For many events, sponsors and exhibitors play a crucial role in the event budget. Whova has built powerful tools to help organizers increase the ROI for sponsors and exhibitors. One of the powerful features is digital profiles on the Whova App. Digital profiles allow exhibitors or sponsors to display their company logos, showcase their product with brochures, photos or product videos and even live streaming, boosting their brand awareness and lead generation.
While organizers can take the time and effort to build the digital profiles for all vendors, previously we released the sponsor and exhibitor forms to let the companies upload booth information by themselves. Thousands of organizers were able to use these forms to save a tremendous amount of time.
Recently, we further enhanced the sponsor and exhibitor forms by allowing events to add Customized Fields. This enables the organizers to collect additional information beyond digital profile information based on the particular industry and event needs. For example, you can gather the equipment and setup needs, or shipping and logistics requirements. Furthermore, you can even add additional information based on your particular industry or types of exhibitors, such as licenses, whether the exhibitor is a member, to display on the digital profiles on Whova App!
Coordinate with sponsors & exhibitors more easily
Given particular industry or event needs, you might need to gather some additional information from your sponsors and exhibitors that are not covered by the default settings. The customized fields in the sponsor and exhibitor forms allow you to easily coordinate with your sponsors or exhibitors.
Below are some common types of information to gather. On Whova’s organizer dashboard, you can easily configure the fields to be only visible to you (default settings), so they won’t be displayed on the digital booths to regular attendees.
Consent & terms: You can obtain permissions from your sponsors and exhibitors to use their logos in event promotional materials while also setting the rules and conditions that they need to agree and follow at your event.
Requests for additional services: If some of your sponsors or exhibitors need services such as transportation, food, and booth electricity you can gather this information ahead of time and make arrangements.
Shipping and logistics requirements: As your sponsors and exhibitors may need to ship their booth materials prior to the event, you can obtain this information earlier to help them plan better.
Equipment and setup needs: Some exhibitors might bring their own equipment for booth setup but some might need additional items or rentals from you.
Interest in year long partnership or sponsoring next event: Gathering interest in future events in advance can help you secure more funding and income for your organization.
Arrival date/time: Coordinating arrival dates and times in advance makes your planning efforts more efficient and gives you enough time to organize the volunteers needed to support your sponsors and exhibitors.
Enhance digital profiles with more detailed information
Besides coordinating logistical information with your sponsors and exhibitors, you can also gather extra information to display on their digital booths which will be visible to regular attendees. Displaying helpful information increases brand awareness and lead generation. Below are some examples:
Eligibility / Credential: You can enable your sponsors and exhibitors to show whether they are qualified vendors for specific types of products or services, which attracts more qualified leads.
Social media links: Sponsors and exhibitors can add social media links including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, Pinterest, and more, to attract more followers to their business.
Link to more products: Sometimes your exhibitors and sponsors may have multiple products to showcase. You can allow them to provide links to those products for attendees to explore.
Link to book meetings: Even if you’re not using Whova’s 1:1 meetings at your event, you can still allow exhibitors and sponsors to set up their own links for attendees to book meetings with them, whether in-person or virtual.
Additional website / links: Beside the main website, sponsors and exhibitors can also add additional websites or even document links for them to showcase specific aspects of their companies.
Easily configure and set up
Enable customized fields in the sponsor and exhibitor forms in just 3 easy steps.
Add custom data fields to your exhibitor / sponsor forms
Step 1: Use “Add custom data fields” in your form settings. A total of five types of questions are supported: Radio (single choice), Checkbox (multiple choices), Short answer, Paragraph, description (no answer) and Consent.
Step 2: Configure the question. If your question type is Radio or Checkbox, you also need to provide the answer options.
Step 3: Configure whether it’s only visible to organizers. By default the customized field is not visible to attendees, so you need to explicitly make it visible.
After publishing your form and gathering the information from sponsors and exhibitors, the customized fields that you made visible to attendees will be under the “Additional Information” section.
Additional Information section that displays the customized fields
Keep your sponsors and exhibitors happy and coming back
As an event organizer, you strive to deliver the best ROI for your sponsors and exhibitors. From the rotating banners to digital booths, now with the customized fields in the exhibitor and sponsor forms, you are equipped with powerful tools to help them increase brand visibility, booth traffic, and lead generation. Furthermore, this feature makes Whova platform more comprehensive than other event management software. If you’d like to check out more details about this feature, simply request a demo.