How can we measure and enhance lead generation at virtual events?

Many companies that have relied on events to fill the pipeline are now getting twitchy as virtual offerings haven’t yet been able to deliver the same volume of real networking or therefore lead generation.

All attendees agreed that smaller events were key to enhance the networking piece and that quick and useful content as well as follow up from the business is key. Breakout sessions where delegates can breakout to work in teams and then deliver back to the group were noted as working well for networking, of course, this is dependent on the event platform functionality.

Offering different formats to capture leads was also important in boosting lead generation – there are leads from live webinars but also consider how to engage contacts from simmu-live and on-demand. Each scenario will need a different follow-up strategy. The group remarked on the change in events being like society’s need for content on-demand, as the boundaries grey and blur a little between home and work then some consumer behaviours will permeate the workplace.

Most marketers use 3rd party events to drive networking and lead generation to access a new audience so in the virtual world it’s important to ask those suppliers the right questions.

There has been a lot of change over the past few months resulting in new delegate behavioural patterns and experimentation with event formats.

3rd party providers are now settling on their virtual event strategies and should be able to answer questions on dwell time, bounce rate, on-demand rates etc although the group agreed that so far 3rd parties hadn’t been very confident in their answers to these questions.

Another way to capture lead generation is to engage delegates during the event, using polls and Q&A effectively can be a great way to engage delegates and provide leads back to the business for follow up.

An unofficial benchmark is how many questions come through, there have been events where the panel can’t keep up with the number of questions and this is a great sign.

The group agreed that in a virtual environment, the speaker is more crucial than ever and those that are more engaging and dynamic and can create better interaction.

Not all speakers can translate from a stage into the virtual format