How Events are using Education to Anchor Attendance, Extend their Reach, and Generate Revenue

Today’s rapidly evolving event landscape is redefining how organizers like you deliver event value and experiences.

Economic and geopolitical uncertainty is influencing exhibitor and sponsor spending, along with attendee participation, especially if they’re international. At the same time, Gen Z and Millennial attendees are shifting demographic majorities with high expectations for personalized, unique, and engaging experiences

Regardless of the situation, attendees still need a way to learn.

Savvy organizers are recognizing the opportunity to use education as a strategy to anchor attendance, extend their reach, and generate revenue. But, the competition is fierce. Attendees have more options than ever to easily access similar education online or at other events. Meaning, you can’t rely on your typical playbook to set your event apart.

Change is inevitable for continued success. Here’s how they’re doing it without stretching their team or budgets:

Encourage in-person attendance, increase attendee value, and extend your reach

Hybrid Live-Streaming solutions have been commonplace to reach those who can’t attend your event in-person. But, they require a ton of additional work and costs to deliver two experiences at once. They also create a competing alternative against your most important goal to encourage in-person attendance.

Instead, software can economically record your sessions for post-event engagement. This model increases attendee value and creates FOMO to encourage in-person attendance while still extending your audience reach and revenue opportunity. Additionally, recordings cater to the new generation of attendees who want to access learning anytime, anywhere. All without stretching your team or budget.

Does your audience watch your session recordings? Read the article: Why Your Session Recordings Aren’t Driving Engagement (And 6 Ways to Fix That)

Make education inclusive for International Attendees

While your international attendance might only be a small demographic, it could still make or break your event. Regardless of travel and visa challenges, most events overlook education inclusivity and accessibility for international attendees, so it’s typically not a surprise that international attendance at sessions is low.

In most cases, hiring interpreters and translators isn’t financially feasible. But, software can easily broadcast multilingual live captioning directly to your in-person attendees' digital devices. You can promote the solution as part of your value prop to attract international attendees so they feel seen and included. Recordings are another value add that allows them to engage with your content from afar,

Want to learn more about broadcasting multilingual live captioning? Read the article: 4 Things Event Organizers Need to Know About AI Session Transcription

Deliver an unforgettable experience to attract the new generation

Your sessions face tough competition. Attendees have several options to easily access similar competing education (even within your own organization) online and at other events. Most organizers focus on session programming. But, it doesn’t differentiate their attendee learning experience from the competition.

The new generation of event attendees expect more than just handouts from your sessions. If you’re recording them, you’re ahead of the game. But, recordings miss an important opportunity for attendees to engage with your content during sessions. Popular learning tools that your attendees use in their day-to-day, such as interactive AI note takers, can deliver a unique experience and ensure they don’t miss important information. These tools can also transcribe your recordings to make it easy for attendees to efficiently find value post-event.

How does your session experience compare? Read the article: Is Your Event Education Experience Stuck in the Stone Age

Measure real engagement to determine attendee ROI

Attendees are being more selective about the events they attend and how they spend money. Their ROI becomes increasingly more important to ensure retention and decrease expensive acquisition costs. We know that education is one of the main reasons they attend. Knowing the details that keep them coming back are top priority. But, surveys and attendance tracking can’t measure real session engagement and what content actually impacts attendee ROI.

Measuring how attendees interact and engage with your educational content uncovers real attendee ROI. Interactive learning tools allow you to track note-taking, reactions, and favorites to see your highest performing topics, segments, and sessions. This previously unobtainable level of actionable intelligence tells you what to program and promote so attendees choose your event and keep coming back.

How are you measuring programming success? Read the article: Why Your Session Success Metrics Aren’t Telling the Whole Story and What Actually Matters

Put tactical strategy into play with actionable solutions

Everybody talks about attendee engagement but they haven’t had a real way to actually measure it. The tools are now available for you to facilitate and measure tangible engagement to create the ultimate session experience.

Read the playbook: The Ultimate Learning Experience: How to turn event education into an engagement magnet and actually measure it!