To App or Not to App?

To App or Not to App? – It’s Becoming a Difficult Question

By Tony Ballard, Meeting Planner – Kansas State University

As a meeting planner for a state university, I spend a significant amount of my time working on educational and association meetings. In the sector that I work in, I have noticed a very slow shift in attendee interest and association interest in providing meeting apps. In the past two years alone I have gone from zero meetings using a mobile app to now closer to 70 percent of all of my meetings are using an app. The conversations around rolling out a meeting app have often been tedious with clients, but overall the meeting apps that we have used have been very well received.

Obviously, one of the first questions that clients ask is why should we do this, and what is it going to cost? Like anything, they always enjoy hearing "it depends." There are many reasons for the "why" of moving into a meeting app. Many attendees like to have everything at their fingertips. Depending on the conference or event, it can be significantly lighter and less cumbersome to use an app than it is to carry a program around for multiple days. An app plays well into the lives of many of your conference attendees because they are already connected to some type of device anyway. The rub is when a meeting planner forgets that not everyone has their life tied to a mobile device. It is important to be mindful of those folks that either aren’t tech savvy, or just have no interest in always being connected to a device. A meeting app can open the door to additional sponsorship ROI, easier ways to track attendee engagement, reduced printing costs, and a plethora of others.

If it can do all of those things above, then why not have a meeting app? For me that answer really is event specific. I have several conferences that enjoy the meeting app, are more engaged on social media because of it, and fully support all that the app can provide. However, I have many clients than don’t see enough of a return on investment to justify the cost of a meeting app, an increased need for Wi-Fi in the meeting space, or the lack of something tangible that they can carry around with them and take back to the office when everything is over. It really depends on the clientele.

So, "To App or Not to App?" The simple answer is "It depends." It is important to know your clients, know the audience, and have a solid plan for ROI for all parties involved. If you have never done meeting apps in the past, but have interest in testing the waters, I would always be glad to share my experiences with you.