SwiftMobile Publishes New Apps, Sets New Benchmarks for Engagement
CAMBRIDGE, MA—In the first half of 2012, SwiftMobile published new apps for meeting customers, upgraded venue apps for several meetings, and added several new features. In the process, the company set a high bar for mobile user engagement that it believes may be the best in the industry.
Premier Apps Earn New Revenues for Meeting Planners
This past spring SwiftMobile scored extremely high levels of user engagement with apps for two important professional meetings:
AAPS Biotechnology Conference
After last year’s successful app for The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) annual meeting in Washington, DC, SwiftMobile was chosen to build an app for the AAPS’s 2012 AAPS National Biotechnology Conference. The app had 91% repeat users with an average of 8 pages viewed with each visit. This high rate of use also mean great value for the app’s advertisers—which included 14 individual sessions sponsors and five advertisers who purchased sponsorships in the app. “From the beginning, our aim has been to build event apps that attendees like to use —and use often,” said SwiftMobile CEO Kathleen Gilroy. “Otherwise, you’re not delivering value to your meeting planners and their sponsors,” (more here). AAPS also earned an award for an earlier app that SwiftMobile developed.
ASMS Annual Conference
The American Association of Mass Spectrometry’s annual conference was held last May at the Vancouver Convention Center. More than 6,500 scientists attended the event and nearly 3,000 papers were presented during the conference. To meet attendee needs for quick information. SwiftMobile designed five custom tracks for the various types of of presentation, making it easy for users to find and “favorite” the events that most interested them. The app also included GPS-enabled maps of the local area, complete with pins highlighting area hotels, restaurants and other points of interest. The apps had more than a quarter million page views over the 5-day event and more than 95% of the apps users were repeat users (more here).
Venue App Upgrades Offer An Unbeatable Alternative To Custom Development
SwiftMobile has long believed that its venue upgrade program offers meeting planners the best value in meeting apps. Meetings held in venues that participate the the company’s mobile program do not need to go outside for app development—they can simply add their content to the venue’s own high-performance native apps. Most venues offer three upgrades—some even offer a free version of a customized app. For meeting planners, upgrading these pas is the fastest, most convenient and most cost-effective way to provide full-featured high-performance native apps to meeting attendees.
Display Week 2012
The Society for Information Display’s conference Display Week 2012 challenged SwiftMobile recently with a rapid turnaround—could the company build native apps for three devices in less than two weeks? Because the event was being held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, a participant in SwiftMobile’s venue program, the answer was easy. The BCEC offers all its event customers the opportunity to upgrade its venue apps by adding their content, SwiftMobile was able to published three high-quality native apps in less than 15 days for this showcase of display technology. Display Week2012 attracted over 6,500 visitors and hosted hundreds of sessions, papers and workshops—and the app enjoyed a repeat user rate of more than 95% (more here).
2012 NACo Annual Conference & Exposition
For a meeting of the National Association of County Officials (NaCo), SwiftMobile provided an upgrade to the David L Lawrence Convention Center’s (Pittsburgh) apps. The challenge, as any meeting planner knows, is getting the word out about an app’s availability. But these first-time mobile users scored a more than 50% download rate through simple word of mouth, a pre-event email, and onsite signage. At least half of all conference attendees downloaded the app—and 92% of them found it useful enough to use the apps throughout the conference (more here).
iPad Executive Meetings
In the first half of this year, SwiftMobile worked with the live-event expert Proscenium Group to provided an exclusive iPad program for one of its customers. SwiftMobile built and installed an iPad-only app and installed the app on leased iPads. The company then distributed an iPad to each of the meeting attendees.
“Executive-level enterprise meetings are not going to settle for a cookie-cutter apps or apps designed to work only on phones,” said Kathleen Gilroy, SwiftMobile CEO. “We’re seeing a lot more interest in private iPad apps that really take advantage of the iPad’s features. Our basic framework is well tested and easily adaptable. We’re able to offer options such as secure document management and audience response so that we can really customize apps for our enterprise customers—ensuring that the apps meets their needs and fits their unique culture.”
Gilroy added, “Not every group of executives or doctors or scientists wants to be on Facebook during their annual meeting or earning badges. We think it’s important to offer our customers options that make sense.”
New Features
SwiftMobile has added a slew of improvements and new features in response to user requests that integrate with device hardware and operating systems. For a demo of new features or to learn more, please email info@swiftmobile.com.
