Digital Events

Many companies like Facebook, Adobe, and Microsoft are turning to virtual events since the coronavirus outbreak. They see this route as a viable business platform while still complying with health and safety protocols during this situation. Since there’s no vaccine yet for COVID-19, event strategists see digital platforms as the popular choice for event formats until the first half of 2021. But should you join this new trend? Is it worth your time, effort, and resources to turn your offline event into a virtual event? Here are some questions you should ask yourself to determine if virtual events are right for your company in the coming months.

1. Can you live up to your attendees’ expectations?
The value of an event is in the experience it offers to its attendees. They see added value on the personal, social, and economic levels among others. Can you create an impact on your virtual event and offer a valuable event experience that would meet their expectations?

2. Can you provide high-quality content in a limited time?
Live, in-person events usually 1 to 3 days to deliver all they have to offer to their attendees. However, event planners don’t have this luxury during virtual events. It would already be hard to retain the focus of your remote attendees for half a day, let alone a whole day.

3. Do you have something new to offer to your attendees?
With virtual events happening left and right, attendees are looking for something fresh and exciting – whether it’s gaining new knowledge or directing them to valuable networks and leads that would lead them closer to their business goals. This will enhance their event experience.

Turning your events online doesn’t just mean you create slides and audio presentations. It’s much more than that. We have to admit that it’s challenging for digital events to replicate the live, in-person experience. That’s why we ask event organizers to answer these questions honestly and your responses will determine if virtual events are the right choice for your company. 

Online events are the new normal. But hosting online events does not just entail switching to a digital platform since that’s what everyone’s doing now. If this is the mindset of companies, the result is a virtual event that’s so boring to watch that viewers quickly lose their interest and leave the event. Event organizers must think of ways to set their online events apart from the rest. And how do they do that? By offering high-quality online events. How do event organizers design virtual events that work?

• Know Your Target Audience. Make use of big data to know their interests, behaviors, age groups, location, and other important factors. We know that one of the benefits of online events is having an unlimited number of participants. But don’t just think of the numbers. Think quality over quantity. It’s better to have a hundred high-quality audience than a thousand unresponsive observers.

• Customize Content. We can’t stress this enough. Content is king. Everything boils down to content. Reallocate your funds to enhance your content. Design content based on the qualities of your target audience. Be updated with popular trends for different kinds of audiences so that you can incorporate them into your online event. Infuse variety and entertainment.

• Qualified Speakers. Do your best to get ahold of the most credible personalities in their fields. The knowledge that your attendees will gain from your resource speakers will definitely increase the value of your event.  

• Invest in Technology. Your event’s digital platform, event management platform, digital video equipment, virtual reality technology – all of these play a big part in delivering a high-quality online event. Remember, online events are 100% dependent on technology so you better make sure that you’re using the best technology out there.

Putting together a high-quality online event is indeed a difficult task. But event planners only need to understand the elements of what makes a high-quality virtual event to make their jobs easier. 

Virtual events lack the physical interaction, handshakes, and eye contact that make in-person events a cocktail for business networking success. That’s why event managers face the challenge of recreating meaningful connections with their remote audience. How do we make successful virtual attendee engagement? Here are some of our tips for you.

Harness the power of data. Virtual events are a great source of data. Event planners just need to maximize the available customer data that they have to design strategies that will help them get to know their audience, connect with them, and pursue hot leads.

Chunking Content. Your remote audience can easily be distracted. When designing the content, keep the presentation of each speaker below 20 minutes to retain the attention of your virtual attendees. Allow them to take a few minutes break so they can attend to personal matters now and then.

Digital platform. The digital platform.that you use can make or break your virtual attendee engagement. Choose a platform that will allow you to have more interaction with your audience. One that will allow the hosts to customize the group sizes and send the participants into their respective break out rooms where they can interact with other attendees with the same interests and business agenda. Smaller sessions can get everyone involved in the activities. A  platform that features contact exchanges also promotes better connections.

Customized merchandise. Virtual events can still create merchandise to be given to their attendees. They can ship these along with other events promotional and information materials to ensure that they leave their mark in the mind of their attendees.

Gamify Your Event. Games bring fun and excitement to your event. Encourage your attendees to participate in the fun games that you’ve prepared and add-in some prizes from your sponsors.

With the strategic use of customer data, event planners can design virtual events that maximize the engagement of their virtual attendees.