What does a ‘good’ event look like in the virtual world?

Now that the ‘virtual event’ is here to stay for the foreseeable future and that a plethora of virtual events having been taking place since the pandemic, how can marketers assess what good looks like in the virtual world?

Notably: What are average benchmarks for attendance, platforms, formats, engagement etc.

The group noted that most had been experiencing a healthy pipeline of online events, largely webinars.

Across the board, as time went on there has been a high demand for webinars from the business so marketers felt their top challenge was in ensuring the content was fresh each time.

Another challenge was around format and innovation. Despite looking into the market for exciting functionalities, most online events have ended up being a basic zoom style events with audio and slides.

Clearly there is a need from marketers for something better and more innovative and current offerings aren’t quite hitting the mark. The group agreed that in addition to virtual events, other mediums such as webcasts and podcasts should be integrated and considered as part of the events strategy moving forward to help engage and generate interest.

The group agreed that the event content resonating in the market at the moment has to be centred around stories/case studies rather than a sales pitch and must be useful to attendees from a business point of view. In this difficult time, people want to know what others are doing and how to get ahead of the game.

Attendee retention and engagement was raised as a challenge for all. Particularly hard in competitive markets where there is a lot of competition and not a lot of differentiation in products/services it becomes hard to stand out. Advantages of virtual do mean that registrations with non-attendance can still be a win because you still get a net new lead to add to your database and to whom you can market post-event content.

Frequency was also raised as an issue with questions around what is best practice? Initially post Covid there was high demand for webinars and registrations were higher than ever, they then sharply decreased with fatigue. Brands are struggling to work out the best frequency. Good to have new logo customers registered to events and now the challenge is once customers register how to engage with them.

Event strategy can be seen as similar to building a content channel as various platforms allow marketers to store all event content and engage audiences as ‘subscribers’ to their event channel. This medium is powerful for engaging small groups right up to ‘broadcast’ style events and has endless possibilities for pushing audiences to ‘on-demand’ content post-event. Other formats such as podcasts can find a home here too.