Boost Guest Engagement at any Event

What separates the average event from the omg-that-was-amazing-when-are-we-doing-that-again event?

No matter how well you plan for your event (and we know you do!), part of its success is always up in the air and out of your hands: how motivated will your guests be to get involved in your activities?

Guest engagement can be the most telling factor in the success of your event. However, fostering engagement often takes time and effort. You can’t expect deep engagement to materialize on its own. Of course, creating a fun ambiance and planning activities - like Goosechase Experiences! - helps, but that’s just the foundation. And the activities need to have a creative edge and a certain level of interactivity to facilitate genuine participation.

Attendance, audience retention, and the success of future events are all influenced by levels of guest engagement. Essentially, the more engaging an event is, the higher the likelihood of attendee satisfaction and participation in similar events in the future.

There are three main areas of opportunity to engage with event attendees to ensure overall success: Before, during, and after an event.

• Pre-event engagement. During this stage, you're working to create interest and buzz around the event. Striving to engage regularly with potential attendees can help increase web traffic to event pages, spur conversations on social media, and sell more tickets helping maximize event attendance and profit.
• Audience engagement during an event. This helps keep energy high and attendees interested. Successful event organizers like you know that the most important part of any event is the attendee experience. Plan activities that speak to your core objectives. Is your event goal to fundraise? Celebrate community? Kick off a new fiscal year? Be clear about your event objectives, and it will help make it easier to determine exactly what your event program should look like.
• Post-event engagement. When you engage with attendees after events to thank them for coming, ask for feedback, or share event photos, you're doing more than just being polite. This extra touchpoint can increase their affinity for your organization amd improve the lifetime value of each event attendee. This stage is key for learnings, too. Based on how guests engage with your post-event communications, you can use then intel for future event planning, guest forecasting, your marketing strategy, and audience growth.

Using an interactive experience platform like Goosechase, you can foster higher levels of engagement with a few of these goosey strategies!

Being in the business of creating memorable Experiences, we’ve learned a thing or two about keeping participants engaged! Here are a few best practices to incorporate into your next Goosechase experience:  

• Mix Up Your Missions - Use a combination of Photo/Video, Text, and GPS Missions to increase participation. People are engaged in various ways; some respond better to certain Missions than others. Not everyone may want to take a Photo/Video of themselves; perhaps they enjoy doing Text Missions instead. Create a to-do list of Missions that are versatile and cater to different personalities!
• Highlight the Leaderboard and Activity Feed -  The Leaderboard and Activity Feed are great ways to promote healthy competition and push participants to engage over a longer period! You can also generate a live Activity Tracker URL of your Goosechase Experience to project on a screen or post online to share with those who couldn't make it.
• Integrate Social Media -  Social proof goes a long way toward improving engagement and conversions! Leverage social media for your pre, during, and post-event planning. Share details of your Experience online before launching, create Missions encouraging participants to post on their socials with the event's hashtag, or create some cool post-event marketing content. Or all of the above!
• Personalize the Experience -  Give shout-outs to teams or individual participants by sending out announcements in your Goosechase Experience – this helps to establish rapport and makes people pay attention! Create a Mission requesting new Mission suggestions and add them live into the Experience. It is always lovely to be acknowledged, have ideas heard, and it can be a great motivation.
• Let Participants Know What to Expect - Set expectations in the pre-planning or registration stage so all participants know what will happen. Early instructions on how to join the experience or pre-event Missions can help familiarize themselves with the platform. If your participants need more confidence with the tech, how about sending a short how-to video beforehand to get them started, or creating Missions with instructions for participating?

• Keep Teams Small - Though not a hard and fast rule, we recommend creating teams of 3 - 5 participants for higher engagement. We've found that smaller teams can encourage shyer participants to contribute, making interacting easier. When teams are too big, the overall engagement is lower and not everyone has a chance to be heard!
• Create Incentives - Badges, prizes, and awards can be a great way to celebrate milestones and achievements for participants. Connecting certain actions to receive an incentive – like completing the most Missions, collaborating with other teams, or submitting super creative content – increases the likelihood that your participants will take those actions. Collecting these badges, awards, or prizes becomes a game in itself and a sign of good engagement!
• Add Automations -  Creators can schedule events to take place automatically. You can use automation to change the visibility and availability of Missions by updating their Mission states or scheduling pre-written messages to be sent to all participants at a certain time. This is a great way to organize Missions for specific days/themes and remind participants to complete their Missions, especially if you are hosting an experience for longer than just a day!

Host experiences all year around using these best practices. Not only will a Goosechase Experience surprise and delight your attendees, but it will also drive a ton of meaningful engagement for virtually anything!

What is Goosechase?

At Goosechase, experience is everything. Originally inspired by scavenger hunts, Goosechase is an online platform that enables organizations and schools to engage, activate, and educate their communities through delightful interactive experiences. Sign up and try creating a free recreational Experience, or check out our Pricing!