One of the side effects of putting on a conference or member event is the amount of data you gather along the way. From initial expressions of interest in attending or sponsoring, through registration, signing in and interactions on the day, there are numerous touchpoints where participants in your events provide you with information about themselves and their preferences.
There’s a lot more you can do with this data than just adding names to your mailing list. A strategic approach to data gathering and usage can boost ROI for you, your conference partners and for visitors themselves.

Why should you collect data from your event?

Reliable quantitative data is like gold dust. It can enhance the experience of visitors, provide valuable sales and marketing insights for sponsors and exhibitors, and help you refine and improve future events to make them even better. You just need to ask the right people the right questions at the right time.

The data you get from your attendees means they can make the most of their experience. If you’re running a marketing conference, for example, you can ask questions on the registration form about what they’re hoping to get from the event – networking, career opportunities, learning about new trends, looking for suppliers, what kind of suppliers and so on. You can then use that data to direct them towards relevant exhibitors, sponsors and other visitors before the event, helping them use their time more effectively when they’re there.

Reliable data can help you attract sponsors and exhibitors. If a business knows your event is going to deliver the type of people they’re looking to attract – the right level of seniority, with a good understanding of, or active interest in, the type of service they offer – they’re going to find it a lot easier to justify the expense.

Data can help you improve your events. It can show if the event is meeting the expectations of visitors, and help you make the right decisions for next time. Having accurate attendee numbers, knowing what type of sessions were most popular, which speakers scored highly, which stalls or booths were visited the most and so on means that you can be more confident in the programme you put together for your next event, with reliable quantitative data about what went well and what didn’t so you can repeat successes and avoid repeating failures.

How and when to collect data

There are several touch points you can use to collect data. The best way to do this is via an event app – a useful piece of tech that helps streamline all your interaction with visitors at all stages, before, during and after the event. We use Eventsair which manages data really well and offers ideal functionality and ease of use for our clients.

Using an app means that all your data is collected in one place, avoiding the need for linking to third party software, barcodes and QR codes.

Sponsors and exhibitors can use it to increase their visibility and interact with visitors who have expressed an interest in their type of services or booked onto their session. Attendees can use it to network with other people who are going to be there. And you can use it to track people around the event – which sessions and exhibitor booths did they scan into, how often did they interact with other people – all useful in helping judge the success of the event.

Online registration: When people sign up for the event, you collect their personal information (name, email address, job title, company), and you can also ask about their motivation for attending and what they’re looking to get out of the event.

Don’t ask them for information you don’t need – like their age or their postal address – or that you don’t need just yet. If you make the registration form so long it takes them an age to complete, they won’t bother. So be concise.

The data you gather here can be useful for targeting them with more tailored messages later on – like promoting sessions that reflect their stated interests
Registration is probably several months away from the actual event, so concentrate at this stage on the essentials and any information that can help build a profile of visitors. This will give you a fairly accurate idea of the types of people that are coming along.

Launch of the event app: You can email registrants inviting them to download the app when there’s enough information on it to help them plan their experience.

Programme announcements: Contact attendees when you have details of the speakers and sessions lined up so they can start thinking about planning their time at your event. You could tie this in with online session registration via the app, which gives you more accurate data about their intentions and allows you to narrow down future messaging.

This data can be shared with sponsors, allowing them to build an audience profile for their sessions.

You could also use these interim emails to promote special deals you have arranged with hotels or taxi companies, for example, giving visitors plenty of time to book in advance.

Closer to the event: Two or three weeks before the event, contact registered visitors with useful information such as directions for the venue, details of the nearest tube or train station, and local hotels if they haven’t already sorted accommodation. Ask them how they’re travelling – by car, plane, train, tube, cycling or walking. This will provide useful data for sustainability reporting.

It’s all about timing: asking the right questions at the right time; asking the right people the right questions (don’t ask sponsors what they’re hoping to get out of the event – that’s obvious); and collecting data you can use to prove effectiveness and ROI. So that’s quantitative, not qualitative information.

Data collection at the event

The event itself is a great opportunity to deepen your data collection. With the help of the app, you can track visitors to see what sessions they were scanned into, whose exhibition booth they visited and who they connected with.

Scanning people into sessions provides great data for sponsors – especially if they are running the session. They can see clearly how many people came to the session and who they were.

If it’s not a sponsored session, you can use the data to see how popular it was and if it’s worth repeating next time, and whether you’ll need a bigger or smaller room.

Even if your event is a hybrid in-person/online one, you’ll be able to record how many people watched a live stream or clicked on an exhibitor’s online booth and downloaded any material, for example.

All this information can feed into planning for your next event, ensuring you make evidence-based decisions informed by accurate data.

What about privacy?

GDPR is never far from mind when discussing data. What are the key points to bear in mind when gathering data from an event?

  • Always start with the question, “Why are we asking this?” If you can’t give a reasonable answer, like, “We need it to process registration”, “It will help us better target our marketing” or, “It can show how successful the event was”, then don’t ask it.
  • Ensure that the registration form includes an opt-in for people to indicate they’re happy for their data to be collected, and be clear about why you’re asking for it, how it will be used and how long you’ll hold it for (no longer than necessary).
  • Use software that has a robust data security policy and is unambiguous on how and where they store the data and how long for
  • Make sure you can anonymise data at a certain point for reporting and analysis purposes
  • Make sure you publish a privacy policy that is specific to the circumstances of the event.

A comprehensive set of data can be invaluable when planning your event. And even if it’s the first event you’re running and don’t have the data to help you now, putting these steps in place will ensure the next one you run will be even more successful.

If you want to find out how we could streamline data collection for your next event, get in touch for a chat.