ASP is a UK-based event tech business that builds websites for over 300 events and exhibitions worldwide. Commercial director Jon Benjamin gives us his top tips on making your website key to your event’s success.
Seven seconds
When someone lands on your website, you have less than 10 seconds to capture their attention. For an event website, we have found that to be less than seven seconds. So, what is the key to capturing attention? We have found it is vital to remember the five Ws: Who, What, Why, Where and When. Making these elements clear avoids confusion and frustration to the viewer, giving them a better initial experience with your show.
Keep it simple
It is tempting but try not to throw the kitchen sink onto the immediate landing page/hero area of your website.
The primary objectives of an event website are to communicate show information and to increase registration while also creating an uplift in partner and exhibitor revenue. Once you have covered their immediate needs (the five W’s) in that hero area you can then introduce the deeper content through the navigation bar and in the scroll down.
Super six
Over our 22 years of building websites, we have found that it’s best to make sure that on your navigation bar you have no more than six menu items and fewer than six drop downs. Think UX (user experience) - too much choice can equal confusion.
Bulking up your bottom line
An event specific website should be capable of adding serious money to your bottom line. Across our 300+ websites, our exhibitor and partner pages are nearly always in the three most visited. Why? Through our digital marketing tools, organisers can sell on-site space to their exhibitors and partners so these companies can then use the event website to heighten their exposure while providing useful content to visitors. Two clients, who recently started using our web platform have already made over £100,000 through using this tool.
Get personal
All event websites nowadays have a registration tool to capture data but too often a high percentage of these registered users don’t attend the event they signed up for. We believe one of the reasons for this is the lack of personalisation in the touch points those registered users have after that initial interest.
We have created a tool where users can make appointments with exhibitors and attendees, as well as ‘liking’ content they have read so we can offer them related content for them to read too. This data is then used to help organisers curate their showfloor content. We have seen an increase of over 50% in attendees to shows of organisers who utilise this engagement application.
Don’t overspend!
We have clients that previously spent tens of thousands on websites that had all the bells and whistles, but was just so tricky to use.
At ASP, we have worked hard to ensure we have a very easy-to-use back end to the website, making it easy to upload content. What’s more, as part of any web package bought from us, we train as many of the organiser’s team as required, making sure that there isn’t just one overworked marketer getting drowned in content that they need to put on the website. Many hands make light work!
