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4 Common Questions We Get About Hybrid Events

It has been a little over a year, but the world is still adjusting to functioning during a pandemic and the events industry space is no exception. In fact, 89% of companies have reported that they cancelled in-person conferences because of the pandemic and replaced them with virtual conferences.

Just like there was a pivot when the pandemic started, now that people are getting vaccinated, we are seeing a new pivot. And the new norm for the events industry is hybrid events.

What Exactly is a Hybrid Event?

The simple answer to this question is that hybrid events bridge the best of both worlds of in-person and virtual conferences. This approach has allowed brands to reach a wider audience.

Taking it a step further, it’s important to note that hybrid events offer unique experiences for both the in-person components and the virtual components. A common mistake is that some brands stream their in-person presentations online and call it a hybrid event. So, while hybrid events bridge the two worlds, they also treat them separately to foster high engagement rates and provide a great experience for all attendees.

What Makes a Hybrid Event Stand Out?

Let’s discuss the basics of what makes a good hybrid event since it’s a relatively new concept.

Hybrid events embrace audience engagement. For the in-person potion, it’s easy to get attendees to participate and network. Gleaning from what we know about virtual events, attendees can be engaged with polls and Q&A sessions.
Hybrid events should be insightful. There definitely have been brands who create conferences for conferences sake and this mentality needs to be changed. Key takeaways and opportunities need to be conveyed to get people to sign up for your event.
Hybrid events need to prioritize speakers. High profile and interesting speakers are what sparks the interest of a potential attendee. So, allocate enough time to identify and recruit speakers and feature them on all of your event material.
Hybrid events should be flexible and offer attendees a variety of in-person and online sessions that attendees can choose from. Many event planners use multiple tracks in the virtual part of the event so that attendees can choose their topics.

What Goals Do Hybrid Events Accomplish?

One thing that people love about events in general is that they accomplish many goals within one strategy. Hybrid events achieve more than only in-person events or only virtual events as hybrid events can reach more people. Check out the most common goals we see and determine if you would like to accomplish these same goals for your own brand.

Thought leadership
Lead gen
Monetization
Brand awareness
Networking
Reusable content

What Are the Next Steps For Me To Host a Hybrid Event for My Brand?

Have we gotten you excited about hybrid events!? If you’re ready to get moving on your own such event, here is a list of your next steps so that you can pull off a hybrid event with smashing success. Note that from ideation to the day your event takes place, you should give yourself at least 3 months to execute it properly.

Brainstorm a name for your event
Pick a location for the in-person portion
Choose a platform like vConferenceOnline to stream the virtual portion of your event
Create a landing page where you will collect registrants
Reach out to thought leaders that align with the theme of your event and recruit them to present
Make a marketing plan to promote your event

Have you attended a hybrid event? We’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!

How to Boost Virtual Event Registrations

So you want to host a virtual event. From small events like one-person webinars to all-day conferences with 20 speakers–your virtual event deserves leverage and the maximum amount of attendees.

Lining up speakers and organizing an event is a lot of work. And if you put in a lot of effort, of course, you want a lot of attendees to be part of your awesome virtual event. There are other events occurring that compete with your event, so you need to stand out.

In this post, we will explore both paid and organic strategies to boost attendees for your next virtual conference.

Allocating Enough Time

When you are working on your virtual event timeline, it’s crucial to allocate enough time for you to promote your event and for attendees to plan for it.

For a large event like an all-day virtual conference, budget 6 weeks from ideation to launch day. If it’s a smaller event like a single webinar, plan 4 weeks ahead of time.

Leverage Your Speakers

Great speakers will power your virtual conference. Secure these thought leaders before you start promoting your event so that you can leverage them.

Headshots of your speakers on your landing page and marketing materials will make your target consumers want to sign up for your event.

Additionally, your speakers are a powerful asset in getting attendees. Help them share the details of your event on social and email. When you write the copy for the influencers, it makes it super easy for them to share your event.

Convey Value

When marketing your event, you get a very small amount of time to convey a lot of information.

Create a landing page for your event and feature headshots of your top speakers, logos to brands participating and of course, the details of the event laid out cohesively.

Determine what questions and pain points your conference can serve. Flip the pain points on their heads and utilize this information for marketing verbiage.

When marketing your event, use messaging that makes your target audience feel like they need to register right away. Messages like “the price will increase tomorrow” or “there are a limited amount of spots left” will create a sense of urgency.

The Power of Email

Our brands that have hosted virtual events have had more success with email marketing more than any other strategy to promote a virtual event.

In fact, 76% of marketers report that email is the single most effective way to drive event registrations.

Tap into your own network and invite them to your event. Explore email blasts from like-minded brands. Email blasts can be a dedicated email or a space in their online newsletter.

We recommend that you use 75% of your virtual event promotion budget on email.

Your Social Media Strategy

Second to email, social media promotion is an important asset to your virtual event marketing plan.

Post organically on your social media channels about your event. Start promoting as soon as your speakers are lined up and post on each channel every other day leading up to your event. Analyze which posts are the most successful and put some budget behind them. It is also smart to track the effectiveness of the speaker-generated posts and consider putting money to boost those as the third-party social proof is what your target consumers want.

Gamify the Process

Contests are fun and you can leverage gamification to drive virtual event registrations.

Consider doing a contest for both your speakers and your attendees to see who can get the most signups. Offer the winner a $250 Amazon gift card. This will be worth the power of authentic content.

Consider the Cost

It’s tempting to charge attendees to sign up for your virtual event. However, if your goal is lead gen, you should make your event free to attend. A free event means more leads so take that into consideration.

If you are hosting an event to make revenue, be mindful of the cost to attend. Look to like-minded events and get a pulse on the industry standard in terms of what it costs to attend similar events.

If you want to offset the cost of your virtual event, consider charging vendors and sponsors.

Have you hosted a virtual event? We’d love to hear how you boosted registrations in the comments below!

Should You Feature Rolling Time Zones in Your Event?

First of all, what are rolling time zones?

When you have a rolling time zones feature on your event, your sessions start at the same time across different time zones. This means that if a session begins at 10 AM in New York, it will start at 10 AM in Dubai as well. Everywhere across the world, it will begin at 10 AM in each person’s time zone.

Is this something that’s important?

To answer this question, there are two others you should ask yourself:

Are your attendees international/across several time zones?
Do you have enough attendees in several time zones that would be at awkward times?

If you have a lot of attendees in the US, you can pretty safely just run your event at a time that’s fairly courteous for all US time zones. For example, starting at 8 AM in PST and 12 PM in EST. Most people can attend during these times, so you don’t have to worry about having the event roll through time zones.

However, if you have about half of your attendees in the US, a quarter in the UK/Western Europe, and the final quarter in Asia, you might want to seriously consider rolling time zones. The Eastern countries often wind up having to attend events that begin at 9 PM, 10 PM, or even into the wee hours of the morning. While those times are plenty courteous for the US and some UK attendees, you might want to consider that last quarter of your audience who doesn’t appreciate that oversight.

Don’t want to do rolling time zones, but still want the whole world to be able to see your sessions at their convenience? You can host your sessions at scheduled times, then offer them On Demand after they broadcast. You can also run your event similar to a class, and make the whole thing On Demand.

Have a scenario not covered here? Send me a message, and I can help you brainstorm: kat@vconferenceonline.com

Good luck!

Combining Live and Simulated-Live Sessions

As technology advances and events transition smoothly from in-person to online, one thing remains certain – there’s just something our presenters enjoy about giving their sessions live. Online events have a great way to simulate this experience with simulated-live presentations. These are recorded ahead of time at the presenter’s leisure at their home or office with a neutral background, then scheduled for the event. This is a great option because it allows the speaker to interact with the audience in real-time, answering their questions and engaging in deeper discussion with them.

However, many speakers like to present their session via a live stream of some sort – YouTube, Google Hangout, etc. This gives them the same feeling as speaking at an in-person conference, allowing them to end the session with about fifteen minutes for a Q&A.

With this in mind, how do we make sure that both of these kinds of presentations are successful and streamlined?

Over-communicate with your presenters

For both live and pre-recorded sessions, you need to be in frequent communication with your presenters. For both, they will need similar guidelines. Dress-code, a neutral background (preferably without a window behind them), a quiet surrounding – and of course they need to have their slide deck ready.

One tip that we’ve found very successful to make both types of sessions look streamlined is to have the same theme on the slide decks for all presentations. It doesn’t have to be fancy – in fact, it shouldn’t distract from the speaker’s presentation. A simple grey background, a teal ombré, or even black would be fine – and don’t forget the event logo!

You also want to leave a space for the presenter’s webcam on the slide deck. A square in the lower or upper right corner is typical. If you prepare the slide deck theme for your presenters, you can ensure a great-looking session.

Make sure they know the schedule

For pre-recorded, you’ll want to make sure that the presenter knows the due date for sending you the recording. This way, they will have lots of time to prepare their slide deck, set aside an hour or two to do the recording, and polish it if necessary. Most speakers are used to live presentations; this will likely go pretty smoothly.

You’ll want to take tip 1 into account here, though – keep in contact with your speaker to make sure they know the date is coming up and ask if they have any questions.

For live streamed sessions, you’ll want to schedule a walk-through with the presenter to make sure they are comfortable with the live stream service you have chosen. This typically only takes about ten minutes as most live stream services are made with us in mind. You should schedule this for a few days before the event so that the how-to is fresh in everyone’s minds.

As long as your speaker has all of the information that they need and you know that they are prepared, you will both feel less pressure on the day of the event. If you and they are less stressed, the event will be a breeze!

Utilize your resources

Depending on the online event platform that you’ve chosen, you’ll have a variety of resources at your fingertips. With vConferenceOnline, we provide a full library of how-to resources that guide you step-by-step through creating and setting up your event. We also provide a project manager who will be available by phone and email leading up to and during your event to make sure that everything goes smoothly for you and your event is a hit.

Your job is to bring the ideas and the materials to the platform – our job is to make sure that your event is fantastic and your audience looks forward to the next one! With that in mind, ask any questions you have for your event. We’ll be happy to help out and even give you ideas for how to make it even more successful. With nearly a decade of online events under our belt, we have lots of data and a bevy of analytics in our pockets.

If you keep these three tips in mind, you’re sure to make both live and simulated live sessions look fantastic to your audience; your speakers and audience will have a great time discussing the topics, too!

And always, if you have any questions, feel free to email us!

Talk to you soon!

Simplifying Online Events

Continuing with the theme of “biggest concerns about online events,” another worry I hear from clients is that hosting virtual events just seem so complicated. This is understandable when you’re approaching a medium you haven’t utilized before or even changing hosting platforms. There is a bit of a learning curve usually when starting a new type of marketing strategy, but a lot of virtual event platforms have one or three great solutions to that for you.

A Best Practices Guide
- Typically this is a PDF or document that answers most of the questions you may have about hosting an event with that particular platform. Many online events are self-service, which means that they are simplified as much as possible.
  As someone who’s just purchased an online event, you’re not expected to know how to run the show. You’re expected to know your presenters and exhibitors, as well as to market the event, but actually putting together the event should be as simple as it can be. The success of your event is the paramount concern for the company you bought it from, so they really want to help you as much as possible.
  
  This document usually is FAQ style, with common questions addressed in step-by-step fashion to help you navigate through the platform. If it’s in PDF format, it usually has links as well, to help you to move through the process in a easy and painless manner.
A Project Manager
- For a lot of platforms, a project manager is an add-on. This is a person who is assigned to your event(s) and who is available for you to call, email, contact however you see fit.
  This person will have helped out with a lot of events before and has been trained extensively on the platform. Not only can they answer your questions, but often they will actually either help you set up the event or take most of it off your hands.
  
  (source)
  
  For instance, with vConferenceOnline, the project manager can actually set up the entire event for you. You will send them abstracts for sessions, information about speakers, even contact information for speakers or exhibitors. They can then contact them directly for all of the information and set everything up for you.
  
  One great thing about project managers is that they have access to information about previous events. This means statistics and analytics about similar events to your own, allowing you to find out things like: how many sessions will be best? How long should your sessions be? How do you encourage attendees to speak to the exhibitors?
  
  As above, none of these platforms anticipate you knowing how to host your own online event – that’s why the platforms exist. It’s their job therefore to help you succeed with your event so you’re happy (and they’re happy to!)
Live Support
- For platforms who don’t have project managers, often they will offer live chat or email support to help you out with your event. Similar to the project manager, this will be a team of customer service representatives who are trained on the platform and know the answers to most, if not all, of your questions. If they don’t know the answer, they have access to project managers who do have the answers.
  As with the project manager, this option is typically an add-on for other platforms, not included with the purchase of the event itself. However, the knowledge and experience you can access is well worth it for those who aren’t comfortable with the platform yet!

These three options are usually available on all platforms in some shape or form. The best practices guides are usually included with any event, while the project manager and the live support are typically add-ons. These give you three ways to access the platform’s expertise and experience!

Getting beyond Marketing Emails

Every marketer’s dream is to have their ideal audience and potential clients come to them.

No banner ads, spam marketing emails, or annoying commercials necessary – and it make an advertiser’s job easier. Hands-free marketing is the goal, right?

How do you make the marketing process so easy that your clients find you before they even know they’re looking for you?

Connect to your audience through education.

That is a very broad way to say that your marketing strategy should first and foremost involve teaching your audience something that you know extremely well and that they want to learn about.

If you try to convince your audience that they should choose you you before they realize they want the services you even offer, you’ll annoy more people than you’ll close. Proving your trustworthiness and knowledge gets you in front of the competition before your potential client even knows they need you.

How do you do this?

Find a topic you know like the back of your hand (and they don’t).

In your sphere, there are problems that your audience is looking to solve. Chances are, you either have the solution to those problems or you know where to look to solve them. Do you have a large number of problems you know how to solve? Great! You can create an online class or a series of articles on it. By proving that you know what you’re talking about, you establish yourself as a trustworthy source. Your audience will come to you for solutions (and you’ll already be at the top of their list when they want to spend money).

Talk about easy-to-tackle issues.

Don’t try to overwhelm your reader/viewer with too much information at once. Try to break up problems into smaller step-by-step solutions. If your audience comes to a webcast and realizes you’re going to be talking for three hours, they’re already checked out. Take it by small steps to make your information more accessible to your audience.

Don’t brush off your own expertise.

Whatever your end goal, whatever you aim to sell to your potential client, you are confident that it’s a good product or service. Don’t play down your knowledge or forget to mention how you can be so helpful to your audience. If you’re a doctor discussing what a symptom could mean, it helps the patient to trust you if they know you actually are a medical professional. Make it clear why you’re an authority on the topic.

Your ideal audience doesn’t necessarily know who you are, so if you approach them by telling them that you’re great, they’ll just ignore you like a flashing banner ad. Offer them something they need – like knowledge, helpful tips, etc. – and they’ll be much more likely to become a good lead for you.

This way, you also connect with people you know will be good, qualified leads. A smaller number of quality leads is better than a huge number of terrible ones that will never pay off. Don’t waste your time (or theirs).

Want to educate your audience with a virtual event? Check out how to get started here. Questions? Email us at sales@vconferenceonline.com

Adding Value to Your Event with Certification

Nearly every industry in the world encourages, if not requires, continuing education. Typically, this is found in the form of expensive in-person conferences, which to attend, people have to drive across the state, fly across the country, or go to an in-town hotel. Continuing to grow and learn is a huge part of being able to climb the ladder in almost any industry.

How can this help you to add value to your event?

There are two options for adding certification to your event. If you are an educational company anyway, contacting a certifying body to figure out the steps to become officially certified in your industry is a great place to start. You will submit your presentations and any testing materials and they will determine if you are able to give out official continuing education credits.

An official certification is a huge benefit to your event, as it becomes a draw not only for the attendee, but their company. Frequently, with continuing education, the company will foot the bill, making it easier for you to reach more attendees.

However, there is another option if you cannot reach out to a certifying body. Including certification in your event does not necessarily require an official certifying
body. If you have a decent name in your industry – or are cultivating
one, you can set up the event a little differently.

Your event can simply have a short quiz for each presentation (typically, these are 5-10 questions). With a platform like vConferenceOnline, you can then automatically grade these and distribute certificates via email. The certificate will have your company name as well as details for the number of credits the attendee earned in the event, typically gauged by the number of hours – or fraction of hour.

Including certification in your event adds an incredible amount of value – and makes it very easy to justify a cost to your attendee. This makes the event more profitable for you. It also makes the content very easy to re-use after the fact in a webinar or online course style event, further monetizing your content.