Tag: online events

Post-Event Engagement (Part 1)

(This version is for Event Managers. Keep an eye out for Part 2 – specifically for Event Exhibitors! You can send that post to your exhibitors to make sure they get the most out of your event!)

You’ve hosted your event, you had a lot of great attendees come see it, you had great engagement, and the speakers all had a blast. It was a successful event and you’re pretty happy with how it went. Now what?

Post-Event Engagement ChecklistDownload

TIP: Download this checklist to make sure you follow-up on all the tips in this article!

Well, once your event is over, there is a lot that you can (and should!) do. First of all, you need to collect your leads from the event. That’s easily done on vConferenceOnline by going to the Reporting section of the VME and downloading the registration report. Do you have a marketing tool similar to Hatchbuck or SalesForce? This is the time when you upload these leads to a tool like that and make sure you can easily access and sort them.

Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

After that, look through the reporting tools given to you. For example, on our platform, you’re able to see which speaker and session were the most popular, as well as get some feedback from the surveys you may have hosted in the event. You can sort through all the information and come up with a couple of key pieces of information: 1) what did your audience like the most and 2) what did they feel you could improve upon?

Immediately after the event, I highly recommend your event continues into an On Demand portion. This can be anywhere from 1 day to 180 days, or even longer if you want the information to be available. This allows those who registered, but were unable to attend live, to catch the sessions, view the exhibit hall, and ask questions so they can learn as much as possible from your event. It also allows continued registrations and lead capture even after the event is technically ‘over.’

TIP: extend that On Demand period for people who are registered members with your website. For example, if you have a standard and a premium membership available on your site, allow standard members two weeks to view the content and allow premium members 60 days! You can change this combo in any manner of ways, but this is a great way to offer a perk to those who support you.

If you had 1-4 highly appreciated sessions in your event, the next step is very easy. Those sessions can be turned quickly into a separate event, an encore webcast or expo down the road. This is a great way to continue engagement as well as to make sure that those who were unable to attend are able to learn from those presentations, even after the On Demand period has ended.

Aside from continued content distribution, make sure you’re engaging with your registrants fairly frequently. You don’t want them to forget who you are between now and your next event (which you should start planning soon to get ahead of the curve!), so you can contact them every once in a while with a simple email giving them information on who you are, how to support your business further, and what great deals you can offer them.

For example, if you offer the memberships mentioned above, email your leads with information on why those memberships are great and how they can get their hands on one. Tell them about the content you share or the services you provide. They were clearly interested in your event – make sure they know you have more to offer!

I recommend using a marketing tool to schedule these sorts of emails in a funnel system. You can add tags to leads that engage more and drop them into a campaign that guides them through the process to supporting your business further – purchasing a membership, services, or other products that you offer.

If you continue your engagement with those leads, it will be easy to estimate how many of them will want to attend your next event, which will make your estimates to exhibitors and sponsors that much easier.

Need more tips? Contact your project manager or contact us here.

Happy planning!

How to Get Your Message Past the Marketing Noise

“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?

How to Incorporate Online Events into Your In-Person Events

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!

How to have Successful Interaction with Virtual Events

The most common concern people express about virtual events – webcasts, online classes, or virtual conferences/trade shows – is the apparent lack of communication between the hosts/speakers and the attendees of the event. Without face-to-face interaction, many are concerned that they will be unable to truly connect with their attendees and will therefore not have a very successful event. To help to ease these concerns, I’ve put together a few tips for how to make sure you get the most out of your online interaction.

  • Utilize text and/or video chat for Q&A’s throughout or after your presentation.
    • This feature is a fantastic way to make sure that any questions are answered thoroughly and possibly even better than they would be during an in-person event. If you pre-record your presentations – which is already highly recommended – you have the full duration of your presentation to interact with viewers. You can make connections with them at the beginning, by asking where they’re from, what companies they work for, what the weather is like where they are. You can then easily transition into answering questions. If they don’t seem to have many questions, I highly recommend having a few points to encourage discussion in the chat, such as additional tips or anecdotes. This makes everyone feel at ease and encourages questions and deeper discussion, allowing the attendees to get even more out of the event than an in-person one.

      If you choose to do a video chat Q&A, using a tool like livestream or Google Hangouts, you can really easily make the online event feel nearly identical to an in-person event. You can even invite viewers to join you on the video chat, allowing them to really be a part of the event.

  • Utilize chat in exhibit booths as well.
    • This is another way to make the transition from in-person to online seamless. As a booth administrator, you can reach out to attendees as they enter your booth, just as you would at an in-person event, and offer them some information about your company, services, or simply talk about the event.If your company has sponsored a session, that’s a great time to talk about it. Mention that the session is either coming up, or has happened (and is going to be available On Demand for their leisure), discuss the topic and what they can get from it.

      This approach is great because, instead of poking at the attendee with sales pitches, you’re making a connection with them. People with a connection to a company are far more likely to purchase from them, without the cognitive dissonance that comes from a guilt-based purchase made only to quiet a sales pitch.

  • Set up chat rooms outside of the presentation rooms.
    • This acts as sort of a networking lounge for the attendees and speakers. Instead of being boxed into the topic of a presentation, people are able to find others that are interested in the same topics, but move beyond them. Private chats are a great way for these attendees to ask further questions of the speaker or to connect with a possible business partner.These function exactly the way the outside hall of a conference center does, where attendees go to fill up on coffee and charge their laptops. This too makes the transition from in-person to online seamless.

Have you hosted online events before? What did you find helped you the most with encouraging interaction between attendees and the host/speakers?

Have any questions about hosting a virtual event and want a great platform that will help you every step of the way? Email us at sales@vconferenceonline.com

Find out all about our platform with this in-depth self-guided tour.

Happy event planning!

5 Reasons Why a Virtual Conference Will be More Successful for You

Events are inherently marketing for the companies involved. Whether the event is meant to be educational, networking, or simply a tradeshow, the end-goal for those arranging the event is marketing.

Most companies have a pretty strict budget for all things, but marketing is difficult to quantify, since the results aren’t always immediate or easy to measure. In that case, wouldn’t you want to make sure that any money you put toward marketing is furthering your goals?

Of course you would. So here is a short list of why you should host your events – whether they be classes, conferences, or tradeshows – online and virtually, rather than in-person.

1. Cost.

As I already mentioned above, budgets are tight. Everyone wants to make money, but they don’t want to spend it. With that in mind, here are just a few of the things you end up spending money on with in-person events:

  • Lunches for all attendees and staff
  • Coffee
  • Space for the event
    • space for presentations AND exhibitor booths
  • Security guards
  • Electricity
    • All your attendees will need somewhere to plug in their laptops
  • Clean bathrooms
  • Pens/trinkets at exhibitor booths/check in
  • Staff for check in

And on, and on, and on. None of these are a cost to consider with an online event. Security for payment and the presentations is taken care of by the platform hosting the event.
Coffee/lunches are the responsibility of attendees (as are bathrooms). If you want to do a giveaway, you only have to pay for the few shirts or keychains you decide to give away.

2. Reach

An in-person venue can only hold so many people before the firemen get antsy. Online, you only have to worry about bandwidth. If you have lots of people paying to come to your event (or lots of sponsors helping you with the cost), bandwidth is a truly minute cost. With all this extra space, you can allow so many more people in your event and therefore get your message out to them.

Additionally, only so many people can afford to travel to an in-person event. Your goal is to reach as many people, so why would you limit that? There is a cost to attend, a cost for hotel rooms, a cost for food, plus the cost for time off of work. With an online event, your attendees (and their bosses) don’t have to worry about that, so many more will be able to join you.

3. Leisure

If your presentations are broadcast at a scheduled time, there’s no sweat on the attendees to watch it as it broadcasts with On Demand capabilities. No matter how many presentations you have at an in-person event, an attendee can only view one at a time.
With On Demand, they can view any presentation they want, anytime they want, wherever they want (with an internet connection).

This makes things a lot easier for your attendees and exponentially raises the value of your event, encouraging more to register and even further increasing your reach. The convenience of watching these presentations online far surpasses the cost of travel.

4. Analytics

If you have to spend money on something, you want to know its effectiveness. Online events provide information that would be creepy (and impossible to obtain) at an in-person event.

You can know things like what presentations an attendee viewed, how long they viewed each for, which booths they went to, whether they participated in the networking chat or presentation chat.

Beyond that, with a company like vConferenceOnline, your project manager has access to the analytics of past events, which means that that person can help you to improve your event based on the successes and failures of previous events.

5. The Ultimate in Green

The whole world is trying to go green, with good reason. You can contribute to this, along with all the other benefits, while saving money. 100% virtual means no paper cups, no plastic food bags, no waste, nothing. If your company is looking to “go green” or if that is already a goal you are pursuing, I highly recommend a virtual event.

Have any questions about hosting a virtual event and want a great platform that will help you every step of the way? Email us at sales@vconferenceonline.com

First Steps to a Virtual Event

In my company, we’re working on setting up our next virtual conference, so I figured I’d start writing some blogs about the whole process. I’ll go step by step as I personally start setting up our event, and you can see really what there is to do for it. At the end of it all, I’ll write up a quick bullet point post that shows all the points in order.

First step is making sure you really have an event. I’m positive you have the audience you need – all you have to do is to reach out to them – so that’s not even a step. You already know your goal with the event, you know you want to save money and time by doing it online – and reach more people.

You can watch the video below, or keep reading underneath it!

Truly, the first thing you should do is contact your speakers. What takes the most time during the setup for an event – especially a virtual event – is gathering your speakers, getting confirmation, contracts, session names, powerpoint slides, session abstracts, and of course the actual recording from your speaker.

You need to contact your hopeful speakers.

  • Contact more speakers than you’ll need, because there are bound to be some that will not be able to participate.
  • Have a date in mind – but do not set it in stone yet. If nearly all of your hopeful speakers can’t make the exact date you want, well, what’s the point?
  • Be flexible. Allow varied topics from the exact ones you’re looking for.
  • Make it relevant. The topics are actually more inviting than the speakers themselves to most attendees. If someone has never heard of Billy Bob but loves hearing about how to build your own spaceship, they won’t mind that they don’t know the speaker.
  • Get excited. Your speakers will reflect your energy. If you’re just going through the motions of another virtual event, if you’re already stressed, or you just plain don’t want to do it, you need to get into a better mindset and send more positive emails. If you sound excited, they’ll get excited too, and they’ll be more likely to participate.

Keep in mind – you won’t get all of your dream speakers – and that’s okay! You’ll get great people participating in your event, and you and your attendees will have a blast.

Everything tends to fall in place in the end – just keep your plans flexible.

Event Schedules – Live vs Sim Live vs On Demand

Why Virtual?
Josh Harrison
Producer
vConferenceOnline

Event Schedules – Live vs Sim Live vs On Demand

Oh good! You’re still reading my articles! If I was a blogging kind of person, I suppose you could call these blogs. Whatever works for you.

How was that for small talk? OK, back on track now. Event Schedules. This is an important part of planning your online event. Many people are used to a scheduled day or set of days with sessions scheduled to start at certain times along with allotted time for breaks, special gatherings and exhibits. At an in person conference you are almost restricted by a schedule because no one has figured out how to be in 2 places at 1 time. Enter the “online” event. Time is no longer your enemy (in most cases).

There are 3 main ways to go about placing out or scheduling your event’s content.
Live – This means you are streaming out the content (usually audio and some sort of video) to your attendees in real time as it is happening. This is common when an online event is running alongside an in person event. This is also a very common format for people who have done webinars with teleconferencing involved. Live is there for a few good reasons, but many people do it this way simply because they don’t realize there is a better way. Don’t get me wrong, live certainly has its place. I would say those places are running alongside a live in person event or where 2 way interaction drives the live session’s content…Like a call and response sort of scenario. However, as you’ll find if you continue to read this, there are some interesting ways to maximize your content and time by avoiding “Live”.

Simulated Live – This is where there is a schedule for the event and content will be shown at a specific time, but the content has been pre-recorded. Think “like TV”. This is a favored delivery method because session content can be recorded and presented without the risks of “live” problems ruining the event. There are currently much more easily accessible technologies to help create your session in a non real-time project format than there are for content generation in a live stream scenario. You may say, “how do we get the interaction then?” “Good question!” I would say. Chat is a very common part of any online event. It allows attendees to interact with support staff, presenters, vendors, and even each other in a medium that almost everyone is familiar with. The beauty of pre-recorded sessions is that the presenter can be discussing his/her session with the viewers as his/her content is being played back. Rather than having to wait for questions until the end of the presentation which limits the amount of time that can be devoted to the viewers questions. Thus limiting the very interaction that you thought you could only get with a live event.

On-Demand – Do you have a DVR? Do you love it? Why? (Besides fast forwarding the commercials). Because it allows you to watch what you want when you want to. Most of the world is headed this way. We are becoming accustomed to receiving our information when and how we want it. On-Demand events allow content to always be available to the attendee which allows them to say “Thank you Mr/Mrs Event planner”. Think about it. What if your event is 3 days long and an attendee can only attend 1 of those days. He really wants to participate but he can’t conform to YOUR schedule. Don’t lose him because of this, your event can conform to HIS schedule.

On-Demand can also bolster your event as an added option. Some event planners charge for On-Demand, some use it as a value add and some go all out and do On-Demand only. Keep in mind that if you’re concerned about attendee interaction, On-Demand can be setup with email discussion systems that alert the presenter whenever a viewer has a comment or question. A popular option for Education is to have office hours with the presenter so that students can watch when they want and then gather together at a pre determined date and time to discuss. I will make a bold assertion and say that this is also the way of the future. It only makes sense as people’s schedules get busier and work/personal lines get blurred. This works for some forms of content and not for others. Remember, use the right tools for the job.

Events, Conferences, Continuing Education and More

Source

Understanding Different Types of Events
I realize that the name of our platform might lead some to think that we only do conferences online. However, there are so many different kinds of events that you can create with any online event platform.

Conferences
These may be the most popular and well known types of events simply because there are so many and they generally happen in every area of interest. From finances to comic books, there are people with like interests that need to gather and communicate. For the most part these consist of keynote sessions to start off and general sessions combined with a show floor or exhibition hall for vendors to tout their offerings to attendees.

Depending on the area of interest you’re probably going to a conference for the sessions or the exhibits. A subgroup to conferences would be shows or exhibition events for vendors. The attendees at these events only represent a very small portion of the actual audience for their topics.  Many can’t get away from their daily lives or simply can’t afford to travel and attend.

Continuing Education (CE)
This is also a very popular type of event. In most professional industries there is some sort of CE implemented to keep pros up to date. There are requirements and standards that must be met to qualify for these CE credits. Professionals are usually busy, and time is money, so fitting in travel or even leaving the office for CE is usually a struggle.

Training
Training events are usually done on a smaller scale in person. There will be an instructor going over hours if not days worth of courseware with a select group of people. Some training programs will do a circuit or tour run to try and reach as many people in different locations as possible. Still, the reach is limited and you have an instructor repeatedly delivering material to a small audience. This requires higher registration prices due to trainer costs and can eliminate some potential trainees due to travel or costs.

Promotions
Marketers have long been creating events to attract attention to their product or services.  A company may be releasing a new product and they want to tell the press or educate potential customers/clients. In many of these situations these are small events that require their attendees to travel.

If you are starting to see the trend, you’ll see the advantages of Online Events. Factor in time and costs for travel, food, lodging and attendance charges and you may see why in person events have seen a decline in attendance.

One final tip: give the people what they want. In today’s world, individuals and businesses are accustomed to instant gratification. Everything is at their fingertips thanks to the internet. If your information isn’t easily available to the world they will find another option as quickly as type, point and click. The good news is all of these events and more can be done online.