There are have been several conversations going on in the LinkedIn event and meeting tech groups about what apps to get for meetings.
I deal with this issue all day long as I talk about mobilizing meetings and the benefits associated with our meeting technology solutions. You can’t figure out what to buy until you have defined what it means to be successful. So here are some questions you should ask yourself as you start to research your options:
- How big is my meeting and can it be supported by mobile web only? Until really cheap, high bandwidth Internet becomes available in your venue, you have to be careful about choosing a mobile web only solution. You also have to be careful about choosing a “hybrid” solution that looks native but it really a native wrapper with web pages inside of it. If your users can’t get on the app it doesn’t matter how cheap and easy it was to put together. It will fail. Mobile web works well for small meetings where there will be a reliable Internet connection. Our clients who use our other products for their big meetings will use our Pipit mobile web product for the smaller ones with great success.
- How important are my sponsors and advertisers? What is going to matter to them? (Please take a look at our post on what questions sponsors should be asking you about your apps.) If your goal is to build mobile into a new sponsorship channel (as print moves to mobile the advertising dollars associated with it will follow) then the next most important pivot for deciding should be based on what is going to best monetize the mobile app. Sponsors want numbers and so your choice of an app should look carefully at what kinds of numbers the app providers are getting. Here are some of the numbers we are getting and you should ask your app providers to provide comp’s:
- Between 50 and 90 percent of attendees download our apps.
- Our repeat visits reach as high as 96 percent of attendees.
- People access our apps an average of 12 to 15 times a day.
- People spend an average of 9 minutes for each visit.
- What device types do I need? If you are going purely native then this is a big decision. If page views and visits are going to be the means by which your sponsors value your apps then the more devices you invest in, the more usage you will get. What do I do about BlackBerry? For many meetings, users are going to come with BlackBerry devices. So a native BlackBerry app may be a essential. At the same time, according to a recent poll by USA today, 40% of travelers are bringing iPads and phones. That number is consistent with what are seeing at our large meetings. So you may be able to support iPhone, iPad, and Android and have mobile web as a back up.
- How important is integration with registration data? Some meetings, like SAP’s TechEd which we did last week, need integration with web services to go mobile. SAP’s attendees wait by their computers to reserve popular sessions and their agendas need to seamlessly download into the app. Does your app provider know how to do this? Does your registration company offer an integrated service?
- Do I like these people? I just spent some time at the Mass General recently and noticed that the doctors and nurses there are incredibly good looking. I guess if you can get the best in the world, you can also get the best looking. When it comes to buying your apps, you have a lot of options so you might as well work with people you really like. (Since you may never see us, it doesn’t matter as much if we are good looking.)
These are my top five questions. For the experienced buyers out there, any advice you would like to add?
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