Get a head start on the competition with virtual events!
Virtual isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a powerful tool that businesses can use to enhance their brand and help them achieve their goals. From prospecting new customers to recruiting top talent, virtual events help increase engagement, interaction, and communication in the digital space.
Tips for the best virtual events
Are you looking to get started in the world of virtual events? Or maybe you’re already diving in and wondering what you can do to make it an even more successful event. Here are our suggestions for making virtual a success.
Focus on your audience
The best virtual events are audience-centric, from ideation to execution. Think about how to engage the people who will come.
What could bring humor?
What could bring heart?
What do they want from you?
Engagement with your audience is key when it comes to virtual events. You’ll need to have the tools and setup to encourage interactions between attendees as well as with you and your business. Live chat features are a big help here, as are polling opportunities. Make sure your audience can actively participate in your event. It’s essential to make the event personalized and set it up for safe, authentic conversations between the consumer and the brand. Do this and you can consider your event a success.
Strategic thinking
Your next goal for a virtual event will be to strategically tie in products and give visibility to your sponsors. This can be a great opportunity to build brand awareness and give partners the chance to talk about their products and interact with consumers in the audience. But you don’t want to catch your audience off guard. You should have a clear agenda that outlines what will be discussed and an estimated timeline.
Next, your job is to focus on connection. When can you leverage brand culture and brand-audience synergy? That’s where the magic happens. Synergy creation happens when storytelling becomes a powerful tool to create real connections. Stories have heart: they embody the soul of a brand that helps your customers truly connect; they separate a company from a logo and humanize them. Stories are rooted in our emotions, and that’s what makes them an integral part of good marketing.
But you can have a great story and tell it in the wrong place. That’s why choosing the right platform for your virtual events is so important.
Choose the right platform
Have you ever heard of flagship marketing?
Proximity marketing is about focusing your promotional activities around major events such as trade shows. To do this effectively, you need to leverage the synergy between the brand and the audience. Virtual events are no exception!
In order to bring the brand to life, you will need to find that place where the consumer and the product resonate with positive energy.
What makes people happy?
What excites them?
People move when they have energy: they interact, click, tap, and make purchases. So find that synergy and let it guide your interactions with your audience and how you decide to connect.
Working as a team
While you’re listening to your audience, don’t forget to listen to your stakeholders as well. All successful events start with clear communication, from vision to budget to after-show.
Communicate clearly, be honest about the budget, and don’t overpromise! You’ll gain your guests’ trust by showing them how you see the big picture. Monitoring the “budget” isn’t the most glamorous task, but it’s a critical part of a successful event, so don’t fall asleep on it!
It’s always better to give MORE than you say, rather than less. Keeping the conversation open about money may seem awkward, but it actually creates more connection than if there were to be financial surprises.
Once the event is over, take some time to connect with your team and review what worked and what didn’t. This way, you’ll be better prepared for your next virtual event.
In summary
Remember that an in-person event can’t always be transformed into a virtual event with a simple copy and paste. You may need to distribute it through new channels and find creative ways to create synergy. If you can translate the human connection between the brand and the consumer, a virtual event could save you time and money.
Remember: it’s the story that makes the event memorable. Know what story you’re telling!
And don’t forget to record your events so those who couldn’t attend can watch them later. Not to mention you can add it to your content folder as future promotional material, perhaps for your next virtual event! Good luck!