Imagine a situation where all kinds of advanced digital features are integrated into your event platform, but the usage is relatively low. For example, a platform like Jublia Engagement Hub thrives on adoption, the more engaged users, the better we can deliver recommendations to drive and fulfill meetings performance.

Despite its undeniable significance, maximizing feature adoption at events can be a complex endeavor. Effectively equipping all event stakeholders with the knowledge and capability to utilize the advanced digital solutions that you and your trusted tech partner have prepared is no easy feat. In fact, it stands as a major challenge that must be addressed to unlock the full potential of your event and ensure satisfaction at the same time.

This piece will take you deeper into the challenges of feature adoption at events and how to solve them.

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Feature Adoption: What Makes It So Challenging?

The breadth of feature adoption challenges can be unlimited, depending on the situation. Still, it all comes down to the fundamental aspects: poor onboarding, lack of awareness of the full potential, and low retention. They can result in poor user experience and dissatisfaction, which might cause an assumption that the features themselves are poor, not the adoption.

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Poor onboarding leads to a lack of awareness

The initial phase of the feature adoption process is known as the "exposed" stage, where the introduction of features to users takes place. This emphasizes the significant role of creating awareness about these features and the right onboarding process is crucial in the success of feature adoption and influencing usage, particularly for first-timers.

This significance is amplified when introducing a brand-new feature that has never been utilized. Going beyond merely mentioning the feature’s name and offering a brief explanation of its benefits is required to capture users’ attention and impart them with the necessary knowledge.

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Dealing with less tech-savvy users

It is essential to recognize that not all participants possess a high level of technical proficiency, underscoring the importance of providing detailed explanations for all features. Disregarding the onboarding stage can result in low retention rates and infrequent usage, making it imperative for organizers to prioritize and optimize the crucial phase, especially to handle the less tech-savvy users who need more time to adapt and adopt all the features.

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Low usage retention

The true measure of successful feature adoption lies in its ability to drive impressive retention rates. Merely attracting a high number of users to access the feature holds little significance if they engage with it only once and show no further interest. Beyond the crucial onboarding phase and initial usage, it becomes essential to delve deeper into the frequency and duration of engagement exhibited by exhibitors and attendees. 

Are they actively utilizing the features throughout the event lifecycle, or do they quickly abandon them after a few attempts? These critical metrics must be meticulously measured to ascertain the extent to which these features are genuinely delivering their inherent value to users beyond the initial allure. Such rigorous evaluation will pave the way for informed decisions and strategic enhancements to maximize user satisfaction, sustained engagement, and the ultimate success of the feature adoption journey.

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Powerful Strategies to Amplify Feature Adoption

A myriad of strategies exists to boost the level of feature adoption, ranging from targeted promotional campaigns aimed at end-users to the astute analysis of invaluable data that unveils users' behaviors. Let's take a closer look!

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Procurement of high-quality resources to smoothen the onboarding process

Have you ever wondered why it is hard to drive feature adoption? One of the answers can be that humans tend to resist change — which is also applicable to the events industry. Thus, the proper onboarding process, which covers not only features introduction but also detailed tutorials, will help smoothen the process.

The correct implementation of a well-executed contextual tutorial can significantly increase feature adoption rates by up to tenfold. Content or format types may vary, depending on the organizers’ creativity, such as creating walkthrough videos, direct links to specific pages of the event platform, feature introduction in the welcome email, and in-app messaging. Need some inspiration? Check out the video created by one of our partners to see how feature promotion can be wrapped up beautifully in an engaging video.

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Effective promotion in three different stages

Harnessing all the available resources to promote the existing features in your events is only the beginning. The next essential step to take is the promotional strategies, which can be divided into three different launching stages: pre-launch, post-launch, and during event day by utilizing the digital platforms of your events.

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• Pre-launch

The period prior to the launching day can be a good starting point for feature promotion to tell your event stakeholders what you have in store for them. Such as sharing the direct link to your event’s platform, which is also accessible to the general public to gather more attention and widen your audience reach. In Jublia, for example, you can use the Public Hub to maximize the initial stage of your feature promotional endeavor.

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• Post-launch

To take the lack of awareness to rest, it’s crucial to expose your event stakeholders to all the features you have in the events swiftly, such as providing detailed information about them on the event web platform homepage that will fall upon their first sight.

Utilizing social media platforms to promote the feature further helps to trigger curiosity and increase usage. One of Jublia’s partners, for example, produced an easy-to-understand video to introduce the newly integrated AI-powered floor plan to their audience prior to the event days.

Meanwhile, social media also serves as an effective funnel to promote your native event app and the values it holds!

• Event day

Utilizing the full potential of your native event app is a foolproof strategy to effectively promote the features and optimize engagement. Particularly during the event days when exhibitors and attendees heavily rely on their mobile devices, leveraging the app becomes even more crucial. That being said, native event app downloads tend to accelerate closer to and during the event days, making it the momentum to maximize adoption.

Doing so guarantees that your event stakeholders will notice the indispensable digital solutions that give them the most authentic experience and empower them to achieve their goals.

Analyze user behavior data to understand the level of adoption and retention

Tracking feature adoption is a critical aspect that demands vigilant attention throughout the entire event lifecycle. By meticulously monitoring and analyzing the relevant data, event organizers can gain deep insights into the level of feature adoption and identify any potential gaps or obstacles in the adoption process.

Some of the touchpoints that will help you to ensure that the initial phase of feature adoption is going on the right track would be:

• Total and daily growth of logins on the web app (high daily access rate throughout the engagement campaign).
• Total and daily growth downloads for the native app (much steeper increase as we get closer to show days).
• Groups with low engagement that need more push on the adoption between the period of post-launch to before the event days.

Meanwhile, the retention measurement can be tracked with the following:

• Daily growth in content viewership and favorites on sessions, companies, and products.
• Total opens made per download for the native app to track the retention rate.
• Total impressions for web app and native app.

Other crucial metrics to monitor the feature adoption and usage are:

• Number of meeting & chat requests with their corresponding response rate.
• Portion of exhibitors scanning and the number of scanned leads for events that provides lead generation tools.

Those comprehensive data serve as a compass, guiding organizers to take proactive measures and implement necessary strategies to rectify any shortcomings and enhance the overall adoption rate at each phase of the event. 

To facilitate this process, it's essential to make sure that your event tech partner is capable of providing you with seamlessly captured and presented data that encompass comprehensive usage trends and patterns, which are all already available in Jublia Engagement Hub!

Some of the useful metrics to track feature adoption are how many downloads and opens were made, as well as the increase from the previous day. Armed with this knowledge, organizers can make informed decisions and optimize their approach to ensure maximum feature adoption and drive event success.

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Take Your Feature Adoption Success to the Next Level

Feature adoption is one of the most crucial aspects of bringing your event to success. Implementation of a good strategy in feature adoption will bring more positive trends and eventually bring you to a full circle where it all began as you first planned your event: providing a valuable experience for your stakeholders. Let's discuss this further with our Solutions Specialists today!