Why Event Pros Are Obsessed With Virtual Events: 6 Benefits & Advantages

If you’re like one of the thousands of people who has switched to virtual working, learning, and socializing since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in February of 2020, you’re probably used to one thing: Zoom fatigue.

Zoom fatigue can feel like burnout, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed or unproductive. And thanks to the recent increase in digital communication because of COVID, it might seem like virtual events are the last thing your target audience would want to attend right now. But we’re here to remind everyone that virtual events don’t have to be a drag.

In fact, when they’re done right, they can even be better than in-person events! And despite the uptick in zoom fatigue, marketing and event professionals still reap major benefits from hosting online events.

Virtual Events By The Numbers

Before we dig into the many reasons that marketing and event professionals love virtual events, let’s look at the cold hard facts. If you still need convincing that virtual events aren’t going anywhere soon, here’s some quick numbers that might help change your mind:

This year, Adobe hosted their annual Summit entirely online and shattered previous attendance records. Over 500,000 people went to the virtual Summit–16 times more than usual.

80% of marketers predict that they will produce more virtual events in the coming years.

In 2020, the number of organizations that put on virtual events doubled.

84% of virtual events cost less than their in-person counterparts.

80% of survey respondents claim to have reached more of their audience via virtual events than in person events. Now that we got those numbers out of the way, here are just a few of the many benefits of virtual events that will stick along long after COVID is gone.

Now that we got those numbers out of the way, here are just a few of the many benefits of virtual events that will stick along long after COVID is gone.

6 Reasons Pros Love Virtual Events

01.

Save Money

In business, it all comes down to the bottom line. So one of the biggest reasons event professionals love virtual events is because they cost much less than traditional in-person events.With virtual events, you don’t have to pay for hotels, venues, or catering–all of which can end up costing a hefty chunk of change. Saving money on virtual events can be great for marketing departments that are seeing their budgets slashed due to COVID-19. More than half of event marketers surveyed believe their 2021 budgets will be smaller, so it’s a good idea to start planning now.

02.

Save Time and Money

Do you find that the closer you get to an event, the less work your team actually has time to do? Planning and producing a major in-person event takes a lot of work–loading up products, shepherding people, setting up signage, and rearranging rooms can take days, depending on the size of the venue and event. On average, it takes half the time to plan a virtual event (4

weeks compared to 8). Plus, small virtual events can take as little as 2 weeks to plan! So if you’re low on man-power and time, a virtual event is the way to go.

03.

Better for Attendees

Right now, travel for events is pretty impossible, let alone risky. In normal times, travel can still be expensive, time-consuming, and just plain annoying for event attendees and speakers alike.

One of the best ways to boost your attendance is to make your event easy to attend, and virtual events take the win in this category. It’s much easier for a busy executive to tune into your conference online in between meetings than it would be for them to catch a flight to your city. With virtual events, you can avoid all sorts of barriers to high attendance, including geographical distance, travel expenses, and tight schedules. In one survey, 80% of respondents said they were able to reach more of their audience via virtual events than in person events.

04.

More Feedback

If there’s one thing marketers and event professional love, it’s feedback–ideally in the form of cold, hard data. And virtual events offer plenty of data to look through.

Depending on your virtual event platform, you can get data about attendance levels, guest satisfaction, which topics garnered the most interest, and more. While you may get some feedback from in-person attendees about their thoughts and feelings about the events, it can’t beat the data that virtual platforms can offer.With virtual events, you can record all presentations to go over later and find places to improve.

Best of all, personalized data from attendees can help you follow up with qualified sales prospects.

05.

Get Better Speakers

If you’re trying to find superstar speakers for your conference or event, you know how difficult it can be to get A-listers on your line-up. But even major influencers in your field are likely to be more interested in speaking at virtual events rather than in-person ones.

Things like travel and time away from the office make in-person presenting undesirable to C- level execs and other speakers. With a virtual event, it’s easy for them to log on to the presentation from the comfort of their home or office. For the speaker, there’s a big difference between a 60 minute commitment for a virtual presentation and a 2 day trip to an in-person event.

06.

Easy to Evolve

As we all know after the COVID pandemic, circumstances can change quickly and drastically. If something major happens, it’s harder to pivot in-person events than virtual events. If a speaker gets sick, a venue has to close, or a massive pandemic sweeps the globe, it’s difficult to change plans for an in-person event.

You might have to cancel the entire event and lose non-refundable deposits!

But even if those things happen, you can still host your virtual event with just a few tweaks. Virtual events have a lot of flexibility, so you can rest easy knowing that everything won’t come crashing down due to an unforeseeable issue.

Plan Your Virtual Event Today!

Even if you’re all Zoomed out after 2020, virtual events don’t have to be a drag. As you can see from this list, there’s plenty of reasons everyone–from event professionals to speakers and attendees–loves virtual events. Need help planning your next virtual event?

Get in touch with our team to see just how much your organization can benefit from a well-planned and produced virtual event.

Call or email us today to request a Demo!

Out Of The Box Ideas To Promote Your Brand During A Live Event!

Hosting a virtual event can be a lot of fun, but to make the most out of this live opportunity you need to learn how to incorporate branding and smash marketing goals. Since you have your target audience’s full attention during a virtual event, every second counts. This is one of the most valuable resources you have to market your business and maximize brand awareness. While talking about your business is important, it can start to sound salesy and can sometimes put viewers off your brand. Instead, you need to get creative when it comes to promoting your brand. So, here are some out of the box ideas to make sure your brand pops during your next virtual event!

Here are 6 creative and interesting ways to promote your brand without giving your viewers an elevator pitch.

01.

Set The Scene With A Branded Background

Thanks to technology, you now have the opportunity to create a branded background for your live event. This visual reminder can include brand colors, a logo or a key marketing message. Setting the scene to your virtual event, a branded background will enhance brand visibility, and can also be pretty eye catching too. However this requires some thought! A branded background should be attractive but not too distracting. Avoid dark colors or busy patterns and opt for light and bright designs with clear branding or a short and snappy slogan. When looking at ways to brand your event, make sure you look into different platforms and their capabilities to be able to showcase your brand.

02.

Introduce An Influential Guest Speaker

Depending on the industry you’re in, a virtual event can be difficult to promote, especially if your subject is serious. To attract guests to sign up and attend your live event, secure an influential and exciting guest speaker, but hide their identity until the big day.

This will create a buzz about your event and encourage sign ups. During the live event, you can surprise your audience with the speaker and host a Q&A session. Allow the guest to share their thoughts, opinions and stories with your audience. By securing an exciting and influential guest speaker, you are showing your guests that your brand has power and influence in the industry and worth paying attention to.

03.

Maximize Social Media

Leverage social media to maximize brand awareness during a virtual event. Ask guests to head over to one of your social media accounts as part of a live competition.

Follow all guests from your brand’s social media account as a way of showing your appreciation for their time during the event. Run a social media Q&A via social media for your guest speaker. These techniques will help your guests to become more comfortable when engaging with your brand via social media and will help boost your followers too.

Certain platforms will also be able to display your social media sites live on their platform, which is a great way to keep your attendees engaged.

04.

Share you history to Promote Your Brand

We all love a good story every now and again, so consider sharing the story of your brand and business with your guests. By revealing unknown information and personal stories with your virtual event audience, they will start to feel closer to you and develop brand loyalty.

Consider starting with how far you’ve come as a brand and discuss the hurdles you have had to overcome. Ask if anyone can relate and start a discussion. Storytelling really is an art form, but when you master this craft and you can become seriously influential while hosting a live event. If you struggle to tell your story, take advantage of power-points, videos and pictures to help you paint a picture.

05 .

Send Guests Branded Goodies

A branded goodie bag is an exciting out of the box idea to promote your brand during a virtual event. Certain virtual event companies even have branding opportunities that can be paired with their management or platform services.

By gifting guests a physical treat, the overall experience becomes more enjoyable and engaging. Consider branded items that your guests can use or enjoy during the virtual event such as hot chocolate, coffee, tea bags, cookies and a branded mug. Or if you really want to impress during a live event, why not gift your guests a food delivery gift card so that you can host a ‘Have dinner with me’ style event.

Let’s be honest, guests who are digging into delicious snacks or a take out are going to be more engaged and happy to be there than those who are starting to get hungry.

06.

Make Things Competitive

Competitions and giveaways are a great way to boost engagement as well as brand awareness during a virtual event. If there is a chance to win something expensive or exciting, you’ll bet more people will sign up to your live event. When choosing the right competition for your branded event, make sure the prize ties in nicely with your brand.

Let’s say your a health and wellness company, consider a yoga retreat for two or mindful meditation class. If you are a private dentist, perhaps you could giveaway a teeth whitening kit or electric toothbrush.