EventMobi’s Appointment Booking: A Modern Approach to Networking at Events
Introducing EventMobi’s Appointment Booking
We’re excited to announce a new major enhancement to the EventMobi event app platform with the introduction of Appointment Booking. This new tool will help attendees connect and book one-on-one meetings with each other before and during your event.
Event programs tend to be packed with sessions and activities, which is great because that’s what attendees are expecting. Having a diverse event program allows you to create serendipitous opportunities for random networking on-site. However, even though there are moments of serendipitous connections, jam-packed programming often leaves an insufficient amount of time for people to network and build greater, meaningful connections one-on-one.
Whether the conversation is formal or informal, business-related or casual, your event attendees and other stakeholders are now empowered with a tool that allows them to explore the attendee list and book meetings with each other. As soon as your event app is live, attendees are enabled with a powerful tool to connect and schedule appointments into their agenda before the event, and continue the conversation face-to-face on-site.
Attendees Want More Networking Opportunities
IAEE, PCMA, and The Experience Institute conducted a study to determine the leading reasons why people decide to attend events. In “The Decision to Attend Study”, results show that networking is one of the top three drivers for event attendance.
In fact, across all generations surveyed (Pre Boomers, Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y Millennial), 76% of respondents said it’s important that events provide them with opportunities to network and make connections. Overall, this heavily impacts their decision to attend an event. Networking opportunities are especially important for Millennials, with 84% reporting it as a driving factor. The younger generations look at attending events as a way to grow their network and look for job opportunities.
Although it is always a struggle to get attendees to confirm registration early, the majority of attendees (84%) tend to register for an event 2-6 months before the event date. So this means that most of your registrants will already have confirmed their attendance to your event prior to when you start promoting your event app. It’s during this time when they would be most receptive to taking advantage of looking through the attendee list, personalizing their event schedule, and booking appointments with other attendees.
Before event planners were able to really take full advantage of event technology, designing networking activities within the event program was very labor, resource, and time intensive. For sponsors and exhibitors, they had to rely on an attendee list (if one was even provided) and send out cold emails to introduce themselves with the hopes that they would get responses. And for attendees, they didn’t have any idea on who else would be going to the event so there was no way to network leading up to the event.
With the EventMobi Appointment Booking tool, not only are your attendees able to explore the attendee list, they can now schedule times and confirm meetings on-site with other attendees or exhibitors weeks in advance. Think of this as a way to facilitate hallway conversations before your event even starts!
How Event Stakeholders Benefit From Appointment Booking
Stakeholder Benefits:
Event Planners
- To use the Appointment Booking tool, attendees will need to register early and download the event app, thereby helping to boost pre-engagement activities and event app adoption rate
- Promoting Appointment Booking is a great way to incentivize attendees to start using the event app before getting on-site, and familiarize themselves with other features of the app, especially planning their day and sessions
- Enabling attendees and other event stakeholders to engage in high-quality face-to-face interactions increases the value and success of the overall event
- 1:1 meetings help build a sense of community that will keep attendees wanting to stay in contact and meet again at the next event
- Knowing that more attendees will be booking meetings with each other helps guide the design of the event space to ensure there is plenty of meeting space and privacy.
- Having access to data that highlights the impact of the event in facilitating conversations between attendees, which can correlate directly to the success of your event in the form of referrals and repeat registration
Attendees
- Time-on-site is maximized to its full potential by scheduling meetings prior to the event instead of spending time coordinating during the event
- Booking 1:1 meetings with targeted individuals provides the opportunity to build meaningful connections within the community and meet new people
- It’s easy to search for specific contacts through the attendee list and find others by name, company, or job title
- Awkward in-person introductions are avoided since online communication is much less intimidating
- Deciding on a time and location for a meeting is easy to coordinate through the chat feature
- By scheduling meetings in the event app, it’s a great way for attendees to assess the success of the event by the number of new connections and conversations they had.
Suppliers / Sponsors / Vendors
- Time is maximized by scheduling meetings prior to the event with potential buyers instead of searching for them during the event or waiting for them to come to the exhibitor area
- Face-to-face meetings with potential buyers are great opportunities to generate qualified leads and build positive relationships for future follow-up
- By utilizing the event app, managing appointments can be streamlined as it integrates neatly with the conference schedule for attendees and sponsors
- Help prospects find you by sharing your booth location within your appointment request
Recruiters
- Being able to search the attendee list for specific candidates and book meetings prior to the event provides the best use of time for recruiters
- Recruiters get the greatest value in evaluating candidates and vice versa through face-to-face meetings
Investors
- Appointment Booking allows investors to reach out directly to companies of interest and learn more about them
- Investors might be looking to speak to numerous companies, so being able to book appointments prior to the event helps them organize their schedule and make the best use of their time at the event
Management Team
- During internal company events, like a sales kick-off or town hall, being able to book meetings prior to the event is particularly helpful for companies that have remote teams or international offices where employees don’t regularly have the opportunity for face-to-face interaction
Product Team
- At an external company event like a user conference, the ability to book meetings is extremely helpful for an organization’s Product Team to get feedback from their users
- By scheduling meetings with specific users or customers prior to the meeting, the Product Team is able to make better use of their time instead of searching for specific contacts during the event
Account / Sales Team
- Similar to the Product Team, at an external company event the Sales Team is able to maximize their time spent upselling customers or connecting with new potential prospects
- By being able to book meetings before the event, the Sales Team can schedule as many meetings as possible to build their relationships
Introducing EventMobi’s Appointment Booking
1. Simplicity At Its Best
EventMobi’s Appointment Booking tool is optimized for scheduling 1-on-1 meetings. Ease of use is at the heart of its design with a convenient 2-step process that requires no training or special skills from your attendees.
An easy two-step process:
- Use the event app to find a specific person in the attendee list
- Request a meeting with that person
You can then view your appointment details in your agenda and cancel an accepted meeting if needed.
2. Chat & Agenda Integration
By integrating the Booking Appointment and Chat features, attendees can easily schedule 1:1 meetings. The intuitive design allows for appointments to be managed through Chat, thereby reducing the nuisance of back and forth emails to coordinate a new time or explain details. Attendees have the ability to accept or decline the meeting invitation through Chat. Additionally, the meeting shows up in each party’s personalized agenda.
3. Built for Security, Privacy & Control
Attendees can have confidence in knowing that communication is delivered in a private and secured 1-on-1 channel only visible to the meeting participants. Additionally, for attendees not interested in receiving meeting invites, they can easily opt-out of receiving appointment requests in the preference centre on the event app.
4. Analytics and Reporting
Digitizing 1-to-1 meetings allows planners to have access to metrics that give direct insight into measuring the success of the event. Our analytics and reporting features allow attendees to visually see all their meetings in the app, reminds them of all the people they connected with, and increases the ROI for the event. Overall, positive future referrals and event attendance is maximized.
Get Started with Appointment Booking
EventMobi’s Appointment booking is included as part of our MAX package, and currently available on a discounted introductory price for all other packages. Request a demo with an Account Manager today to learn more.