On average, we’re talking about 25 or more touchpoints — making it frustrating and even intimidating to think about all of the opportunities for engagement. So today I’m going to go over some of these key touchpoints, and divide them up into three digestible buckets.
1. Digital Engagement
The first type of touchpoints is digital engagement. A lot of people can nail the first invitation email that gets people to the actual event page, but there are a lot of other emails that you might be forgetting about. One in particular is the confirmation email. This confirmation message gives you an opportunity to engage with your audience and let your brand voice shine. There’s also the reminder email — or maybe you send an email that gets people excited about a speaker who will be at your event. After the event there’s the thank you email, where you can also include a link out to promote a future event.When it comes to other post-event touchpoints, you can convert your event page to a post-event stage. This page could include a beautiful thank you message, a photo gallery of snapshots from the event, and it’s also an opportunity to showcase any recorded video or presentation content. One other form of digital engagement is surveys — because we always want to know how our event is performing. By following up with attendees with an effective survey, you’ll be able to track your data and make your next event even better.
2. Social Promotions
The second group of touchpoints that people tend to leave off the table is social promotions — which has a couple different aspects to it. First and foremost, there’s the thumbnail image for the event itself, which at Splash we call the event card. The event card populates when you share your event URL on social media or text it to a friend. This image is meant to complement the link itself, so you want to make sure that it’s on-brand. But social promotion doesn’t stop there. It could also include a 30-second promo on your Instagram story, or a Facebook post that links to an interview with a speaker that’s going to be at the event. The most important thing to remember: when creating your social promos, it’s best to consider which format is most effective for that specific channel.
3. On-Site Experiences
The final set of touchpoints relates to the on-site experience. I’ll run through an example for this one Let’s say I’m an attendee at your event. The first thing I’m going to do is I’m gonna walk in that door and come to your check-in app. Ideally, that check-in app will be branded for the event and really easy to fill out.After you check in, usually you get printed a badge. This badge doesn’t have to be as simple as a “Hi, my name is whomever” — you have an opportunity to brand this element to make the experience truly cohesive.As the event continues, you could also utilize a guest app, which would allow people to subscribe to certain sessions, chat with other attendees, or even give live feedback. And this means even more opportunity to brand that entire experience within the app.