2020 marked the beginning of an unprecedented era. With social distancing and quarantine becoming the new normal, industries ended up scrapping their global conferences and meet-ups one after the other. However, as stressful and uncertain as these times are, we as a society always manage to find the best workarounds. While some companies postponed their events, others like Google and IBM simply went online – say hello to Virtual Events!
What are Virtual Events?
A virtual event is an organized digital meet-up where the attendees can attend the session from all corners of the globe. As the world is currently threatened by coronavirus, businesses are forced to operate remotely or shut down temporarily. However, some brands are strategically using this time to connect with their employees, target audience, partners, and customer base through virtual events. What started as a lesser-known technology, is now being leveraged by a large number of brands and organizations. Reasons for their ongoing popularity are two-fold – superb ROI and uncertainty of the future due to the COVID situation.
Virtual events can range from small interactive sessions to large-scale conferences and exhibitions with thousands of attendees. They can be hosted to launch new products into the market, for webinars, online classes, and workshops on various topics, conferences, and networking sessions with industry peers or have virtual exhibitions and trade fairs where prospective partners and buyers can virtually interact with your product.
At the core, both virtual events and physical events aim at creating an environment that fosters interactive networking sessions and engaging experiences for the end-users. And while each has its own sets of pros and cons, because of the current pandemic, physical events seem like a far-fetched dream for now.
Why Should You Host a Virtual Event?
To truly understand how virtual events can give that extra push to your business or brand, let’s evaluate why you should be hosting one.
1. Accessibility
Gone are the days of breaking your head over logistics. Your event can be streamed from any smart device with internet bandwidth. Virtual events are not bogged down by geographical distances and are easily accessible to anyone who wishes to be a part of it.
2. Wider Reach
With demographic challenges out the way, your event is likely to reach a wider set of audience through a virtual event. Hosting a virtual event fits perfectly if your target audience is on a global level. The wider the reach of your event, the higher the probability of conversion from ‘prospective’ to ‘confirmed’ clientele.
3. Unique User Experience
There is a novel charm associated with the virtual events, as the technology blows your mind away! Hosting a virtual event is going to create a unique user experience that will create a profound impact on their minds. For many, it might even be the first time attending such an event and hence the scope of ingenuity remains.
4. Cost-effective
Planning an on-ground event takes a lot of time, resources and efforts. Physical events usually cost a huge chunk of money for the venue, the set-up, and other details. Virtual events, on the other hand, are cost-effective as the user is experiencing a virtual arena. Thus, instead of hosting one event that burns a hole in your pocket, you can arrange for 3 similar virtual experiences at the same cost.
5. Cost Retention
During physical events, it is hard to gauge how much of the content discussed has been retained by the attendees. In virtual events, you can understand how much of the content has been consumed by the attendees through various tools such as quizzes, polls, and feedback sessions. We understand that there is an overwhelming amount of information handed out at each session during an event, which usually confuses the attendees. While during physical events there is no turning back, when you host a virtual event, attendees can download the content in PDF versions and can easily access them as and when required.
6. Detailed Feedback & Report
During on-ground events it is next to impossible to study the behavior of each attendee. But hosting a virtual event helps you gain insight about every attendee who has attended your event through behavioral patterns and studies on where he spent the maximum time, the people he has networked with, etc. You can calculate your ROI from the detailed feedback and report provided to you by the attendees.
Final Thoughts
Why let a pandemic be a bottleneck in hosting your next event! Instead, save on your expenses and reach out to your target audience, consumers, and employees virtually, and make them feel connected to your brand and products from anywhere.
