What are digital badges for events?
Digital badges are the value-added replacement for physical lanyards that attendees can still make use of after the event has taken place. Feature-rich digital badges are used to represent attendance, participation, or achievement. For attendees, they provide reusable proof of having attended a conference or event and can be added to LinkedIn or shared to social media. For event organizers, digital badges are a cost-effective, accessible record of attendance that boosts marketing efforts and encourages engagement.
Why use digital event badges?
Consider the traditional lanyard, it includes the attendees' name and is carried around for the event before being discarded or added to a memory stash. It rarely gets used after the event and is a contributor to the growing amount of plastic and paper waste generated each year.
Digital badges provide sustainable event badges with freedom of design and easy to track analytics that show how and where event badges are being shared.
Multi-Day Attendance
Not all events are one day and done. Digital badges can be awarded for each day of attendance, culminating in a digital certificate that represents achievement or experience gained. This type of gamification adds an element of fun and motivation for individuals to attend the event in full. In a 2019 gamification survey carried out by TalentLMS, they found that 83% of respondents felt more motivated after engaging with gamification.
Level of Engagement
Similar to awarding attendees for each day of attendance, digital badges can be used to reward engagement. As attendees visit booths and stands, they are awarded digital badges and as the number of engagement badges increases, they get closer to gaining their digital certificate. Alternatively, this information can be added to their digital event badge metadata, showing the areas where attendees showed greatest interest. Further to the TalentLMS 2019 survey - 89% of respondents believe they would feel more productive if gamification was better utilized.
Applied Knowledge
Digital credentials aren’t restricted to recognizing attendance. Organizers that want to see the knowledge gained through their event applied can offer the opportunity for attendees to gain a digital badge after the event has taken place. This can be requested as a written statement or documented evidence of how an attendee has applied their new insights to their role or responsibilities.
Access to Training
Digital badges awarded for attendance can be used to promote access to training. Discounts can be offered to candidates that hold digital event badges or restricted to only those that have attended the event, using their digital badge as proof. This can be added as another step in the progressive pathway, in which candidates must attend the event and pass the training to achieve the full digital certificate.
Streamline Check-In
Used with touchless entry points, attendees can simply scan their smartphone, enter their information, and receive their digital event badge for entry to their Digital Wallet Card. This helps reduce name changes and reprints that aren’t always easily accessible onsite and prevent the last minute scramble from having misplaced an entry pass or find it in a cluttered email inbox.
Organic Marketing
One of the most powerful methods of marketing is word-of-mouth. Digital badges encourage engagement with one-click social sharing where they are seen by peers, friends, and family. Online visibility receives a boost but most importantly, the event is more visible to the target audience including others working in the industry or with an interest in networking or professional development. Organizers then use the engagement analytics to track the most popular social platforms where badges are shared and estimate the marketing value of views and clicks.
Freedom of Design
Traditional lanyards can be expensive when taking into account multicolored branding, double sided printing, or other technology add-ons such as NFC tags. Using digital credential technology to design a custom event badge ensures badge providers aren’t restricted to a certain number of colors or overall color palette. Space isn’t an issue either, with an always-online digital credential page, there is no limit to the amount of information that can be stored.
In summary
Making the switch to digital badges for events benefits both in-person and virtual events. Attendees receive a tangible reward for their presence and the digital badge incentivizes increased participation. Event organizers can use digital badges as a supplementary marketing tool without additional costs.
Digital badges delivered by Accredible adhere to the OpenBadge standard supported by bank-level security and easy portability. Recipients can add their digital badge to their Digital Wallet Card where it can be viewed on-the-go ensuring they never miss an opportunity to prove their experience or knowledge.
Get started with digital event badges and book a call with the sales team to learn more about our digital badging platform.
Further Reading
Download the Comprehensive Guide to Digital Badges to learn more about using digital badges.
In this document, we explore in detail what digital badges are, how digital badges began, their value as digital credentials, how to use them, issuing and verification, and address some common criticisms.
