Event mangers have a surplus of many things—patience, fortitude, get-stuff-done gumption – but we rarely have extra time. There is good news on this front, however. Thanks to advances in technology, 2017 will be a good year for time-strapped conference planners. There are several event technology trends – marketing automation, data integration, and best-in-breed technologies—that are maturing and converging in a manner that will help over-worked event managers plan and execute better events in less time.
Here’s a quick run-down of three of the best event tech trends and how they’ll help conference planners in 2017:
Marketing Automation Takes Root In The Meetings Industry
Picture a car factory—what do you see? A highly-automated assembly line where every piece is exactly where it needs to be when it needs to be there, efficiently churning out car after well-produced car. Marketing automation is essentially the same thing: a suite of tools that allow you to churn out a large amount of high-quality coordinated marketing. We at Hubb use HubSpot but other well-regarded options include Marketo and Pardot. Marketers in other industries have been using these marketing automation tools for several years and in 2017, event managers will increasingly adopt these tools to produce more, and more effective, marketing in less time.
Best-in-Breed Event Tech Blooms
It’s lunch time and you’ve got a craving for spicy tuna roll. There are two places nearby where you can get sushi. One is a cafeteria that offers pretty much everything: pizza, sandwiches, soups, salads, burgers, and….sushi. Next door is a Japanese restaurant run by a chef trained in Japan. He makes sushi, only sushi, and has been doing so for decades; like Jiro, he dreams of sushi.
Assuming price is the same, is there any question as to where you want to get sushi from?
For many years, event managers have been stuck with cafeteria-style event tech solutions; they do a lot of things but don’t do all of it well. Recently, event managers have had the option to pick specialized event tech. Like the sushi master, these best-in-breed options kick ass at the one or few things they focus on—and they work together seamlessly so sharing data between systems is no longer a hassle. We’ve written about this topic before and with the emergence of the Event Tech Tribe, a likeminded group of event technology providers (such as ShowGizmo, TRC, Swoogo, Glisser, and Hubb) who are committed to building software that easily and seamlessly integrates with other event technology tools, 2017 is the year event mangers will transform their events by leveraging best-in-breed tech. You might even say that in 2017, best-in-breed will be….on a roll.
Want to see what a best-in-breed event tech tool can do for your events? Get a free trial of Hubb!
Data Integration Enables Smarter and More Responsive Events
Data, like life, comes at you fast. For event managers, data from mobile event apps, social media, beacon technology, wearables, and RFID can be a blessing, but mostly it overwhelms. Fortunately, event technology powered by AI tools (such as machine learning) has become advanced and widespread enough that meeting managers will be able to easily use it to manage and control the fire hose of data coming at them, transforming it into useable insights. This is something we at Hubb think a lot about and we’ve created a helpful cheat sheet to help you get started.
What event tech trends do you think will be impactful in 2017?
