Create Strategic, Engaging Virtual Events
/It’s July, 2020, and becoming clear that most live events are most likely not happening again until 2021. The most ubiquitous phrase in every company’s lexicon is now “should we pivot to virtual, and how”? Now, the key to planning successful virtual events is to ask the question: Can my virtual event achieve or exceed the goals of my previously scheduled live event? If your answer is no, I encourage you to perhaps find a different marketing medium to meet your objectives (podcast, content marketing, blogging, video on demand, etc). However, if you’ve decided to go the way of virtual, please read on for strategies to make your event successful and add a ton of value to your organization by driving engagement that can be measured.
Start with big picture goals:
When kicking off your virtual event, always start with the question: What can we achieve through a virtual event that we wouldn’t be able to achieve via a live event? If you can solve this question, you’re already on the way to having a great virtual event by making the most out of this platform.
Example scenario: If you are hosting an event for 500 investors and founders and your main goal is for them to have as many 1:1 meetings with each other as possible, that would be very challenging to pull off in an actual venue given limited meeting rooms available (believe me I’ve bee there and even built 25 meeting rooms in one venue once!). However, with a digital platform like Hopin, that has a feature for “serendipitous” networking matches created instantly with attendees who are participating at the same time, you are able to achieve that goal.
Make it a co-creator experience:
Attendees should be able to participate in the event in some way in order to keep their attention and also to keep them interested in tuning in live rather than just waiting to watch the recording on-demand.
Example scenario 1: By asking your speakers to make use of a polling function, Q&A and chat features, the speaker can actually use data from the audience to steer the conversation so it’s more relevant and engaging to the attendees. And this is another example of how virtual can sometimes be better than live (it’s a lot harder to take an instant poll from the audience at a live event).
Example scenario 2: Offer attendees virtual event backdrops they can try out while live at your event (this only works if they tune in for it!) or offer a digital photo booth that they’ll then want to share on social platforms.
Lead with Top Tier Content:
With virtual events, there’s nothing to pad the attendee experience if the content isn’t great. No fancy food and beverage, cocktails or great entertainment to make attendees forgive a lackluster keynote session. With virtual, your speakers and topics are what will draw attendees to the event and also have to carry it.
Consider: If you’re pivoting a live event to virtual, consider using some of the budget that you will no longer be spending on things like transportation, lighting, food/beverage, florals on attracting better speakers. Not only will this attract greater attendance to your event, but you can negotiate terms with these speakers so that they’ll help promote your event pre and post via their channels with thousands of followers. You can also leverage post-event recorded video content for future marketing initiatives and use the speaker’s brand and status to draw more page views.
Don’t promise a recording:
At live events, attendees seldom assume the event will be recorded for later viewing, nor do they need to since they’re typically tuned in while at the event. However, with the content saturation right now, many attendees these days will register for an event and then simply wait until the content is available on-demand to view at their leisure. While this isn’t the worst thing, it won’t promote engagement at your event and could also cause you to lose valuable opportunities to connect your attendees live with a virtual sales team, sponsors, and also capture their questions, polling and survey responses, all critical data to leverage.
Consider: Always record the event, but don’t indicate that you’re doing so. You could also even message to attendees that they should tune in live because the event recording is not being shared (you can always release snippets of the recordings at a later date should you need or want to).
Virtual events definitely provide opportunities for success and can even delight and build your brand affinity. These are just a few considerations to get you started and help you think through how to make the most out of the current situation. If you are interested in more ideas, please feel free to contact me at gianna@gaudini.com, or visit me at giannagaudini.com.
