Virtual and online events are becoming more conventional in modern-day. They allow businesses to reach a global audience with thousands of people without physiographic limitations. As most of the organizations have adopted the homeworking policy nowadays, the virtual market is witnessing higher demand.
Microsoft announced that they surpassed 44.00 million daily active users in March 2020 as companies are progressively using the digital platform to continue their operating processes.
Among authoritative virtual events and conferences is Adobe Summit, which took place on March 31, 2020, and as they say, the digital experience conference has gone digital.
Also, CNBC Health Returns Summit took place on May 12, 2020, sharing and delivering groundbreaking ideas that will transform the healthcare industry for years to come.
To ensure your online program won’t get lost in the digital overrun and your invested time and efforts will make a blast, your pre-event marketing and promotion game needs to be efficient and result-oriented. This requires you to touch the right marketing points in terms of channels, tools, and their usage strategies.
Advance your digital event promotion
After identifying your target audience: who they are, what they want, where they are, and why their attendance now is crucial more than ever, it’s time to tell them about it!
Where to start and what should it look like? To get the most out of any social media platform, make sure you don’t miss out on the content creation. Every social media platform has something unique to offer and demand, and each of them requires specific approaches. After creating an incredible event webpage, make sure to share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or even Snapchat. Don’t forget about influence marketers, create event-related hashtags, and spread via defined channels as much as possible, keeping it reasonable.
Identify the purpose and the audience of your digital event
Obviously your content, whether it’s an event webpage, blog post, social media, newspaper placements, emailing, or other, should clearly deliver all the “hows,” “wheres,” and “why-should-I-gos.” in accordance with the stage of your event and the target audience.
To put it frankly, even the most committed audience gets busy and frustrated, so before making any placement, be sure to show it to the right users. It is of utmost importance to make the virtual event feel real.
Consider a unique marketing strategy
While creating your sales funnel be patient enough to consider and satisfy the needs of all its stages and punch your potential attendees through the last stages of the funnel, you better continuously retarget them by telling more about your company, showing the behavior they seek, ensuring the security and potential of your opportunities.
Highlight the advantages of your online event
The main dish of your event is your event’s agenda and programming. Think about an attendee who doesn’t know what they are going to see at an event and to spend their time and money on. Make sure to announce the A-list speakers, notable vendors, special attendees of your event. You can also add links to related social profiles or highlight their bios. Attach a social proof, that is, show how many other people have already backed you and/or attend and update frequently.
Follow and speak about your events "happening-nows"
Congratulations on the opening! Your event has started, and with so much work done, your promotion mission is not accomplished yet. It is in a timely manner to add “happening right now” photos, videos, identifying everyone by name, and letting people who are not at the event see what a great time you are having. It is always a good idea to have interactive shows, events, and contests during the event as it will drive additional engagement. Public and private meeting rooms, voice, and chat messaging, conference rooms full of unique avatars during the event will make the experience much more durable and will print memories in the minds of visitors. Someone has mentioned your event on Twitter? Retweet them! Someone has posted a great photo from a session on Facebook? Share it and thank them.
Don't overlook post-event must-dos
Registration and participation in the event itself is a significant way to evaluate the results and victory. There is no simpler way than asking, “Hey, what do you think? What could we do better?”, collecting testimonials, etc. This is invaluable feedback for you, and it can make your special guest attendees or paying vendors feel more appreciated.
Even though your event has ended doesn’t mean the discussions and actions around it should. For instance, creating on-demand versions of webinars or online seminars and re-sharing these across social media through both organic and paid channels will continue to increase partnership and build your network and audiences for the future.
Conclude, track and improve your virtual experience
Digest a successfully completed virtual event, take advantage of a goldmine data-generator virtual platform. Employing backend co-managed software with powerful analytics will allow you to track the whole event’s performance. Collect up-to-the-minute data on views, downloads, posts, shares and visitors. Implement follow-up surveys to collect insides like: How many people attended? Which tickets are best-selling? Who buys them? How much time did people spend/where? and many more.