Your organization invested a lot of money into your event app—and it would sure be great to find ways to make the most of that investment.

It might feel like it’s been a while since you’ve put energy into this fundamental tool, particularly if you haven’t yet found a way to extend the value of your event app into year-round interactions.

But it turns out that the pandemic, even as it took away a context for some organizations to utilize event apps, might actually be the secret to get attendees to embrace them again—while also solving a key challenge of the hybrid event revival.

What’s the Strategy?

Encourage event app adoption by tying your app to safety. As EventMB notes, there’s an interest in making events’ COVID-19 protocol functions, such as contactless networking and vaccine status checks, available through apps.

“For organizers and participants alike, it would be great to have functions such as test results or vaccination statuses included in the standard event apps,” said Sina Bünte, founder of DigitalMind.events, in comments to the website.

Why Is It Effective?

Event apps offer the potential of bridging some of the gaps that the pandemic has created, beyond the standard benefits of engagement.

Another area where apps could come in handy is in supporting the virtual components of hybrid events—which are to make up close to 60 percent of events in 2022, per EventMB research.

But one factor that’s likely to be an important one to keep in mind amid this shift is your event app’s features. If event apps don’t have the features you need to put on hybrid or contactless events, you might find yourself shopping for a new option this year.

What’s the Potential?

Of course, there’s always the opportunity to build a tool that encourages a more in-depth approach designed to go beyond the event. As Mark Wallach, manager of mobile business development for Results Direct, explained in an interview last year, there are opportunities to turn these apps into year-round tools, rather than periodic parts of the event engagement toolkit.

“It’s almost like they get everybody in their house, and then they kick them out of the house afterwards, so they’re missing opportunities between,” he said.

With integration opportunities, the app can even be a resource that might prove a first stop for people looking to do a search—perhaps offering an alternative to Google.

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