How and why you can cut out event printing costs entirely

Event printing costs are near impossible to predict, and they always seem to spiral out of control. You find yourself having to reprint or correct last minute changes or suffer the consequences of giving your attendees inaccurate information.

Rush-order printing costs can burn a hole through your budget, which isn’t ideal since the ROI of an event is already tough to measure.  

As much as we’ve depended on printed collateral in the past, mobile is here to sweep you off your feet. Here are some reasons why it’s time to break up with printing.

Why You Should Quit Printing

Money

Event printing costs can compound and pop up in unexpected places. Paper printing costs two times as much as a mobile app and often just ends up in the recycling.  When was the last time you took home a printed piece of collateral from an event and kept it? Unless it was a special type of event, chances are you discarded it once you were finished with it. With a mobile app, you can simultaneously eliminate printing costs and provide a sustainable and convenient way for your attendees to retain and access information.

Flexibility

You can’t make last-minute changes to printed materials. Actually… you can’t make any changes at all after you’ve printed.  Unless you go through the stack with a red pen, your incorrect paper programs are obsolete the moment you confirm with the printer. With a mobile app, you’ll be able to make changes on the go and make updates as needed.

Environment

According to the Center for Sustainable Tourism, the average conference attendee can take home as much as ten pounds of paper. Not only is it wasteful, but it’s rare that attendees will want to go through that entire stack again. A mobile app is a sustainable option because the vast majority of your attendees already own smartphones and can easily access your information on mobile.

It Starts With Reducing Printing

A mobile event app can free you from the cost, hassle and waste of printing programs. In fact, according to the State of Mobile Event Technology Report 2014, 82% of planners who use event guides said that they were able to remove or reduce printing.

A mobile guide gives your attendees so much more, too; they can build personal schedules, interact socially, share their opinion in live polls, give feedback, swap contact information, download documents and much more.

How You Can Cut Out Event Printing Costs Entirely

It’s possible to go entirely paperless with a mobile guide. We recommend the following steps:

1. Analyze your current app usage

Take a look at the download rates from your last event, and ask yourself honestly if you’re doing everything you can to promote your guides. (Most planners report that they know they aren’t doing enough to promote their guides, according to the Mobile Event Tech Report.)

2. Talk to your attendees

Use a post-event survey to ask your full constituency whether they’d be willing to forego printing altogether. (Perhaps you could even consider passing on a portion of the savings to them, or at least calling attention to the reduction in waste.)

3. Make sure everyone knows about the guide beforehand

Attendees who begin using the guide before they arrive will love that they can plan their experience. They can also take advantage of travel information like shuttle times and airport info.

Banish Concerns About Going Completely Paperless

“My attendees aren’t tech-savvy.”

You don’t need to be a master at technology to utilize mobile. That’s why a mobile event app is created by world-class user experience designers who know how to design for your audience. Their job is to make someone feel at home, and able to navigate, instantly. There is no breaking-in period.

“The wifi in my venue isn’t good enough for an app.”

Once your attendees have the guide downloaded, they can use it offline – in a concrete bunker, a remote mountaintop, an underwater lair, or wherever you’re holding your conference.

“I can’t afford the event app.”

Did you know that the average cost of an event app is less than 1.2% of your per-attendee budget? When you cut out printing, you’ll literally cut your costs in half.

“My attendees don’t all have smartphones.”

This is a possibility, however, 77% of Americans own smartphones. In the current age of digital transformation, many companies provide professionals with smartphones or tablets. You can also send our a survey prior to the event to explore the numbers.

There are so many reasons why you should cut out printing costs, and mobile is the solution to do so! Click the button below to request a demo and see all the other things you can solve with an app.