“Show, don’t tell.” It’s one of the first things you learn when you take an English class. Whether it’s a short story or an essay about Nietzche, you want your audience to believe you’re an authority on whatever you’re talking about, but you can’t just insist that you are that authority.
When you’re trying to get customers to believe your product is the best one out there, traditional marketing methods fall flat. Banner ads flash on every page until they’re blocked by AdBlocker. The first three links on Google are clearly sponsored, and sometimes they’re laughably off-topic (what are they even doing there?). Even commercials are easily skipped over with TiVo, or just ignored and talked over until the show comes back on. So how do you show your ideal audience that your product is worth their time?
Educating your audience and proving to them that you know what you’re talking about is incredibly important and provides value to them, so they won’t feel scammed or like they’ve wasted their time. However, in the time of noises coming from all directions, it’s often hard to find the motivation to read a whole book or series of whitepapers from a company you’re not even sure you trust.
That’s where virtual events come in. With a short webcast, a day-long class, or even a full-blown conference, you can display your knowledge to your ideal audience while showing that your products or services are needed in their lives. This establishes you as an authority who values their time and doesn’t want to waste it by shouting about how great you are to them.
Give your ideal clients something worthwhile, and they’ll come to you the minute they have a problem that you can solve!
What do you have to offer your clients that’s worth their time?
While online events are gaining traction, there still are many reasons to have in-person events. Some sponsors prefer in-person booths, some attendees enjoy the chance to leave the office for a few days, and other reasons. However, you may still want the opportunity to reach a larger audience – sponsors who like the option of online downloads in their booths, attendees who prefer to learn from home or their offices, bosses who don’t want to pay for travel costs.
You can combine the two very successfully to get the best of both worlds. Here are a few of our tips to do so.
1. Live stream your sessions
To make the online attendees feel like they’re really a part of the action, live stream your presentations during the in-person event. You can do this using any number of applications, such as YouTube Live (which now has taken over Google Hangouts), LiveStream, etc. Anything that gives you a live stream link will work successfully.
Make sure that you have a good quality camera (a GoPro or a good smart phone camera will both work great) and that your audience can see both the slides and the presenter’s face.
2. Make the slide decks available online.
This will benefit both your in-person and your online attendees. Whether they’re sitting in
the back of the room and forgot their glasses or they simply follow along better when they have the slides in front of them on their computer, always make sure you have slides available.
This will be great for after the live portion of the event as well. Those who attended the sessions live will like having the deck to refer to in the future and those who missed the session will be able to look back and see what they missed.
3. Make the presentations available On Demand for both in-person and online attendees
Just about every in-person conference I’ve been to has more than one presentation going at a time. Because of this, it’s impossible for any attendee, no matter how meticulous, to
see all of the content live. Your in-person attendees will be excited about the opportunity to be able to catch the presentations that they missed, and your online attendees will be more likely to view all of the presentations at their leisure.
4. Allow your online and in-person attendees both to participate in Q&A
You can do this a couple of different ways. Your speaker/presenter can have an online chat room that they can refer to during the Q&A with the in-person crowd, so that they answer questions from both audiences; alternatively, you can ask your speaker to answer questions from the online audience after the event using a chat room.
Either way, you’ll want your online audience to feel as much a part of the action as your in-person crowd. In-person attendees tend to try to catch the speaker after they are finished with their presentation, whether by the stage or in the lobby afterwards. Your online event audience does not have that opportunity, so you need to make sure that they have the option to ask their questions as well.
5. Work with your sponsors
You have more sponsor real estate, so to speak, utilizing in-person and online events simultaneously. It’s quite easy for sponsors to send you materials for an online booth – typically online downloads, links to their site, online giveaways, and graphics. This opens up a lot of opportunities for different kinds of sponsorships.
Your in-person sponsors may want to have both virtual and physical booths as well. You should approach them and see if they would be interested in having an online and a physical presence at your event.
Keeping these few tips in mind, you can have a truly successful online event to accompany and broaden the audience for your in-person event!
Have any questions? Send me an email at caitlin@vconferenceonline.com and I’ll be happy to help out!
Many people approach a webcast or virtual conference session as an opportunity to sell. This ends up driving the content for the session, and it drives the focus and presentation style as well.
While it’s certainly possible to present a “pre-sales” type presentation with information about your product or service in hopes of driving the sale, you might want to consider a different approach, particularly if you don’t have a captive audience. A “captive audience” is one that can’t leave, that must watch your presentation. This might be the case if you’re presenting sales training or other required materials.
But, if you’re talking with potential customers, or trying to woo customers into upgrades and enhanced service offerings, presenting a sales pitch or making sure you cover your marketing bullet points might be the last thing you really want to present. You’ll probably find that this causes people to click away, to stop listening and to become disengaged with your message, brand and presentation.
It’s just too easy to click away, or become distracted with email or have a thousand other things that get in the way of the attendee’s attention. An online presentation is, by necessity, a different animal from an in-person presentation. You need to turn on the expertise, the creativity and answer the “what can you do for me” question that all of the attendees are struggling with in their own minds.
To do this, consider providing information. REAL information – lessons learned, best practices, etc. These are the things a viewer can watch, learn from, and apply to their own world. Talk about things you’ve run into. Talk about customers and situations that have come up that show you have both a sense of humor and a problem-solving approach.
When you provide real-world information and experience, and you provide take-away, actionable information, the viewer will appreciate it. You’ll be seen as the expert, the one to go to for more information, more services. With an online presentation, it’s much more like a conversation with a viewer than a presentation AT a viewer.
Here are some quick ideas to get you started:
Provide a quick 5 or 10 tip best practices sheet they can download.
Provide an idea sheet that gives unique ideas that can spur other ideas the viewer can use to be successful.
Provide a “common pitfalls, and how to avoid them” sheet
Give a checklist of things to cover or consider
By providing takeaways, and giving actionable items, your viewer will be engaged and care about what you’re presenting. It’s not enough to just have great slides. Give a worksheet or other item that can be put into play immediately. Make the viewer look good in the eyes of their boss and/or customers and you’ll immediately be seen as a benefit to their work, and you can show that you’re trustworthy.
Sure, you can show a slide or two about your product or service at the end, but first give the viewer something they can relate to and depend on. Then help them see how your offering can help.
One last thing – don’t handicap the information you provide. In other words, provide ALL fully-usable information in the sheets or takeaways you provide. Don’t give 3, then say “contact me for the other 10.” You’ll only make your viewer resent you and feel like the whole thing was a setup for sales.
People understand that sales are needed, they just don’t want to be sold. Help them understand first. The sales and marketing will follow.
A question people are always asking is, “How do you profit from _____?” The entire point of marketing, digital or otherwise, is always trying to turn a profit. That’s the point of selling products or services, right?
Wrong.
I’m going to tell you a secret that I’ve learned from endlessly researching “how to market correctly.”
Focus on your content and how it will help people.
That sounds cheesy and it probably is. After all, we don’t give our services and products away; we sell them! Why wouldn’t we focus on the money we ought to be getting for what we sell?
Customers are more annoyed with marketers than ever. They fast-forward through commercials, ignore banner ads, and generally just scoff at any kind of advertising ploys we try. They’ve seen our tricks plenty of times and they’re tired of it. This is where content marketing, digital marketing, and so many other kinds of marketing become frustrating for all parties.
This is why you should focus on your content. If someone sees your content, understands that you’re trying to help them achieve some goal, they are much more likely to want to buy your product or service, because they know that you can really be an asset to them.
Stop trying to focus on your profits – though don’t sell yourself short. However, if you focus on helping people, they will see your intentions and like you more for it – and that is where the profit comes.
