Push notifications—aka push messages and push alerts—allow corporate event planners to send messages to all attendees who have subscribed to an event app. This app feature can be extremely helpful to convey last-minute schedule changes, but using push messaging can too often create a boy-who-cried-wolf effect in which attendees ignore messages, or worse, delete your event app from their mobile device altogether. That’s why it’s important to follow these five ways to use push notifications effectively:
- Schedule push notifications apart. Leading up to an event, corporate event planners can schedule push notifications to notify attendees on everything from registration to travel logistics to specific sessions at an event. However, make sure to only schedule one a week to avoid inundating attendees with too much information at once.
- Decider whether the information is necessary right now. Users receiving push messages assume it’s important to them at that moment. During an event, corporate event planners should only use push messaging to send out important information such as schedule or location changes. Generic news about next year’s event does not fall in that category.
- Make sure the information is beneficial to attendees. Push messaging can be used as a way to advertise during an event, but only if it’s beneficial to attendees in some way. For instance, a sponsor could send a message about a giveaway for attendees who show up to a speaker session early.
- Be specific. If you’re sending a push notification to tell attendees about a location change, make sure to include a link to a map to avoid further confusion.
- Emphasize important sessions and speakers. Think about using event app surveys months in advance to gauge which topics matter most to your attendees. Then, send a reminder to emphasize those sessions to maximize the corporate event’s effectiveness.
