You know that feeling you get on your birthday? It’s all about you on that very day – the day you were born. And on that day, you are very special to your family, friends, and coworkers – really truly special. All day long. Everyone is trying to please you, pay special attention to you, and get you something you’ve been wishing for all year. That day is de facto personalized just for you!

Many are real-life examples that illustrate personalization. For instance, you go to the tailor
because you need a new costume or suit. You choose the fabric, the color, the design, and the length. Once you pick your options, the tailor takes your body measurements – your height, circumferences, and the rest. And – if he or she is experienced – you’ll hear more
suggestions or recommendations on your choices to make your new garment look as best as can be. Because that’s the tailor’s job. To bring your need as close to your wishes and possibilities as possible. To create the feeling of uniqueness, something designed and intended
for you alone. And how can we transpose this experience to event planning?

Personalization and customization of events tailored to the liking and wishes of attendees have been in use for several years now. The reason is simple: The powerful impact that personalization has on events in the eyes of attendees is valued more than anything else – according to the latest research. This becomes one of the most relevant event performance indicators precisely because of that feeling that you insgate in attendees – the feeling of uniqueness, special treatment, letting them know that this thing has been made, created, and devised for them and them alone.

Personal assistant

Your event attendees develop the sense of personalization from the very get go. And they need help with this. Here’s an example. If your convention or a trade show have a website, you can set up a chatbot to be your personal assistant. Of course, the chatbot must be programmed to have all the details and information about the event, venue, schedule, workshop timetable, and talks. After registration, it will call you by your full name, wish you welcome, and ask you how it can help you or remind you that it is at your service if you have any questions or concerns. Tip: If the event is more formal, the chatbot should be privy to the terminology, while a less formal show requires a more relaxed tone of voice. Keep in mind that AI (artificial intelligence) learns and grows through interaction with humans, so the type of questions that are asked should be germane.

Engagement

One of the eternal questions and concerns of event planners is how to up the percentage of a attendees who want to take part in the event. We have already discussed about how people are generally uncomfortable to get involved this way – some are shy, some can’t pay attention close enough, and some are afraid of looking dumb in front of colleagues and associates. This is why most often people resort to technology. Social media walls, hashtags, or live polls are just some of the possible features. Technologies that are more advanced, such as VR (virtual reality), for example, increase the percentage of engagement and enable personalized experience through different products.

Be a step ahead!

At days-long events, attendees very often simply lose track of me. They forget what starts when, where the next talks is, when it starts, and how long it takes. To prevent this, there are apps that are developed just for this purpose for every event. In them, attendees can find the details they need along with the schedule. In addition, everyone has different interests. That’s why – as soon as in the planning preparation stage – attendees should be surveyed about their interests and desires. When a user downloads the app, the app refers him or her to the workshops or trainings that are most similar to his or her goals or interests. Plus, you can add the opon to remind the user for example half an hour before the beginning of the session that it’s me to go by e-mail or text message.

Follow-up activies

Once the event you hosted ends, it is always useful to have feedback from the a attendees themselves. Did they have a good me, what they liked most, what was most interesting, what they enjoyed – as well as things that should be improved and worked on in order to leave a beer impression the next me. The most important thing is to conduct follow-up activities while the impressions are still fresh and the attendees still remember the details. This is also a good way to round up the entire event planning cycle – give it the starting point and the finish line. This shows that you really care about the opinions of each attendee and their impressions. And even if everything did not go according to plan, if there were some minor failures, the likelihood of your attendees not holding it against you increases when you show the attendees that you care about their opinions. In a way, this is actually a kind of investment in building a future relationship.

Privacy protection

When it comes to personalization, one aspect that is oen overlooked is privacy, which is of great importance. In the digital world we live in, the protection of private data has become inevitable. What matters here is not to go overboard in the process of personalization! More oen than not people don’t want to share too much personal information, so event planners should take particular care about this and take it account. Of course, personalization cannot be applied in every segment of event planning and personalization represents a budget cost and requires additional resources that are not quite small scale for the most part. However, this shouldn’t be a problem if the ways or means that help you event attendee feel special are carefully and cleverly chosen.

Finally, if you are wondering how to create a personalized event, the answer is that you need to create a personalized feel. Just like when your tailor takes your measurements for a new costume or suit, you – as the event host – need to take your attendees’ measurements.