how and when your visitors use the site on mobile and desktop and provide a shaped experience for each use case. For example, during the show, surface mapping and directional aids that don’t have any relevance before the event opening. Serve a lighter site during the show to save your attendee’s bandwidth and reduce the load your WiFi networks.
Conclusion
Now more than ever, the digital event experience will take centre stage in the running of any successful show. Choose a digital agency partner that can work with you to get your tech just right!
Get in touch today.
