During the period of the coronavirus pandemic, more and more virtual events are available now. Resourceful event professionals are putting more effort into how they use live streams to increase their reach. The most important is that the budgets are not too big, since there are different inexpensive technologies and tools. There are multifarious ways to host an online event. Here are some suggestions to help you build your event.
Reason to host a virtual event
Promoting the company and building your brand, are the objectives for all events. Both types of events have their own advantages. For a virtual event, it allows attendees to break the geographical constraints and to have communication. It allows you to bring a wider audience, and it is easier to track what attendees are watching.
Before deciding to make your event virtual, consider how well your targeted objectives can be achieved virtually versus in-person, and what can be gained from it.
New ideas for virtual events
So how can you translate your in-person event experience into something valuable for people online? It’s all about using the format to give attendees what they want. There are different ways to host your virtual event, or turn your event virtual.
1. Virtual Career Fair
Virtual career fairs allow different organizations to have interviews. It also can list out all the job requirements and positions on a job board, which is more effective to collect resumes. It is also a great medium for recruiting employees because it provides a platform that neglects geographical boundaries. It promotes the possibility of getting a higher quality of human resources, by reaching more potential employees.
2. Virtual Product Launch
It is effective to promote a new product and sell it to a new market through a virtual product launch. It introduces your product to a global audience, resulting in an increase in prospective customers. Virtual product is more effective to promote with the help of interactive tools. Different elements can be added in audio/video chat or presentations.
3. Virtual Open Day
It is effective to reach more potential attendees or generate more leads. For example, with a virtual open day, universities can reach out to a global pool of prospective students. It also allows interactions between the organizations and the event attendees. Different documents can also be accessed to let more attendees collect information. For example, a virtual open day can let universities have a global pool of prospective students.
4. Virtual Exhibition Fair
It is effective to increase awareness of your brand to the intended audience. It also allows organizations to sell products during the event. Some features such as chat tools, webinars, and video vault can be used to keep the attendees engaged.
5. Virtual Trade Show
There are different types of virtual trade shows. For example, virtual fashion shows, virtual motor shows, and virtual food shows. It can be classified according to the industry. It is effective to capture leads effectively and showcase the products.
6. Virtual Education Fair
Education fair enables organizations to exhibit themselves in order to increase public awareness. It is an opportunity for an organization to showcase its culture and values. It enhances brand building and hence generates more value from it. Different elements such as chat tools and booths are commonly seen in education fairs.
7. Virtual Onboarding Fair
It is effective to have information sharing and employee training. It lowers the training costs for the organizations and decreases the time-to-productivity of new hires. It mostly helps in organizing employees at any location to access the event by logging in. Several documents can be accessed. Virtual onboarding fair is a solution for employees all around the world.
8. Virtual summit
Similar to the in-person conferences, virtual summits feature speakers from different fields, a variety of session topics, and product demos. The main goals of hosting a virtual summit include lead generation, brand building, and creating long-tail content. The benefit of hosting a virtual summit does not end once the event is completed, since you can make sessions, keynotes, and other highlights available on-demand for anyone to access online. Simply ask them to provide an email address and you can continue to generate leads.
9. Virtual conference series
A virtual conference series is a large-scale event that spans multiple days or even weeks. This allows attendees to pop in and out of the event whenever they wish. The host can also break up various events and content into more digestible formats. Attendees can sign up for either part of the virtual conference, or the whole series that you offer, giving you and the attendees a more flexible choice for a virtual event experience.
Apart from creating audience engagement and lead generation, hosting a virtual conference series generates valuable data from your attendees, which you can analyze and use to improve your product and services. Nevertheless, you can take content from the virtual conference and break them into chunks, so you can repurpose the content into other parts of your marketing strategy.
10. Virtual networking events
Virtual events don’t have to be all about learning and product demos. It can also be a great opportunity to expand your network and connect with like-minded people. Be it virtual happy hours, virtual lunch, or breakfast, virtual networking events aim to stay connected virtually and to bring people together by fostering a sense of community.
11. Hybrid events
Hybrid events combine the power of in-person events with the convenience of virtual events. With the best of both, hybrid events are more flexible and interactive. Attendees can choose to attend the event in person or engage in the event virtually. Similar to a virtual summit and virtual conference, hosting a hybrid event is a great opportunity to get brand exposure in the industry, as well as lead generation.
Become virtual
In times of uncertainty, when your attendees aren’t sure they can make it all, online events are a smart way to connect with your attendees and ensure human connection is not lost.
Frequently Asked Questions About Virtual Event Ideas
What to consider when organizing virtual events?
Some things to consider when you’re organizing virtual events include timezones of your target audience, engaging your audience throughout the event, the less dynamic nature of virtual events and the virtual events platform they are hosted on.
How to make a virtual event more engaging?
To make your virtual event more engaging and to promote participation among your audience, make use of engagement features like polls and chats. Besides this, you should also try to segment your virtual event so that it does not drag for too long. You can also schedule breaks in between so your audience can stretch and freshen up for the next segment.
When you host your virtual event on EventX’s platform, you’ll have access to community-building features that will help you to promote audience engagement. These features include live polls, chat, and Q&A, and are designed for seamless interaction during virtual events.
What are the advantages of holding virtual events?
Some of the biggest advantages of virtual events are the convenience, cost and extended reach.
Traditionally, events were held at physical locations and required attendees to travel in order to physically attend the event. Virtual events make it more convenient as it eliminates travelling and allows attendees to attend events from the comfort of their own homes.
Virtual events are also more cost-efficient as compared to traditional events as there is no need to spend on a physical event venue and refreshments.
Due to their online nature, virtual events are able to extend their reach beyond local geographical borders. As long as there is an internet connection, people from all over the world will be able to attend a virtual event.
Are virtual events important?
Virtual events have displayed their importance, especially in recent times when there are many uncertainties due to the developing pandemic situation. These events provide an alternative way to carry out essential activities which were traditionally conducted in person.
In the future, once the situation settles down, perhaps hybrid events will take centre stage after event organizers have had first-hand experience of the advantages of virtual events.