Amid the ongoing pandemic, the number of organizations planning a virtual event doubled.
But the question is – should you follow this new trend?
Are they helpful like the live events? Or are virtual events a waste of time and money?
Well, this article is going to give you all answers.
Below is a list of 14 crucial facts about virtual events to clear the air and help you decide if investing in virtual events is worth it.
- Virtual Events Can Generate More Profit than Live Event
Virtual events provide you with a great opportunity to generate more profit through your sessions.
But how?
Well, conducting them is far less expensive than live events. They don’t demand investment in lavish meeting space, catering, extensive human resources, and speakers’ traveling expenses like live events.
However, some people miss the opportunity of generating more revenue by lowering their ticket prices. Don’t do that!
“Don’t flinch from charging the same for a virtual event that you would for a live event.” –Rachel from Hello7
By having the same number of attendees, Rachel generated $87,000 more profit through conducting virtual events. Below is an interesting breakdown of her virtual vs live event.
It can be YOU as well!
The only need for cashing this opportunity is to change your mindset here. Attendees’ main purpose is not to sit in a lavish environment or eat 5-star hotel food. Rather, they want to get value from an event.
So, the bottom line is – you charge for the value you provide. If you are providing the same value in virtual events then why charge less?
- Virtual Events are a Great Source to Level up the Business Marketing
Nowadays, businesses doing personalized marketing are more likely to succeed. And virtual events provide more opportunities to do that, rather than live events.
How?
Pain points of all attendees can’t be the same. They need follow-up, guidance, and materials relevant to their interests. Here, virtual events become handy.
Advanced virtual meeting software provides an insight into attendees’ interactions. You can analyze those insights to know the interests of your participants.
Here, the real game begins.
Based on the analysis, you can send attendees follow-up emails and material exactly according to their interests. This approach is more likely to generate a higher call to action.
As a result – MORE PROFIT!
In addition, you can go steps ahead by conducting polls or surveys at the time of registration. This data will help you to craft a personalized follow-up strategy.
- Virtual Events Set You Free from Geographical Constraints
Indeed, virtual events free us from geographical constraints. Any person from any part of the world can attend a virtual event from the comfort of their homes.
But what about timings? Many beginners neglect the timing factor.
However, the success of your events depends a lot on it!
You must refrain from choosing holiday weekends, or cultural, religious, or mega sport events days.
Most importantly, if your potential audience is international then do an individual in-depth analysis for all the geographical regions.
It will help you to choose the right day and time for your event- Bringing up the event’s success.
- Virtual Events Can Provide Better Data than Traditional Events
In today’s digital era, data is the backbone for running any business successfully. Whether you want to do marketing, up-selling, retargeting, or attract new prospects, YOU NEED DATA of your target audience.
Here, virtual events are extremely helpful.
They provide you with beneficial data for making your business better. But how?
Virtual events allow you to analyze stream views, most visited speaker profiles, attendees’ interactions, live poll engagement rates, and whatnot. All this data can make better decisions for your business as you get to know about the interests and demands of your audience.
Likewise, these stats can also help design better strategies for coming virtual events. Because virtual events seem to stay for longer in the current COVID situation.
- In Virtual Events, Sound-Quality Matters More Than You Think
We all know that you can’t conduct a smooth virtual event without having an excellent internet connection.
But what are the other factors that bother the audience?
Is it a messy background, bad camera, or bad audio?
Well, the Markletic research reveals that after a bad connection, bad audio is the biggest virtual event annoyance.
So, don’t rely on the laptop’s microphones. Instead, invest in a good microphone to keep your audience happy.
Moreover, for virtual events featuring multiple speakers, make sure that all of your speakers have an excellent connection, camera, and microphone.
In addition, presenting a clear background won’t cost you anything but keep the participants focused.
- Having a Well-known Guest Speaker Can Make Your Event More Successful
A survey conducted by Wild Apricot revealed that arranging a guest speaker for virtual events can contribute a lot to an event’s success.
“70% of organizations who had “much more” attendance at their virtual event than they would have had at a live one featured a guest speaker.”
Wild Apricot
Here, our take is to collaborate with the well-known faces of your industry. People nowadays love to hear and learn from famous personalities.
Moreover, integrating dominant personalities in your marketing plan can do wonders. It is an amazing way to attract their fans to your online events.
- 27% Businesses Didn’t Host Virtual Events because of Lacking Marketing Knowledge
Okay, you know that you are arranging a virtual event. But how would your potential audience know about it?
Marketing is the driving force for that.
Unfortunately, 27% of the businesses who didn’t host virtual events said that it is because,
“We don’t know how to get participants to attend a virtual event.” –Wild Apricot
But, you can take your business out of this category. How?
Initially, you must be clear about these 2 things.
- Potential Audience: You must know who your potential customers are. Having a refined audience persona is the first step.
- Value Proposition: Secondly, answer it: “Why should they attend your event?” Stating your value proposition will help you ace the marketing.
After setting this solid foundation, lay your hands on multiple marketing mediums. It can be social media, email, landing pages, paid ads, and more.
- Networking Can Be Done in Virtual Events – Maybe Better!
It is a common saying that your network is your net worth.
Most people attend live events to increase their professional connections. However, it seems difficult for people to build connections in virtual events. But, it isn’t.
Virtual events allow your attendees to keep a record of the people they interacted with. Later on, connecting with them on LinkedIn is always an option.
Pro Tip: By using artificial intelligence software for your virtual event, you can take networking to the next level. Advanced platforms help create better connections by analyzing attendees’ interests and interaction patterns.
- 60 to 90 Minutes is an Ideal Time for Virtual Round Table Discussions
Round table discussions play a vital role in making better decisions. Yet, in this pandemic, businesses are shifting from live to virtual sessions.
The question arises… What is an ideal time for virtual round table discussions?
The research revealed an answer.
In making your 60 minutes effective, we recommend you break the session into three sub-sessions.
- Consume initial 10 minutes to explain the current situation briefly.
- The next 40 minutes can be used to discuss crucial matters.
- In the last 10 minutes, you can wrap up the whole session and provide call-to-action lists for the future.
- Live Hangout is The Under-rated but Most Successful Tactic for Engaging Audience
Hosts usually open up discussions, conduct Q&A, and do surveys to engage their attendees.
However, the survey by Wild Apricot revealed that hosting a live hangout before/after the virtual event is the most powerful way to engage attendees.
“73% of the organizations who used it were almost 15x more successful than the number of unsuccessful organizations who didn’t use this tactic!” – Wild Apricot
Live hangouts give the audience your genuine impression, promote real-time communication, and build credibility. It all maximizes leads and sky-rocket sales.
- Website is The Top Sources for Attracting New Clients for Virtual Events
There are tens of digital resources to bring in new clients/ attendees. However, using your website effectively surpasses them all.
As per Markletic,
“80% of virtual event organizers use the website to drive significant registrations.”
Wild Apricot strengthens this research by stating that most of the membership organizations who enjoyed more than 50% of new members used website posts.
You can use guest posts, invest in paid marketing, or leverage SEO to attract new customers to your website.
- Promoting a Donation Page throughout the Virtual Event is Under-used Donation Tactic
When non-profit organizations think about generating more revenue, increasing ticket cost is the first thing that clicks.
According to research, only 25% of the organizations are using it.
However, promoting a donation page can be extremely helpful.
In this regard, taking some effective measures can speed up the donation process.
- Make Donation Page Shareable: Don’t confine donations to only your attendees. You can spread your message to thousands of other people by just making your donation page shareable.
- Make Donation Process Easy: Make the donation process simpler for your attendees. They should be able to donate within a few clicks.
- Live Streaming Is More Powerful than Pre-recorded Videos
In virtual events, you can go for live streaming or pre-recorded videos. The latter one seems easy but the interaction remains stronger in the live sessions.
According to Marketing Profs, social media users engage 10x more on live streams than pre-recorded videos.
It depicts the overall psychology of human minds. Perhaps, the live streams trigger fear-of-missing-out in the audience.
Moreover, Rachel advises to never send recordings to the attendees who missed the virtual events. It is an event, not a webinar that can have a replay.
- Engaging Attendees is the Top Difficult Challenge for Virtual Events
49% of marketers reported that engaging the audience is the top factor in defining virtual events’ success.
Realistically speaking, it is more difficult than live events. Because you don’t have an audience in front of you physically.
Here are some tactics to unlock the high level of audience engagement.
- Clear What & Why Part: The groundwork is to be clear about what your audience wants and why they want it. Having these two things in front of you will help you craft the content precisely according to their needs.
- Bring in Some Fun with Physical Activities: The attention span of human beings has dropped to 8 seconds. It means you need to maintain their focus. So, instead of just confining your session to computer screens – conduct yoga or meditation breaks.
Final Thoughts
The above-stated facts make it clear that it is quite possible to engage an audience, generate revenue, and fulfill your business goals by opting for this hot virtual event trend.
Yet, the bottom line is to use these stats and tips for making your upcoming virtual events better.
Do you want to know how we can help you regardless if your event is physical, virtual or hybrid? Book a demo today.