Events, conferences, trade shows, and exhibitions have been used by businesses for centuries to market and sell their products and services. Virtual business events are the digital transformation of these in-person conferences and events.
Budding globalization coupled with the stumbling block created by the pandemic forced businesses to make a shift to the virtual platform, making the internet a strategic resource.
The key benefit of online events is boundless reach, cost efficiency, and the ease with which performance can be tracked. Imagine you not having to incur expenses relating to travel, hotel accommodation, food, clothes, etc., plus the added benefits of the data analytics feature, something that in-person events cannot cater to.
In fact, your dashboard might also show the report of your engagement rate; the views, impressions, etc.
In the case of a virtual event, you can find pre-recorded or real-time content available in various formats. Here, mentioning hybrid events is important, which have both an online and a physical venue.
So, here are a few ways you can engage in virtual events in your efforts to improve your digital marketing efforts.
1. Conduct an Online Event
Organize your virtual event and engage your customer base, stakeholders, prospects, etc, with these ideas.
- Educative Webinars
- Art and craft, cooking, dance, foreign language, etc., workshops
- Games and fun contests that ignite the participation of the audience and keeps them excited
- Outsource Entertainment: Ask solo singers, bands, standup comedians, etc., to perform in the virtual events. It will act as an ice breaker, initiate interactions and allow people to network better.
- Set up a social wall in your virtual event to attract the attention of the audience and keep them hooked to what’s been displayed on the screen
- Live streaming of videos from platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
2. Participate in These Events
Virtual events provide massive opportunities to network with people, build a follower base, generate greater leads, and conversions.
As a visitor, you can avail everything at your fingertips. You can connect to people across the globe, attend as many sessions as you want, and enhance your wisdom depending upon your proactivity.
As a speaker, you can be invited to multiple places to share your knowledge with the audiences at large and get a chance to stand out by showcasing your capabilities of engaging with the audience.
As a sponsor, it is a good way to promote your brand across the globe without spending humongous amounts of money. Content highlighting your business can appear multiple times on the screens during a virtual event, which can inspire the audience to check your business out.
A Few Strategies that You Can Include to Enhance Your Digital Marketing with Virtual Events
1. Create Content & Post It across Your Marketing Touchpoints
Create content around your virtual event and publish it across social media channels to create a buzz around your virtual event and enhance your marketing efforts.
It will help more people know about your business, thus, improving your brand’s awareness and reach amongst people, thus amping up your digital marketing performance and delivering the best for your virtual event too.
2. Enhance Your Email Marketing Efforts
Your email marketing efforts can be eased out and how! Virtual events facilitate organizers to collect data of the attendees and the registrants. This data can be further utilized in Email marketing campaigns.
Mails can be sent to people about the launch of a new product, upcoming event schedule, bestseller promotion, and product cross-sales.
3. Request Sponsors and Partners to Spread a Word
This is typically the best way to promote your virtual event and also boost your marketing efforts. If your sponsors, partners, and attendees spread the word about your event, it will help more people know about your business and virtual event.
Moreover, the sponsors and speakers speaking about you will also create credibility in the minds of prospects and will engage them with your business. This will enable you to gain more followers and ease out your digital marketing strategic efforts.
4. Leverage Social Media across Platforms
There are different ways in which you can promote your virtual event using social media.
Post about the happening of the virtual event on social media channels and keep track of your RSVPs.
- LinkedIn is a great platform to promote your event with the option of Ads, groups, pushing through the company page, etc.
- Create a hashtag for your event on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and let people spread the word through visual content.
- Head into your online forums and announce your virtual event and send invitations for people to join in.
Over to You
Virtual events are a great way to enhance your digital marketing. While promoting your virtual event you also effortlessly promote your business. Now that you know some amazing ways of conducting a virtual event, go ahead and make some strategic plan to do it.
