The last drink is served. The last chair is put away. The last light is turned off.
Now what?
It’s time to make sure your attendees are still invested in you, your company, and your event.
That’s right: your event doesn’t end when these things happen. The highest-performing events keep audience engagement high long after attendees leave.
Before we get into ways you can boost post-event engagement, let’s do a quick reminder on what audience engagement is.
Audience engagement is how active and satisfied your attendees are with your events. Sharing your event’s social posts, asking questions after content is presented, and chatting with other attendees are all examples of audience engagement interactions.
Other things (outside of attendee interaction) that indicate how engaged your audience is include: how much time they spend with you, if they’re connecting with you post-event, and if they want to go to more of your events in the future.
This article will focus on the post-event piece. How can you continue building audience engagement after your guests have left the room?
Seasoned event professionals know that an event doesn’t end when the last guest leaves. Maintaining audience engagement after the event will keep the conversation going, strengthen your relationship with attendees, and ultimately, drive more business results.
Here are six ways to keep audience engagement high after your event ends:
Ask for feedback. And ask for it early. If you’re able to send a feedback survey email toward the end of the event, you’re more likely to get responses since people are already engaged with your event. Their responses are also going to be more informed since there’s no lag time.
If you’re using an event app, this is a great time to send a push notification. Ask them to submit a short survey via the app.
If you can’t send either before the event ends, send your feedback request within 24 hours to get the most accurate feedback.
Enable more networking. If you use an event app, keep it open after the event ends. Let attendees continue to upload photos, comment on the social wall, and message fellow attendees.
You may even want to send one final push notification a week or two after the event inviting attendees to download a new piece of content or register for an upcoming webinar.
Make your event on-demand. It’s easy these days to convert virtual events into an on-demand version. Making it available to anyone will help you generate even more leads. (The best event technology can get this done in just a couple quick steps.)
This can also work for in-person events, if you took any video. First, make the content available for free to attendees. Then, consider making it available to others for more lead generation.
Create more content. One of the most effective ways to reach more people post-event is by using event content for months after the event ends. It’s also one of the key tenets of event-led growth. These are just some of our favorite ways to extend the life of your event content:
Send personalized follow-ups. Share guest list details and survey results with your sales and customer experience teams to start one-on-one conversations with prospects and customers.
Did they have a question or insight at the event? Did they participate in a poll? Use whatever information you have on their event engagement to personalize the conversation.
Promote your community. If you have a community on Slack, LinkedIn, or somewhere else, invite them to participate. Find ways to engage with your audience year-round, and you’ll continue reaping the benefits of your event.
Events are so much work. When they’re over, it might be tempting to reconcile those invoices and call it a day. But if you don’t spend the extra time to ensure there’s strong post-event engagement, the event won’t be as successful as it could be.
Instead of making post-event engagement an afterthought, make it part of your event planning process.
When you do that, it’ll give you invaluable feedback for future events, more opportunities for lead generation, and a stronger pipeline.
