Virtual Events, Real Impact

These days, if you can plan it in real life, you can plan it virtually, whether it’s a trade show, a job fair, corporate training or any other type of event. Technologies have advanced to the point where these and other sizable virtual events look and feel remarkably like their physical counterparts while delivering the same knowledge-sharing and personal interactions. And don’t forget that virtual events also give you and your sponsors extremely rich marketing data.

Here’s how to make sure your virtual event is a real success.

Ready, Set, Goal

Identify and segment your target audience at a granular level. Create a strategy and set goals to give you a yardstick to measure results.

For example, National Instruments (NI), an Austin, Texas-based manufacturer of measurement and automation equipment, wanted to reduce costs associated with its annual 18-city Automated Test Summit road show of developer events — but still generate the same leads and demand. When it took its road show virtual, the event attracted 2,000 engineers — equal to the total number of participants in the entire three-month road show the year prior — and cost 50 percent less than the physical events.

Your sponsors and exhibitors will likely use leads generated or deals closed as a result of conference contacts as their central metrics. Help them set realistic goals. For first-time virtual exhibitors, base goals on their best practices for physical trade shows. Experienced sponsors can factor in prior virtual events.

Check your Schedule

The keys to a successful virtual event are (1) content, (2) audience generation and (3) sponsor recruitment. The best practice for advance scheduling is 12 weeks to maximize promotion. In a pinch, however, you can schedule an event as few as four weeks ahead, especially if you have one or more of the three above mentioned keys already lined up.

If you plan a series of events, promote the whole series. Organizers of physical events such as MarketingProfs, an online publisher of know-how for marketing professionals, are using virtual conferences to build a prospect list for later physical conferences. Others are running virtual events to augment physical ones.

Also think about how long you’ll archive the event to be available on demand. Be sure to build in marketing for the on-demand replays so they continue to produce leads for sponsors.

The average Unisfair event remains on-demand for 90 days, but some organizers are moving toward a year-round virtual event center. Within the same environment, they host multiple live events throughout out the year, and continue to draw their prospects, customers and partners to the virtual event center — using it as a community destination.

Promote Early and Often

Start lining up compelling content early — the best speakers have busy schedules. The upside to virtual events is that it is much easier (and cheaper) to have speakers appear virtually, or even pre-record their presentations.

Schedule and balance compelling content throughout the day — putting all your best speakers in the morning may deter attendees from staying for the entire live event. Five sessions per day are usually enough. Also leave breaks between sessions to encourage attendees to visit the exhibit hall.

Promoting the virtual event is critical to driving attendance. For attendees, map your promotional campaign to event content. Emphasize keynote speakers, session topics and your sponsors — these draw attendees.

Virtual events are an emerging market, so educating sponsors is crucial. Create marketing materials to first educate, then recruit sponsors. With your service provider, train your sales staff on selling virtual sponsorships, including reminding sponsors that benefits include not only lead generation, but also branding value and visibility.

Maximizing Registration

These key elements will maximize your online outreach:

• Use an event registration page or micro-site as the landing page when prospects click through to details on the virtual event.

• Minimize the number of clicks needed to register.

• Put a short description of your event at the top of your registration page.

• Embed a video or audio “teaser” to your event in your landing page.

TLC for Exhibitors and Sponsors

Your top priority during the event is to drive high-quality leads to sponsors. By keeping sessions to 30 to 40 minutes, you leave time between presentations to send attendees to the exhibit hall.

At the end of conference sessions, push a link on the screen to send attendees directly to the session sponsor’s (or speaker’s) booth in the exhibit hall. Likewise, rely on your service provider to announce the start of key activities throughout the live event.

For your conference sessions, assign someone to monitor or moderate Q&A at sessions to keep them lively, on topic and on time.

Try these tricks to tease more information out of attendees at the show, keeping exhibitors happy:

• Use polls and surveys to collect additional qualification information.

• Leverage professional matchmaking to automatically connect attendees with sponsors based on interests and experience.

• Minimize the use of free text for qualifying registration fields.

It Ain’t Over

The virtual event isn’t over when it’s over. Archived events are an on-demand convenience to attendees and typically generate 25 percent of total leads.

Work with sponsors to maximize their results. Ask your service provider about its lead-ranking and qualification engine and other analytic tools.

Finally, conduct a thorough ROI analysis. Compare your upfront plan to actual results. What worked and what didn’t? Identify specific measures to improve and set goals for the next show.

And then start the process all over again.