Internet service is the thread that weaves together various event elements to help deliver a seamless experience, ensure attendee satisfaction, and manage costs. This is why it’s important to hire a partner to provide dedicated event internet services.
Just like insurance protects you from loss in the case of a mishap, a dedicated internet services partner can prevent attendee dissatisfaction from:
-
-
- Internet outages and slowdowns
- Technical gaffes
- Ordering too much or too little broadband
- Tech-based participant frustration
- Wi-Fi identity theft
-
Customers often request digital solutions such as apps, agendas, and handouts to enhance the attendee experience. Attendees may try to access these tools on multiple devices; each person may have 3.6 devices/connections. Having a dedicated internet partner for your event helps bring peace of mind to any connection concerns that may arise.
“[Encore] is one of the only network services companies out there that focus exclusively on events,” shared Alex Wedesky, Encore Director of Internet Services. “We know that events don’t only happen from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.” This means customers benefit from always-on customer service.
The benefits of partnership
Having dedicated onsite tech support allows you to have proactive internet solutions for participants.
“[Often times] people will opt to turn their phone into a hotspot or bring a hotspot,” Wedesky says “Even though you can’t see Wi-Fi, it’s like molecules in the air. You can only have so many in one space before they begin colliding.” When multiple networks collide, web pages fail to load, and people have difficulty getting online.
Because Encore monitors network health and bandwidth speed, onsite techs can detect a problem before it happens. Before the trade show begins, Encore technicians will work with exhibitors to ensure personal networks are set up correctly and are contained so interference doesn’t occur.
Event internet partners provide tools, strategies and support
How do we know the amount of bandwidth required for your event? Encore offers a bandwidth calculator to ensure customers always have the right amount for their needs. Then the Encore team develops a strategy for each event component that needs network access to prevent tech hiccups.
For example, if the internet is ordered as a shared pool for the conference, participant devices, live-streamed content, and presenter videos will be pulled from the same source. The results can be video hiccups that won’t play, polls won’t load, and participants may get impatient.
To solve this, Encore consults with clients to determine which event elements must be prioritized and partitioned off bandwidth accordingly. This prevents participant usage from interfering with things like streaming video or live stream feeds.
How event internet provides additional value and audience insights
Event internet is an investment. When you purchase 500 MB, you want to know whether you used it. This is another way in which dedicated providers deliver value: by delivering insights about internet usage and audience behavior.
While the price of event internet is decreasing, the means of reporting and processing that data is becoming more expensive. This is why Encore helps meeting and event professionals analyze data to help manage costs.
“We deliver insightful analytics so [you] know what [customers] need to do to see success going forward,” Wedesky says. “They learn things about the attendee base they otherwise wouldn’t know.”
Encore’s Aptilo Access Control System provides real-time monitoring of customer event bandwidth utilization. Through the tool, Encore can provide customers with impactful post-event bandwidth reporting to provide insights such as:
- How much bandwidth was utilized
- Timeframes where spikes occurred
- Where most of the traffic was going (event resources, social media, etc.)
From user insights to full internet installations to onsite emergency troubleshooting, dedicated internet service providers offer end-to-end solutions that provide essential support and peace of mind.
“Things change,” Wedesky says. “Having a partner who can navigate those changes with you is important.”
Let’s discuss your internet needs!
Produce a memorable experience for your meeting participants
In today’s ever-changing landscape, the way people consume content has undergone a rapid transformation. What does this mean for meeting and event professionals? You’ve likely faced unique challenges in capturing (and keeping) your audience’s attention to deliver a memorable experience. Let’s consider some key trends that contribute to these hurdles.
- Shortened attention spans:
With the proliferation of smartphones, the average adult’s attention span has significantly decreased. Encouraging participants to disconnect from their devices has become more challenging than ever.
- Greater production value behind content:
When it comes to the crowd-pleasing content people routinely engage with, even singular episodes of popular series have soaring production value. Episodes of The Crown cost an average of about $13 million, and high-end streaming dramas like Stranger Things now see price tags of $4 to $7 million per episode.
- More targeted, digestible media:
Thanks to platforms like TikTok, which deliver fast-paced, hyper-targeted content to 1.67 billion users, many of your attendees expect pithy and punchy messaging, picked specifically for them. Your tech-savvy participants are used to being able to find, filter and immediately interact with the type of content they already like, thanks to the platform’s scarily effective algorithm. If you want to earn (and keep) attendees’ attention in today’s digital landscape, your content needs to meet their higher expectations.
Considering the impact of these trends, it has become more difficult to entertain and engage an audience — while easier than ever to distract them. So, how can you ensure your content is compelling and has a lasting influence? Read on for insights that can help you revolutionize your storytelling.
Get my FREE content consultation!
Engagement is a metric that matters
A recent Encore survey revealed that planners prioritize attendee engagement and advanced content delivery. To revamp your content strategy and recapture the hearts and minds of your audience, here are three powerful approaches to consider:
- Cultivate community through content
Remember the viral Ice Bucket Challenge, which united people around a common cause? It brought ALS, and the ALS Association’s mission, to the forefront of Americans’ minds (and phones).
The content developed around the social media challenge was not only attention-grabbing but also prompted immediately achievable action.
Taking part was cheap, easy (except withstanding the ice water part), enthralling and, most importantly, repeatable. Meanwhile, the call to action rallied individuals into a community for a shared goal.
Photo credit: ALS Therapy Development Institute
2. Craft Your storytelling as a unifying thread
Your content should seamlessly weave a compelling narrative throughout the entire attendee journey, from initial contact to post-event communications. However, avoid generating content that merely starts and ends there.
While the content onstage might be the main focus during your sessions, to deliver truly resonant messaging, consider how your programming ties into the tentacles of broader, ongoing conversations within your audience’s communities. By designing content that’s relevant to your participants and what’s going on in the world around you, you can leverage your meeting as a chapter in a much larger and powerful discourse.
3. Appeal to your guests’ emotions for lasting impact
Some of the most memorable event moments are emotionally charged rather than purely intellectual. Consider award shows in pop culture, where speeches, interactions and reactions generate buzz for days, weeks and even years.
Ultimately, you want your program to live on with a life of its own, and fueling similarly strong emotive responses is a great way to drive connections with your content. Is yours designed with that intent? Is it working hard enough to become unforgettable for your attendees? If the answer is no or you’re unsure, think through how you can better speak to and influence attendees’ emotions through your storytelling.
We’d love to help you do just that! Our Creative Services team dreams big when it comes to crafting inspiring content, amplifying it through strategic event branding and design, and influencing the purposeful connections that set programs apart.
Want a sneak peek into our capabilities? Explore some of the riveting content we created for Marriott International’s exclusive three-day conference for their general managers that created a customized experience just for them!
Let’s partner on incorporating these content strategies into your planning process for a program that captivates participants and extends the reach of your message well into the future.