Capitalising on the 'New Norm'

Insight 1: The Pressure Points: Engaging targets & differentiating content angles

EI's Barometer shows the greatest pressures on participants are engaging audiences in the absence of F2F industry events, and developing unique content angles. In the absence of events content is more important than ever; with content saturation already rife prior to COVID, differentiating content is a need of the hour. Whilst marketers are circumventing the standstill in F2F industry events with proprietary webinars/events, the challenge in engaging customers to participate is far greater in the era of COVID.

Where are the greatest go-to-market pressures from your internal business stakeholders?

EI View: Whether this is because customers are focussed on their own business pressures and priorities right now, or whether there is a sense of webinar fatigue, it is clear that marketers have a superior challenge in ensuring engagement. It is more important than ever to make sure messaging is authentic and distinctive when there is an increase in virtual events. Not only are marketers having to build their virtual events strategy from scratch, but they have also had to adopt new technology at a fast pace in many cases to do so.

Insight 2: Virtual Event Quandaries: Technology Platform Selection, Networking and Generating Meaningful Leads

Whether it comes to operating proprietary events/webinars or leveraging third-party virtual offerings, it is clear that both come with their own challenges for marketers. 70% of EI's respondents agree that the greatest challenge to replacing F2F events with virtual offerings is selecting the ideal technology provider to host proprietary events. Unsurprisingly this has presented itself as the greatest challenge as a significant number of marketers have shifted priorities to hosting proprietary events in the short term. On the flip side, whilst there is now an emergence of third party virtual events, marketers are trying to navigate how to assess the benefits of participation and where this fits in their marketing mix. 58% of EI's respondents pinpoint networking and the inability to generate meaningful leads as the greatest challenge to replacing F2F events with virtual offerings.

Although virtual environments will never provide the same networking experience or qualified leads as physical events, there are elements to look out for in both third-party and proprietary events. Networking capability can range from more sophisticated video networking and breakout sessions to more simple messaging and chat room functionality. Online events can allow for a much deeper understanding of audience engagement, enabling marketers to personalise content and fully map the customer

customer journey through the event. The level of analysis varies massively between platforms, with certain providers building bespoke live dashboards and others producing post-event engagement reports. It is crucial to work closely with providers in order to ensure impact can be fully measured and to allow for longer-term audience engagement.

EI View: EI has recently conducted an audit of a handful of high-quality platform providers with a variety of functionality to give our clients a better understanding of what to look out for when hosting their own virtual event but to also give a perspective on how to vet third-party providers who are leveraging some of these platforms to host their events.

Ultimately, when considering sponsorship of third party events the devil lies in being able to align differing marketing objectives across brand awareness, thought leadership, and lead generation with event platform capability. Each provider has unique strengths in achieving these objectives and marketers should look to tailor their engagements to use the different features to meet their objectives through innovative networking formats, interactive elements/gamification, audience analytics and content hubs.