Best Event Planning Apps You Should Consider

When you are scrolling through your Instagram or Facebook, have you noticed ads related to events near your place? There are hundreds of events with different demographics and interests that are being held up daily. The event planning application has proven to be an engaging and powerful medium. They optimize the efforts of organizers to improve customer experience.

With the growing demand, there are many apps in the market, but what makes the best event apps stand out? To help you get a better idea about event management and planning app development, we have compiled a list of points and features.

Event Management & Planning App Development

• Find your purpose: The market for events apps is quite saturated. If you are planning to develop an event app, you need to figure out the basics first. Think about what you want to build and why. Once you find the purpose of your event app, its development will become much easier. You will get an idea about what features you need in the application.
• Consider the implementation options: Decide whether you want a mobile app or a web-based portal. You can try both if you have the resources and budget. But it should depend on your services. For tickets, a website works better. But if users are at the event, a mobile app will work as they can work offline.
• Design, build, and test: After finalizing your vision and implementation options, it’s time to develop your app. The main issue with the app is that you can’t test it before the event. User interaction is very different from any stimulation. So, make sure your tech is ready with plan B if anything goes wrong.

Must-Have Features in an Event App

While developing the app, there are some must-have features. The following points will help you stand out in the event industry. Making a virtual event app with Grupio is as easy as taking a breath. The Grupio event organizer app has both predefined and customized features.

CMS

With our content management system, you can easily get started. Just upload your content from a spreadsheet and publish. It’s that simple. Just upload and publish, and we’ll provision the app for you.

Grupio CMS gives flexibility to the standard or white-label event app, allowing the administrators to update the content.

Branding

You can get everything customized, from custom colors to mobile app icons, navigation, and menu backgrounds. Almost every feature can be controlled with the help of CMS instantly.

From custom colors to mobile app icons, splash entry images, top navigation bar, menu background, and app background for your phone and tablet apps. Almost every feature can be controlled with the help of CMS instantly. You can also use the CMS to change the order of menu items on your event app and rename them to suit the needs of your event and not confuse your attendees with unneeded icons.

Sponsors

Sponsors are the people; they make the event happen. So naturally, their logo, name and other branding ads should be displayed within the app. You can categorize the sponsors as Gold, Silver, Platinum, etc., or choose your category names. You can also choose the order by specifying a custom display order within the event management app. Moreover, you can even link banner ads to the sponsor website or a personalized landing page. It even acts as a conference app where the organizers can add the details about their conference just like sponsors.

Gamification

Game mechanics are a simple solution that can create incredible results. It is a fun way to engage your audience/ attendees. Contests, surveys, fun facts, and games attract customers to use apps. Try to link it with a point system, and this feature instantly amps up engagement.

With Grupio’s app scanner, you can keep track of these points, analyze detailed reports and announce the winners via the app.

You can easily set up contests, competitions & questions from the CMS. Moreover, users can answer questions and earn points with Grupio’s in-app scanner. So, you can download and analyze detailed reports and announce the winners via the event organizer app!

Alerts

Event organizers can send in-app alerts like push notifications that appear as pop-up messages or as messages in the alerts section on their devices. This is a great way to stay connected with your users during the event. You can even schedule these notifications ahead of time to prevent any last-minute hassles.

You can also send welcome notes, information about changes in the sessions, or other special information during your event.

Schedule

Event sessions in apps made via Grupio can be ordered chronologically. This allows users to preview sessions at their convenience. Sessions can also be ordered under tracks to organize them. The Grupio event management app can help you strategize every step of the way.

Speakers

Speakers are the stars of the show. You can display speaker headshots, their names, bios, contact information, and more with the Grupio Content Management System (CMS). You even have full freedom to modify this information at any time.

With this feature, you can connect multiple attendees and each other via the event app discussion boards. Discussion boards refresh every few seconds so that the most recent messages are displayed on the screen.

Maps

You can host multiple maps inside of the event apps. They can be online maps, like Google Maps or Bing Maps, or static images of maps can also be uploaded in jpg or pdf format.

You can also make static image maps interactive by connecting your session or exhibitor information to them via the content management system (CMS). As a tradeshow app, you can upload an image map file and then start drawing boxes on it from inside our web-based CMS.

Attendee Messaging

You can manage and organize your attendees in alphabetical order within the event app messaging system. All the information, like the attendee’s name, title, picture, bio, company, phone, and email, will be available. We understand that privacy is of high value. Therefore, attendees have the option to edit their profiles and choose to switch off messaging, switch on or off the display of contact information, edit their bios, and even upload the latest images of themselves at any time.

Social

The social media kind of determines the success rate of campaigns and events these days. So, the option to link to a Facebook wall, Twitter page, YouTube channel, or LinkedIn profile is available. Users will be able to share their experiences over their preferred social media platforms.

The option to link an organization’s or a key sponsor’s social media pages to the app is available. It allows easy interaction with attendees that will help in endorsing your brand image.

Exhibitors and their Branding

Exhibitors listing with information such as their name, location (booth number example), logo, description, category, and website link can be done in the app. The feature that allows attendees to tap on the map link to reach the exhibitor’s location will be a boon for both parties. Developers have the freedom to categorize the exhibitors. They can feature them or create and customize their category names. This adds more visibility and offers more importance to certain exhibitors.

Surveys

Feedback or surveys filled by the attendees after the event is over are extremely important. Grupio’s CMS enables you to create as many surveys as required through the events mobile app. You can set up as many questions with a preferred format, e.g., single, multiple or text-answer questions. Downloading instant results or attaching them in the survey section is convenient for event administrators, attendees, and sponsors.

You can create polls for your attendees to participate, which can be sent to attendees through the conference app. You can create as many polls as required. Moreover, you can choose to attach these polls to session and exhibitor records or even have them in the surveys section.

Analytics

Analytics is an important part of every business; you can add a feature to view reports in the event content management system (CMS). It will show how attendees use the mobile event app. Also, you can analyze the count of total and unique clicks in different sections of the event app. The type of devices and organic or inorganic users can also be checked for better analysis.

Lead Generation

You can add a feature that can segregate the attendees by interest, name, or name of the business that they work for and other demographics. All this data is always kept secure. With this collection of data, you can retarget them for another upcoming event. Using the event app, you can save attendee cards on Grupio’s secure server from the event app. Read cards from QR codes.

Also, you can integrate with the corporate SalesForce system to transfer lead contacts and use the SalesForce Chatter to chat with these contacts.

Conclusion

There are a lot of events planning businesses in every city now. To stand out, you have to be one step ahead. Gone are the days when just offline marketing was enough. In this digital era, you have to keep up with the latest trends and customer interests. But there is no need to fret; try Grupio. An easy CMS platform with a solution for every issue you might face while building a white-label event app.