Tag: best practices

How Long Does It Take? (To create and start an virtual conference?)

This may be one of the most often asked questions about setting up an event: how much lead time do you need prior to getting an event up, running and online to allow it to be successful?

Unfortunately, the short answer is, “It depends.”

Fortunately, we can pretty reliably call out what specifically it depends on.  You’ll probably find that it comes down to a few key factors.  Each of these has a very real role in determining your event’s lead time.

The three areas are:

  • Required marketing
  • Speakers
  • Exhibitors

Typically setting up the platform, getting things rolling, setting up graphics, making choices on scheduling, etc. don’t impact your production timelines, especially not in a “critical path” kind of way, to any significant extent.  It’s usually these other areas that really deserve your planning and attention.

Required Marketing
If your audience is a closed audience, like an internal meeting or presentations where your staff is compelled or expected to attend, you don’t have many hurdles here.  On the other hand, if you’re in a position where you need to market to outside people to help them become registered and attend, you have more time requirements.

Typically we suggest about 60-90 days for externally marketing events.  What’s aggravating about all of this is that you won’t be taking registrations that whole time, but you will be talking to your audience, explaining about your event and pointing them to your micro-site.  This is where it’s key to have solid information on the site about sessions, speakers, what they expect from the event as an attendee, etc.  The maddening truth is that most people will register at the last possible minute.

You can help people decide by using contests (those registered before X date are eligible for…) and by having a complete site, but the fact is, most will register as late as possible.

Speakers
If you’ve worked on any type of event where you were working with speakers, you know: speakers are busy, busy folks.  You need to plan on providing as much information, guidance and scheduling deadlines as you can.  This is critical so they know all of what they need to know in order to participate, produce the session materials, etc.  Any type of delay to get additional information, or any additional steps, and you will quickly find it escalates into delays getting their content.

Respect your speakers.  Give them templates, help them understand both what is needed and how you’ll support them.  If possible, have them work with someone directly on the event team or on the platform team as they can quickly answer questions and keep the speaker moving forward.

One caveat – if your speakers are internal and you have more “control” over them, you can shorten times to deliver content.  The longer timeframes come from speakers that are either volunteer or paid presenters for your event.  They typically are pushed in many directions constantly and you are at their mercy when it comes to getting materials in.

Be sure you provide them as many resources and guidance as possible to keep them “in the flow.”  For internal speakers, many times this is a much easier process.  You often have leverage to set deadlines and present other requirements.

Exhibitors
Exhibitors present an interesting challenge for scheduling.  You need/want them for your event, whether they are external to your company or an internal department.  At the same time, they need similar assistance as your speakers do.

Many times exhibitors are working with many different areas of their own companies to provide materials.  They may have PDF documents, graphics, videos and people to coordinate and they’ll look to you for guidance on setting up the booth, providing information to attendees and selecting the right packages for sponsorships.  This (again) is a great time to get your platform provider involved and working with your sponsors.  Get as much assistance as possible so your exhibitors can make the most of their booth.

Often, exhibitors are so busy just doing business that they put off the setup of the booth to the last-minute.  If you, or the team you work with, can provide them quick choices, best practices and assistance, you can help vastly shorten the time to set up the booth, get it online and have it be excellent for the exhibitors.

Summary
Taking control and specifically addressing each of these areas can help control your timelines, your surprises and best of all, keep you sane in setting up the event.  Make sure you have a good vendor partner that can provide the help, best practices, tips and ideas to make each of these areas flow as smoothly as possible.

If you make it your goal to remove obstacles and provide unique and helpful input to each of these areas, you’ll take big steps toward having a great event and still maintaining your sanity.  Your attendees, speakers and exhibitors will thank you, as will your stakeholders in the event.

Digital Marketing Tips, Experiences and Blood, Sweat and Tears

While the virtual event is over (it’s still available on-demand, and free, watch it here), the learning and application of the different experiences and all of the information presented (and there is a LOT there), is just getting started.

The GroupHigh event is on-demand and ready to watch – make sure you check out this great summary – there is information here on everything from the conversations you have with your customers and advocates to tools and techniques for reaching out to your community.

In a word, priceless.

Kristen Matthews, the guru behind the event and getting things going for GroupHigh, put an excellent summary of sessions together.  Check it out here.

Sessions, Content and Your Attendees

Some keys to great virtual conferences, webcasts and e-learning courses.  It’s all about the presentation and a great environment to take it all in.

For your event, you will be working on determining the best possible mix of how-to and promotional materials.  It’s this mix that will drive the success of future events, will drive expectations of this and future events and will help your attendees make the most of your sessions…

“But wait, I’m not selling stuff at my event!”

Sure, you might not be selling goods and services directly, but you are selling, at the very least, your event.  Your services.  Your next event.  Your content.  You are “selling” because you have to convince people it’s worth it to spend their time on your event.  It’s critical to keep in mind that you have to earn their time and attention.  They call it “spending time” and “paying attention” for a reason after all.

A couple of quick tips on putting together sessions.

Speaker Intros, Bios and Contact Info
Speakers should focus on the meat of the session.  By this I mean that speakers should avoid bragging about their accomplishments, should avoid talking about their products (unless the session is clearly a demo-based session of course).  Instead, consider having an event host that talks about and introduces the speaker.  Spend 60-90 seconds at the start of the session to outline the presenter’s qualifications and their background, projects and how to contact them (and whether they’re available for consulting/gigs/etc.).

At the end of the presentation, consider coming back in the session and thanking the speaker, again offering contact info.  Using these two informational points (the intro and exit points), you can show that the speaker is authoritative, you give the audience a handle on the presentation so they know what to expect.  In addition, the audience knows you won’t be talking forever about the presenter, it’ll be a quick intro, then into the meat of the presentation.  It let’s them know they’re not wasting their time or attention.

Content (content, content, content)
It’s far better to have an information-packed 20 minute session than a too-long-for-the-content 60 minute session.  Attendees are much more concerned with excellent information, tips, experiences and real-world information than they are with filling an allotted time slot.  Make sure your speakers are keeping presentations on track and that the attendees can take in and use the information as quickly as possible.

In today’s “short attention span theater” type world, it’s critical to give points that can be used immediately, while also giving direction and food for thought type guidance for looking a bit more to the future.

It can also help to follow the rule of:

  • Tell them what you’ll be telling them
  • Tell them what you want to tell them
  • Tell them what you told them

This lets you present what you’ll be talking about – then the topic at hand.  Wrap it up with a summary and touch on the key points and attendees will have a great opportunity to really ingest the information you’re presenting.

It’s About the Attendees
No matter if you’re producing a virtual event for sponsors, for continuing education, best practices, tips, tricks or something else entirely, it’s about the attendees.  They need to be able to get the most from your content and speakers.  If you don’t have attendees for your virtual event (webcast, webinar, virtual conference or online learning course), you’ll have a hard time continuing with the virtual event in the future.

Content (and presentation) truly is king.

Pre-Event Teasers

When you set up your event, you’ll be creating the information pages – the pages that people will use to find out more about your event.  Typically these include information about the event, registration, speaker information and sessions.

One of the areas you can make a big difference in your attendee’s perception and expectations for the event is the Thank You page.  It’s often missed because it actually comes after the registration is completed.

Add Video for Great Impact
After the attendee has registered, take them to a page that shows them information about the event, their confirmation and, typically, behind the scenes an email is sent out that confirms their registration.

You can increase the marketing impact though if you also include a link in that confirmation email to real, usable information.  Give them a taste of what the event has in store.  Put together a short, 2-5 minute video and provide a small take-away of what they can expect. Of course make sure you also talk about your presenters, the sponsors (if you have them) and so-on – that helps solidify the event in the attendee’s mind.

The key to the video is to put it on a page that is only accessible by having a direct link (like from the confirmation email).  But the trick is to suggest sharing the link to the video with others that may be interested in the event.  This can help build buzz, provide a reason for sharing and more.

Provide Follow-Up
Follow-up with your attendees – you can provide additional information about the event, the speakers, new speakers and/or sponsors you’ve added, contests you’ll be holding, etc.  Make your attendees part of the evolution of your event during the deployment of different pieces.

As with the Thank You video above, consider making the follow-up a short video – make it share-ready (even on YouTube or Facebook if desired) so they can let others know about the event.  Short, sweet and personable – provide a tip or two and suggest they share it if it sounds like something others would enjoy as well.

Both of these items, taken together, provide great outreach, provide reasons to share for your attendees and at the same time validate that they’ve elected to register for and attend a great event.

5 Steps To Planning an Online Event

When you get started with your first event, there are a few things you’ll want to make sure you have considered as you get things rolling.

  1. Why are you doing this event?
  2. Who will be your audience (and therefore, what type of content will attract them)?
  3. Who will be your speaker(s)?
  4. Do you want sponsors? If so, who will your sponsors be?
  5. How will you market your event to your potential attendees?

Why Are You Doing the Event?

This question is key because it will drive your choices for all of the others.  Your typical choices are 1) to generate awareness of your brand, product and/or service, 2) to generate sales, 3) to generate leads, or 4) to create dedicated fans of your products and/or services.  These choices impact the type of sessions you’ll want to have in your virtual conference.  It’s a simple thing after deciding this, then, to drive the content agenda and make your selections for what will best serve your attendees, speakers and sponsors for your virtual event.

Keep in mind that no matter what reason you have for doing the event, no one wants to come simply to attend a sales presentation.  Make sure you have good materials and informative presentations with worth-while information.  Work with your presenters to produce good information that includes how-to instruction, tips, tricks, and lessons learned.  This not only gives the attendees a solid take-away from the sessions in your virtual event, but also establishes the speaker’s knowledge.

Who Will Your Audience Be?
Determining your audience will drive the types of content that you’ll need to present in your sessions for your event.  For example: if the audience is of a managerial level, you’ll want to have information on that level that they can use.  Putting out information on the nuts and bolts might be less useful while how to manage or help others that you’re working with may be more interesting to these types of folks.

Try thinking about a “model” attendee or attendees.  This means trying to think of an imaginary person that represents your target attendee.  Use this model person to drive your decisions on content, duration of your event and so-on.  You can have more than one, but limit the number of model attendees to two or three.  This can keep the scope from becoming too broad for your event.

Some areas to consider (as examples):

  • What types of information would be most helpful to your model attendee(s)?
  • What level of information (think on a college course scale, 100, 200, 300) should be presented?
  • What would make the virtual conference a truly excellent experience?  “If only I could learn about…“

Cater your content to that model attendee.

Who Will Be Your Speakers?
Speaker selection is a key element to the marketing of your virtual conference.  People are very interested in coming to hear from people that have “been there, done that.”  In studies completed by vConferenceOnline, attendees were more interested to hear from real-life experiences and less interested in presenters that relied solely on their name recognition.  Of course the best of all worlds is a speaker that will talk from experience and knowledge, while at the same time being well-known in the industry.

Do You Want Sponsors?
If so, this adds a layer of complexity, but certainly helps to pay for the event as well.  Make sure your sponsors are closely related to the topic at hand.  If you’ll be doing a virtual conference in the B2B marketplace about a technology idea, having a sponsor talking about planting a garden might not be the best fit.  People do look at the sponsors to get a feel for the types of information that will be presented, so seeing sponsors in the same field and in related areas is optimal.

Consider having multiple packages available for sponsorships.  You can offer “Bronze,” “Silver,” and “Gold” packages for example.  Each level can and should have different price points and features.  Perhaps one is a logo-only and the top package includes a sponsored session in the virtual conference.  You should work closely with your virtual event platform provider to determine best package ideas for your audience, but typical considerations include elements available to attendees, access to attendee marketing lists, logo placement and promotion before, during and after sessions as the event progresses.

How Will You Market Your Event?
The final piece will help determine the attendee-success of your event.  You should take careful stock of how you’ll market the event.  This will typically include your different sources of attendee information:

  • Email lists
  • Snail-mail lists
  • Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.)
  • Other customer lists
  • Partner lists and customer contacts

You can use this to determine your target, and lay out a marketing plan.  You’ll want to make sure you provide excellent information about your virtual event, provide a taste of the virtual conference platform and show people what to expect at the event.  A sample video with the platform and the sessions is helpful, as can be an introductory video from a key presenter or two.  Keep it short and sweet and make sure that people understand what they’ll get (remember: you defined the target attendee and what they’d want from the event above in a prior section) when they attend your virtual conference.

Target your contacts as much as possible, reach out to people with a well thought-out message and offer and you can be amazed at how people will respond to excellent content and participants for your virtual event.

Have a great virtual conference event!