It’s fascinating how much technology has changed our lives and introduced us to new worlds of possibilities. Your company can now take part in many digital marketing strategies, especially virtual events, which are a perfect tool for interaction with your audience. This text will look at the most effective ways to host a virtual conference successfully.
Virtual Conference Ideas and Best Practises
In today’s world, there is no shortage of online conferences that have been hosted by big corporations or professional communities from all around the world. Everything from social media marketers, developers, graphic designers, and entrepreneurs want to share their ideas and products with a larger audience.
There are hundreds of reasons why you should consider using this opportunity – so let’s see what some of them are.
A virtual conference may be a low-cost option for your marketing strategy, but it can lead to high returns on investment. Perhaps you have already hosted an actual event with participants gathering in one place, but now you want to shift the focus towards virtual events so more people can participate.
If that is the case, then here are some tips that might come in handy – check them out below:
1. Reach out to specific target audiences
It’s essential to think about who you are trying to reach with your marketing campaign? There are five basic personas of audience members. Each one should be addressed carefully toward their needs and expectations. Here is what they look like:
Casual attendee: Someone who is not considering themselves a part-time or full-time industry member. They might be interested in your topic, but only because it’s trending online, and they want to know what all of the buzzes are about.
Serious attendee: People looking for information that will further their career opportunities and help them climb up the corporate ladder. They follow specific influencers in their fields and like certain brands and products, but they also do proper research before buying anything.
Industry expert: These participants know everything about what you are hosting. They keep up with new trends and constantly read through industry publications to find out what’s happening in the community surrounding their interests.
Part-time professional: A person who works in a specific field and participates in related events to stay current with the trends, but not necessarily work full time within that industry. If done correctly, they can be among your most engaged participants.
Full-time professional: Employees of companies or other organizations interested in getting insights into everything from marketing strategies to product launches. They make up a majority of the audience at actual events, but their online counterparts might be more casual attendees from all around the world.
2. Have a clear goal for your virtual conference
What do you want to achieve with this campaign? Do you want to promote your company by hosting an event that will draw people’s attention towards solving one particular problem?
Maybe you would like to launch a new product for your clients, but you are looking to get feedback from other people in the industry first? Or perhaps you want to use this opportunity as a fun social activity to engage your audience while providing them with helpful information.
It can be anything, but once you have defined the event’s main goal, it will be much easier to achieve it.
3. Provide high-quality audio and video streaming
It’s not enough anymore to record an event or broadcast it through live streaming services. Today’s conference participants are very demanding for sound and image quality. They are looking for instant interactivity even during presentations, so make sure everything sounds clear by checking out how well your equipment performs before the show begins.
4. Promote your virtual conference very well
If you are not already well known in your industry, you might have a hard time getting the attention of potential participants if they don’t see what you are hosting and why it is essential to them. It’s not enough anymore to post an event description on social media. You need to consistently promote it so people can find out about it even before the launch date.
This will also give you more opportunities for organic growth. Let friends help out by sharing with their network and increasing your reach several times since they often have a more significant influence than a regular business account.
5. Make event registration easy
The last thing that many hosts forget is that they need to simplify the registration process.
You might have several different filters that you are using for your event, but even though it is understandable that people should have to provide this information when signing up for something online, putting them through too many questions can be annoying and time-consuming.
When planning out your virtual conference, make sure the link gets in front of participants in an easy way so they can participate in it without having to create any extra accounts or share their contact information in more than one place.
6. Create engaging content which solves problems
People want to learn about interesting ideas that will help them solve real-life problems. Let’s say you are hosting a marketing conference – do not just give them generalities until the very end when you start talking about the product.
Your participants will get bored and might even leave before you reach that vital part, so provide interesting facts along the way that will help them figure out if your product is what they are looking for. It’s a win-win situation – you get to show off convincing points of value while also getting more people on board with your idea.
7. Use different types of engagement tools
Not everyone will respond to phone calls or polls, but you can still use these methods throughout your virtual conference ideas to ask questions, give away prizes or keep people interested in what is happening.
If your event goes live at an inconvenient time for many people worldwide, this can be one of the easiest ways to involve all registered participants simultaneously.
8. Offer lots of opportunities for interaction with speakers
If you are hosting a virtual conference ideas or any professional event where people want to learn about different topics, it would be beneficial if your speakers could interact more frequently with all participants.
Whether this happens through live polls, questions submitted via email, or some convenient method for both parties, you need to find out what works best and can be used on stage without making too much hassle.
Conclusion
One important thing to remember about virtual conferences is that they are not meant to replace real-life meetings or conferences. Because there’s no denying how beneficial face-to-face interactions can be, make sure that your Virtual Conference ideas offers something besides “typical” online content (i.e., video conferencing).
Also, don’t focus too much time on trying to build up excitement around the conference because you’ll probably find that you’re not receiving much response from participants looking forward to attending.