At Senior we appreciate the importance of events to membership organisations as not only a source of revenue, but a fundamental membership benefit. More and more we’re seeing not-for-profit organisations arranging conference-style events to create a platform for members to exchange ideas, encourage networking and create a community whilst establishing themselves as the leading industry association for their sector.
Over the years we’ve helped many membership organisations to deliver robust solutions facilitating the creation, publishing and maintenance of online conferences and events. Each experience has helped us build on our Events module, creating a much more flexible, powerful system able to run one-off events, and conferences with multiple break-out sessions. We’ve come to understand that there are a number of universal challenges membership organisations have to overcome to create an effective, stress-free event booking process for members.
Challenge: Poor design & user interface
The design and the usability of the event booking screens on a website can be quite often underestimated by event organisers. Users can end up frustrated when not able to easily use elements required for event booking completion on their devices or are unable to complete a booking due to the version of a browser they’re on.
To provide your attendees with the best possible user experience ensure your website design is modernised every few years (we recommend every 1-2 years) and is fully optimised for mobile and tablet users. The International Wire and Machinery Association updated the look and the feel of their CabWire website, creating a slick, easy to use mobile/tablet optimised website for their CabWire Industry Forum in 2017. User experience was significantly enhanced due to the change and a vast increase in new registrations for the conference was achieved.
Challenge: Lack of co-ordination
It is at times easy to focus on the online presence of your conference or event and neglect the offline assets. In order to portray a professional, trust worthy image it is important that the online events platforms and offline events promotion literature is co-ordinated to ensure a continuity in design and branding.
Challenge: Too much to do
Depending on the size of the conference a lot of data will be generated that can be used for planning of future conferences, marketing and ensuring the smooth running of the event. The amount of data can be underestimated and can take up quite a lot of valuable administration time.
Here are a few steps you can take to reduce the amount of administration time involved with the running of conferences events:
- Consider the reports you will need and get these set-up as part of your system before the event takes place. Many elements of the administration for an event can be automated.
- If bookers are able to add and maintain delegate details and make payments your staff are free to focus on what really matters: engaging with your members and listening to their needs.
- Booking of exhibition space can be automated also, this doesn’t have to be complex and expensive - speak to us about how this can be enabled.
Challenge: Information isn’t easy to find
Your online platform for your conference should show off the success of your previous conferences and make information about the latest updates, speakers, sponsors, venue and other relevant information easy to find. Place more emphasis on providing the key information in easy to digest formats and less on paragraphs of text – this can be off-putting and doesn’t demonstrate professionalism, modernity and thought leadership.
To conclude, booking events can be stressful at the best of times, but attending them can be hugely beneficial. An organisation who makes it easier to book a place on a pretigious event will often see repeat visiters. For more information we'd love to chat with you about how we can make your events going forward engaging and successful. If you'd like more tips on events why not find out here how to wow at your next event, or view these top tips on increasing event attendance.
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