Over the years we have managed to see and organize hundreds of events. Experiences that exposed participants to a lot of information, different content and impressive speakers. Basically, they leave with a big (information) baggage.
In a full event experience, is the welcome package still useful?
Over 10 years of organizing events has taught us that any possibility to interact with the participants or to keep them engaged in an event is one of the aces up your sleeve. And if done professionally it will be a win-win situation.
#1 Be creative
Attendees see a lot of information during an event, not applied immediately or without follow-up, it becomes useless.
Thus, give them the possibility that the information they receive at the event will be useful to them, afterwards it will be useful to you. Think about all the flyers or catalogs you received, how useful were they to you? More often than not, they end up being thrown away or there is a huge discrepancy between the event experience and the welcome bag you received.
We recommend you to be creative, what the participant gets in the welcome package should go hand in hand with the experience you offer. Whether we are talking about gadgets, business tools or an object that has meaning but is also useful in their day-to-day work.
- - - - - Looking for welcome package ideas? Write to us! - - - -
#2 Create a community of like-minded people
If, for example, your event promotes a santos lifestyle or you have participants tech savvy or a community of people eager to make a change in our environment, the welcome package should be in this direction. And here, we can give you the most handy example - event app.
Apart from the fact that the registration process is much faster, but you give them the possibility to interact with each other, with the speakers or with the organizing team. Yes, the app will not per se be in the welcome bag, but it is the first interaction of the attendee with your event at T0.
Also, the app gives you essential data about your audience, you can infer event behaviors and also create that community we were talking about at the beginning.
CONCLUSION
To answer the question in the title: YES, the welcome package is useful, it's up to you to decide what it will look like and what its purpose is.
It is among the first interactions between the participant and the event experience. It won't be discarded or ignored if it adds value both during the event and afterwards - it can be a great follow-up method.
