How do attendees feel, and what do they remember after they go to one of your events? Making events feel personalized can be a game-changer that leaves a lasting impact on your guests, and it’s something that more and more event attendees are looking for in 2025. How do you do it?
In our latest guide, we include helpful strategies for event management and show you how some of the 25 best event management software tools for 2025 can contribute to your success. Let’s dive into the details of event personalization with actionable tips for success.
What Is Event Personalization and Why Does It Matter for Associations and Nonprofits?
Event personalization involves tailoring the experience around your attendees’ specific needs and preferences. That can include simple additions like tailoring food and beverage menus based on dietary preferences or making invitations feel personal with each attendee’s name listed. Personalization can also be broader, such as having presentations centered around topics several of your attendees mentioned wanting to learn about, showing that their feedback, interests, and needs matter to you.
Having personalized elements is important for associations and nonprofits because it directly impacts the attendee experience and connects them to your association or nonprofit. For instance, when your attendees vote on an idea and then see it at the event, it makes them feel involved and like they’re part of the experience.
What Technologies and Strategies Can Boost Event Personalization in 2025?
When you look at 2025 event trends, one of the things you’ll frequently see is that an increasing number of organizations are using event technology to make experiences more personalized and engaging. One of the most helpful tools to assist with your event management, engagement, and personalization strategies is an event management software, also called an event management system (EMS).
An EMS provides well-rounded support and data for each stage of event planning, whether you’re setting up registration, collecting attendee feedback, or planning activities and presentations that will align with attendee interests and needs.
From using an integrated event app to track session attendance and analyzing attendee data for more personalized communication, event organizers can align event strategies with event objectives. By implementing personalization strategies—like personalized welcome messages, registration data collection, and segmentation based on attendee preferences—you can drive event success, brand loyalty, and create meaningful connections. This approach enhances attendee satisfaction by allowing you to offer better experiences that adapt to event personalization needs, support strong event branding, suggest relevant sessions, and empower event planners to anticipate future events with innovative event tech tools.
Strategies That Lead to More Personalized Events
Some top strategies that can help you make your events more personalized and engaging are:
- Offering options for real-time feedback and interaction: Technology like Cadmium’s EMS, Eventscribe, can help you interact and get feedback from attendees in real-time during events, such as setting up live polls or having a live audience response system. It provides real interactions with speakers and event hosts, while having a direct impact on the experience.
- Implementing relevant networking opportunities: When you can add in relevant networking opportunities based on your guests’ career paths or ambitions, it can help make the experience feel more tailored to their needs. That could include matchmaking for guests with similar interests or having industry leaders at events that your attendees will want to connect with.
- Listening to feedback: When attendees provide feedback during post-event surveys or in discussions, listening and making changes when needed shows your organization cares, and it makes members' opinions feel valued. Those changes can even make your events as a whole more successful and more engaging.
- Session recommendations or custom agendas: As you’re planning the event, it can help to ask interested attendees what they’re hoping to get out of it. Those insights can help you provide session or activity recommendations to individuals or groups of guests and form custom agendas that align with their needs.
How Can Associations and Nonprofits Implement Personalization at Scale?
When you’re hosting larger events, directly personalizing for each attendee isn’t always possible. So, you’ll need to have scalable event solutions that can help you automate, personalize for different groups of attendees, or determine how to identify the most common needs and interests among your guests.
Some implementation strategies that can help at scale are:
- Analyzing data from past events to understand how attendees engaged with presentations and activities, and determine popular interests. Setting up a QR code scanning system at activity booths can help with this, so you can track which activities guests show the most interest in.
- Segmenting activities, breakout sessions, networking, and learning opportunities based on common interests that groups of attendees share.
- Using education technology at workshops to customize experiences based on attendees' test scores or what attendees express they want to learn about the most.
- Hosting polls to determine which activities, presentations, or learning opportunities the majority of attendees are interested in.
What Role Does an Integrated Event Management Platform Like Cadmium Play in Personalizing Attendee Experiences?
Integrated solutions, such as our event management system, Eventscribe, can help at each stage of event planning, including personalizing the attendee experience. Eventscribe can help with event personalization by:
- Tracking important data and analytics from each event to gather valuable insights
- Offering live event personalization features and engagement tools, such as live polls and an audience response system
- Helping with session scanning to track attendee engagement and activity during events
- Setting up a smooth registration system with customizable forms so you can gather important attendee information
- Allowing you to create an event website where you can host pre-event polls and provide helpful information for attendees
Each of the features available with Eventscribe can help you create an engaging and personalized experience that leads to successful outcomes. Learn more about Eventscribe and start transforming your event management process today!
