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Here's a list of common mistakes that organisers should avoid while creating a virtual event. Eschewing these could keep your engagement and attendance up and have your customers coming back for more.
Early in 2020, the global pandemic imposed many great disruptions on our everyday lives. However, the world quickly adapted. We learned on the fly. The world of events specifically, saw widespread cancellations due to COVID-19. Event organisers began innovating, adopting new technologies, and moving to a new virtual normal. The simple webinar quickly evolved into full-fledged virtual experiences. But that evolution meant there was going to be a lot of trial and error. And with each passing event, we learned how to host a better experience.
Today, the world has seen the benefits of virtual events. No matter what size or kind of organisation you are, hosting an engaging virtual event experience is now a necessary skill.
So we have compiled a list of 5 common mistakes that organizers should avoid in virtual event planning. Eschewing these could keep your engagement and attendance up, and have your customers coming back for more.
At the heart of any great event is a great design. No matter what domain you are in, designing a great agenda requires engaging content. To make matters more challenging, virtual events require you to work harder to retain your audience's attention. As your attendees are in a digital space, you can safely assume that your audience may easily be distracted - online shopping, Netflix and social media channels are only a tab away. To go back to online shopping, Over 60% of U.S. adults today consider mobile shopping a necessity.
Therefore, the content you plan for your event is paramount. It is essential to move your content beyond just presentations and into a more interactive setting - the usage of a fantastic Welcome Experience for your event or interactive virtual booths equipped with live booth staff, for instance, are unique and novel ways to keep your audience intrigued.
Planning the ideal length of each piece of content is also essential. Too long and you may find people getting screen fatigue or losing interest in your online event. Too short and you run the risk of your audience undervaluing your event.
Find the right balance with a good amount of breaks in between to avoid virtual event fatigue. For instance, simple popups to remind your attendees to stretch their legs or grab a cup of coffee during your online event gives them time to clear their minds, refresh, re-energise, reset their focus and in this way, you can drive better attendee engagement once they return.
For any live event to stay engaging, you need an experienced set of Speakers, as well as a facilitator or a moderator to keep your panel sessions and group discussions running smoothly. However, virtual events operate under different rules for speakers to keep their audience engaged.
Now, you need to make sure your speakers, facilitators, and moderators are comfortable and adept in hosting virtual sessions. Plan ahead with them about the tools that are available that they could use to make their talks interactive - such as Chat, Polls, Q&A and more.
Give your speakers the opportunity to do a Dry Run before your event so they are more comfortable with your event setup. And before sessions start, let your speakers relax and rehearse ahead of time at a private greenroom.
No matter what size your virtual event is, rehearsals are key to a successful and seamless experience for your audience. Even if your event is small, it is never a bad idea to do a run-through so that you can ensure that all areas of your virtual event are easily accessible, or all touchpoints for branding are visible front-and-center, for example.
Some virtual event platforms offer team onboarding with CSM as well as dedicated account managers to help run the event. Take advantage of both.
Receiving assistance with setting up the event as well as having a professional on hand to respond directly to your every need, will make you feel better prepared for your event, and provide you with a previously unknown peace-of-mind.
One of the most overlooked aspects of virtual events is networking - but many organizers fail to ensure that attendees at their event are able to expand their social or professional networks of like-minded people. It’s simply not enough to assume that attendees at a virtual event will be able to connect with each other via a Chat.
Organizers should - and can - do a lot more.
After assessing the size of your audience, organisers can create virtual spaces in their event where attendees can interact with each other. This could be creating a virtual lobby before the event starts where attendees can socialize, or using breakout rooms for interest-specific discussions, or even creating activities or games in smaller spaces to help attendees break the ice.
It’s even better if organizers choose virtual event platforms that accommodate AI-powered 1:1 smart networking. Not only does this take away the stress of attendees having to make the first move, but it also increases the chance that attendees will be matched with the right people. Win-win.
It goes without saying that technology plays a vital role in virtual events, but choosing the right virtual event platform really does make the difference between a good event and a great one.
Some platforms simply may not offer the configurability you need to create an event that truly looks and feels true to your brand. We all know that the devil is in the details, so imagine wanting to play a product video in the lobby, or offering useful media downloads to attendees at a booth, or even setting up a helpdesk - and then learning that you are unable to do so because the virtual event platform does not have the features or tools to let you do so.
Choosing the right technology, or partner platform, for your event will make or break it.
Organizers must realise that a virtual event planning is a completely new ball game. While the fundamentals remain the same, you need to approach each virtual event with a new set of eyes; consumer behaviour, as has been evidenced by the pandemic, is constantly shifting and adapting - so picking a virtual event platform that meets and leverages new behaviours is critical.
Concurrently, planning a virtual event also requires a new awareness of the fresh opportunities a digital platform can provide. With Zuddl, we've built you an all-in-one virtual event platform that provides real-time engagement with a seamless experience. Built by event organisers for event organisers, we help you create, engage, and manage your event is the best possible way you can. Book a free Zuddl demo today, and walk through the creation of a virtual event, from start to finish.
Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding.
The virtual world is our new normal. So, the question is not really one of in-person vs. virtual reality. Going forward it is not ‘one or’ but ‘both and’. Here's why.
The virtual world is our new normal. It’s now a pervasive and inextricable part of our daily lives, driving new ways of interacting, transcending the physical limitations set by space, time, and even a novel coronavirus. About 60% of the world’s population now uses the internet and in 2021, an estimated 3.71 trillion hours will be spent on social media alone. So, the question is not really one of in-person vs. virtual reality. Going forward it is not ‘one or’ but ‘both and’.
As a species we’ve “covered a decade in days,” says a McKinsey report in describing the “adoption of digital” during the pandemic. Case in point: Disney Plus being able to achieve in just 2 months what it took Netflix 7 years. From remote learning and telecommuting to online deliveries and telemedicine, the pandemic accelerated a whole spectrum of consumer behaviours.
Today, virtual tech is key to interacting with the modern-day consumer, and virtual events follow suit.
Grand View Research, a market research and consulting company, recently forecasted that the virtual events market size would expand to be worth $404.45 billion by 2027. Moreover, marketers and event planners cite that virtual events can be easier to scale, house a global audience, generate insightful data, take less time to plan, and are easier on attendee schedules. Given these real benefits, here are important factors driving events onto the virtual stage
The most important factors for the future of virtual events are as follows:
Modern user habits have changed drastically. A study by DataReportal cites that about 40% of the typical global user’s waking life is spent with connected tech. That’s an incredible average of 6.5 hours online each day spent checking email, frequenting social media, taking pictures, reading the news, shopping, and banking.
The reality that the virtual world can be an extension of one’s life, coupled with the fact that virtual events are meaningful social experiences, opens up new possibilities for the events industry. (When Microsoft E+D India held their first virtual offsite for instance, the company found that by virtue of the event being virtual, all previous success metrics were thrown out the window).
Piggybacking on habits formed during lockdown, Microsoft employees spent more time attending panel sessions and visiting their colleagues’ Expo booths than before. And attendees near-doubled the number of connections they made via AI-powered smart networking! By going online, we find ourselves connected to an intricately-knit global digital village.
Virtual events can leverage the fact that digital brings people together at the same time, to foster connections and build relationships in a manner that feel intuitive for digital natives.
In-person events have physical confines, virtual events don’t. Geography isn’t a barrier, travel restrictions aren’t a worry, and space isn’t a limiting factor. You can have attendees join in from around the globe. EventMB indicates that 34% of planners consider an uptick in attendance to be the most positive benefit of shifting to virtual.
Let’s distill the benefits of virtual events:
- Travel restrictions and lockdowns aren’t a hindrance to the event
- Busy attendees can fit the event into their schedules easily
- Renowned speakers from around the world can address your attendees
- More people can attend on account of no physical limitations
- The overheads of the event can be significantly reduced
- Users can show up from home, office, a train, a car—anywhere!
- The event can be up and running in no time at all
A lot of people have a soft corner for online communication, as opposed to in-person meetings. And some of this boils down to the fact that much of online communication is non- verbal and hence, demands less cognitive and emotional effort.
For users who are prone to introversion, for instance, the ease of typing into a chat box, with emojis, as opposed to talking face to face, worrying about one’s demeanour and how to articulate one’s thoughts, can be relieving.
And virtual event platforms like Zuddl help you go further, with options for live sessions, 1:1 networking, break- out rooms, polls, and gamification. You can then have different degrees of verbal interaction and varied modes of engaging your audience. With technology giving you the nuts and bolts for your event, you can build it up to be a workshop, conference, career fair, trade show, expo - or even a hybrid event.
In fact, there’s no doubt that the use of tech to finesse hybrid event strategies is going to be a game-changer for organisers. Using insights captured from audiences at virtual events, organizers can use that information to build excitement, refine their content, and drive better ROI for their live events.
The decisions your users make follow the changes in their habits, and with digital adoption consumer habits are continuously being reshaped. Consider for instance, how throughout the day, most people today use two or more devices at the same time to consume content, actively and passively taking in information based on the context in which it is used. Identifying such factors is easier than ever in a virtual event. For instance, you can keep tabs on webinars attended, best times for engagement, PDFs downloaded, booths visited, chat box interaction, quizzes taken, and so much more.
In a physical event it can be tough to even get your audience to fill out an opinion form. Zuddl allows organizers to observe the micro moments of a customer’s journey, throughout the event, whether it be watching product demos, interactions with virtual booth owners, or time spent in the lobby. Better data & insights analytics makes for improved customization and more efficient use of your resources and budget.
In-person events demand an insane level of logistical work: sourcing venues, planning floor layouts, hiring equipment, putting up an event flyer, the final set-up, and the like. All of this can sap your team’s energy and detract attention from the brand itself.
Virtual events, conversely, are no-frills versions that are easy to plan and execute. That way you have more time and energy to strategically position your brand.
There’s another advantage to virtual events and it’s characterized by the proverbial saying, “out of sight, out of mind.” This proverb implies that your audience is likely to forget things that are no longer visible.
With virtual events you can have your branding throughout the user journey – from login, to the welcome lobby, to virtual rooms, and networking areas. The same holds for sponsored banners that your partners can have in such a way that they are just a click away from your audience.
The pandemic has made clear that virtual events are clearly very effective, if not more effective, than their physical counterparts, given they help you reach a wider audience, engage audiences intuitively, collect insightful data, and market your brand more strategically. But it takes the correct virtual events platform partner to make the difference between an average event and a fantastic one. If this intrigues you, take a Zuddl demo today to explore how you too can host a virtual event that is immersive, visceral and impactful.
Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. The platform has clients across the globe, such as the United Nations, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, HSBC, VMware, Google, StackCommerce and Cipla amongst others. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding
Cover image credit: Challenge
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