Event & Conference Engagement Campaign Guide

Conference and event engagement campaigns can be a powerful tool in ensuring your registrants are getting what they want at your event or conference. What's more, you can now continue engaging attendees during the conference with PropFuel SMS alerts to all your registrants and one-to-one SMS messaging, which allows attendees to reach your team with questions via text.

Need to build your registration campaign first? Start with the Conference and Event Registration Campaign Guide.

PropFuel event and conference engagement campaigns keep your attendees excited about the conference or event in the days, weeks or even months leading up to it. Once onsite, PropFuel SMS allows you to meet them where they are and provides a quick and easy way for them to communicate back-and-forth with your conference or event team.

A few things PropFuel can do better than traditional email marketing include:

• Gathering more context around the member's session and other interests, by simply asking them.

• Triggering other questions based on the attendees answer to capture further insight around their interest.

• Automating further actions based on the attendees answer, such as: display sessions related to their interest or drive the member to take a further action, such as signing up for a keynote or special session/event at the conference.

• Facilitating onsite communications with SMS messaging.

• And most importantly, PropFuel campaigns can be designed and deployed with minimal time and effort. And if you have new staff, your PropFuel Client Success Manager will help you build the campaign.

PropFuel is one tool in your toolbelt when it comes to membership communications. You may still send broadcast event emails outside PropFuel. Similarly, you could mimic what PropFuel does using other systems, but "frankensteining" systems together is time consuming and rarely yields the desired results - from both a member experience and data analytics perspective.

A PropFuel event and conference engagement campaign generally consists of three or more check-ins, depending on how far in advance of the event you're starting communications. One to two weeks after someone has registered is the perfect time to send a first engagement check-in, with communications becoming increasingly frequent as the event or conference date nears. 

• Which conference topic are you most looking forward to delving into?

• Which conference/event session are you most forward to attending?

• What is your top priority this year?

• How do you see your organization incorporating [topic] in your daily process?

• Are you planning on attending the [special event name]?

• Would you like to RSVP for the [special event name]

• Have you booked your hotel in the room block?

• The [session name] is starting in [X] minutes. Make your way to [location] now. 

• Reply to this number with your questions and we'll reply with an answer!

• On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend the [event/conference name] to a colleague?

• Check out the Net Promoter Score Campaign Guide for more tips on building this check-in.

Stick with direct questions, removing check-ins that have a softer, indirect approach. 

"Sandwich" indirect questions between direct questions. For example, ask the direct question, "Which of these conference topics are you most interested in" followed by "Have you booked your hotel in the room block?"

Events and conferences are a great time to use SMS. One-to-one SMS is included in your PropFuel contract and allows you to provide a phone number where attendees can text questions and your team can quickly reply. Mass SMS allows you to engage with attendees via a channel they're already checking - their phone! Mass SMS is a contract add-on. Contact your CSM for more information.

Sidecar is a partner that used PropFuel for engaging members leading up to and during its DigitalNow conference, via email and SMS. 

• Which of these topics are you most intrigued about learning at digitalNow 2022?

• Have you booked your hotel for digitalNow 2022?

• How do you see your organization using Artificial Intelligence and Web3?

• How likely are you to recommend digitalNow to a colleague?

• What did you learn at the conference that you are currently applying to your organization?

In addition to email engagement leading up to the event, Sidecar sent a full SMS campaign to engage attendees during the event. Messages included:

Out of the 186 attendees enrolled, 47 engaged with at least one question.

The question "Which of these topics are you most intrigued about learning at digitalNow 2022?" yielded the highest response rate, at 24%.

FSAE built a two check-in conference engagement campaign. 

• What is your primary reason for attending FSAE22 this July?

• How likely are you to recommend attending an FSAE Conference to a colleague?

Out of the 436 attendees enrolled, 242 engaged with at least one question.

The NPS question "How likely are you to recommend attending an FSAE Conference to a colleague?" yielded the highest response rate, at 41%.