Is it possible to measure wearable event technology impact on the success of the event?
Wearable technology trends are taking over the event industry. Wearables are light, comfortable, and when used properly, they allow you to deepen the user experience. This is often noticed by companies that run event marketing activities. The attendees also appreciate the convenience of these solutions. Is it possible to measure the impact of wearable event technology on event success? Read the article and find out!
What is wearable technology? This blanket term covers all electronics that can be worn either as an accessory, or a piece of clothing. The most popular ones are smartwatches, wristbands or smart glasses. They find use in many industries, such as healthcare, sports, or even the event industry.
How wearable event technology affects event marketing?
It may seem that wearable technology, such as wristbands or smartwatches, has grown enough in everyday life, that it will not make too much difference if you sprinkle your event with it. Could you be any more wrong? As the example of Behind the Scenes shows, a simple combination of a functional gadget with gamification allows to increase the involvement of event participants, but also significantly accelerates the realization of the event marketing goals.
Adding wearable technology to the conference flow can visibly affect the three aspects of event participation: attendance, participants’ convenience and their involvement, general reception of the event. It results in better results achieved through the event, but also enhances the global reception of the event.
Attendance
The information about the new event technology (such as wearables) usage in the conference flow may become a game-changer among some groups of recipients. These groups will be most probably technical novelties lovers and tech-savvy trend followers. While checking your target audience’s profile look for these qualities. For these people, wearables can give an additional impulse to appear at your event. Of course, apart from rare cases, such as the new technology event or expo, wearables will not be the only reason for coming. You must additionally take care of placing them in the right context or giving them a specific function. Generally speaking, you should make them a nice addition to the overall substantive value of an event.
A great example is the use of Augmented Reality at hotel expos to deepen the experience in the showcased hotel rooms. Another way to use AR as seen through the AR glasses will be to introduce additional navigation around the venue. The augmented image may highlight interesting attractions or the location of people with whom you have an appointment (via, for example, Eventory).
There’s no doubt, that this technology somehow affects the event. But can you tell exactly ‘how’ it affects your success?
How to measure the impact of wearable event technology on the event’s success?
Wearables will have an effect on event attendance only if participants know about them before the event. Find out what reach and interactions generated by the social media posts in which you announce the use of wearables on the event. Also, check who is writing about it. Follow the mentions, check their tone and see if they trigger any engagement.
Also, use A / B testing. Test:
- mailing
- advertising on social media
- landing page to write to the event
- and so on.
Each time test only one element: information about wearables or the lack of it.
You will measure what percentage of people who saw the message will recognize wearables as a game changer. Then, check the conversion rate inside those two groups. Remember that wearables can attract attention, but may not have enough value to convince a person to pay the money to attend the event. After the check-in is closed, verify how many people from particular groups really came to the event. This will give you an idea of whether wearables really affect the attendance of the event.
The convenience of event participants and their engagement
Wearables can be of a great help when it comes to convenience of the attendees. The simple use of wristbands for check-in visibly speeds up the entire procedure. Participants do not have to poke around in the bags in search of tickets, they only scan a band on the reader and go through the gates. Similarly, they can sign up for participation in attractions or exchange contact information with other participants of the event.
As the Behind the Scenes example shows, the wristbands have significantly increased the participants’ involvement in making new friends. This mechanism was driven by gamification – participants got points from performing specific actions with the gadget. One of them was making networking connections by bringing the bands together. Conference attendees’ engagement in the whole process was high. This mechanism helped organizers to reach the event’s goal.
Facilitating the performance of certain tasks with wearables and promoting their use can affect the engagement of users who will thus benefit more from the event and use its possibilities to the fullest.
How to measure the impact of wearable event technology on the event’s success?
The best determinant of whether or not your wearables have an impact on event success will be the number of actions taken with their help. Check, therefore, how many people checked-in using a wristband, how many booked the virtual consultation (or any other wearable-related attraction) and how many visited your production hall using AR glasses.
Of course, you also have to put this data in a context. A simple fact that 125 participants have 264 acquaintances using wristbands is rather useless. You do not know if it’s a lot or not, or if it has an impact on the success of the event. It is only a comparison of this data with the numbers describing the whole event, such as:
- how many participants attended the event
- how many bands were distributed
- what was the planned networking goal of the event
- how many contacts were made without the help of wearables
will give you the whole image.
With this data, you will be able to say, for example, that:
In the group of 2546 attendees, 90 percent of participants in the event received their bands. 70 percent of this group used them to check-in, 86 percent signed up for event attractions and lectures, and 55 percent used them during networking. In addition, people using bands made on average 3.45 more contacts than people who did not use them. It makes the bands responsible for the realization of 75 percent of the networking goals of the event.
This is the specific information that allows you to evaluate the impact of event wearable technologies on the implementation of event objectives, and thus its success.
What if the exhibitor offers an attraction that can be used with wearables? How to indicate the best and the most popular stand at the event? It is definitely worth to measure the popularity of his stand. You can achieve this by measuring interactions made using NFC (Near Field Communication), or the number of exhibitor’s QR codes scanned by the passing attendees. You can also put beacons for good use and measure traffic data. These small, clever devices will measure how many people have passed the given exhibitor and for how long they have stopped near his booth.
General reception of the event
How the participants will perceive the event may in the future affect their decision to take part in the next edition or to recommend the event to their friends. The use of wearables by the organizer, partners or exhibitors may add a few points to the general reception of the event. Of course, smartwatches and wristbands alone cannot build an event that will blow attendees’ minds. You will need an idea that matters, proper content, flawless organization and the promotion that will reach the proper target group. Nonetheless,wearables can become the ‘cherry on top’ for an event..
How to measure the impact of wearable event technology on the event’s success?
The event software solution will be particularly helpful here. Look for one that allows you to collect feedback from event participants in various ways, such as Eventory. Features that you should pay special attention to include:
- assessment of individual event attractions
- surveys completed at the end of the event, including…
- NPS (net promoter score) surveys.
Feedback collected in real time allows you to gather the vivid impressions of the participants who just finished using the wearables. You can collect it, for example by asking the participant via a push notification to rate the attraction they have just used.
Feedback, which you will collect through surveys at the end of the event (do not postpone it for the next day!) will show the general impact of the wearables in the context of the whole event. You may even get some valuable comments on how you can use them better in the next edition.
An additional element will be the NPS rating, which will tell you how willingly participants recommended the event to their friends. Comparison of results with previous editions will show you in general whether the addition of wearables (as well as all new elements) has improved the general reception of the event. Remember, however, that this last indicator does not clearly show the influence of wearables, but evaluates the event as a whole. However, it is worth paying attention to it while making a comprehensive assessment of investment in wearables.
Wrap up
Wearable event technology trends are still on top. Event wearables may, or may not affect the success of the event. In order to be able to show the profitability of this investment with certainty, you should use specific data. Focus on the numbers that will show you whether the solutions applied contributed to the achievement of the event’s goals and influenced its overall success. The data for these analyzes is easiest to collect thanks to the high-end event MarTech software. Find out how to convince the CMO to invest in the right software!
