What makes a virtual event successful? Is it the platform used? The slideshow design? Or could it be an excellent sales pitch and close at the end?
Well, the answer to all of these questions depends largely upon what your event hopes to accomplish. Is it a paid, educational seminar? Is it a short presentation that’s part of your business’s sales funnel?
No matter what type of online event you are hosting or why here are the basics of hosting a successful virtual event:
Planning for Success
Having a clear goal from the start is the most important thing to consider when thinking about what makes a virtual event successful. Knowing what you hope to accomplish, i.e., a certain number of people moving to the next level of your sales funnel, or providing a certain price point’s worth of education. What do you want your attendees to walk away with after the event? What actions do you want them to take?
After your goal is clear, you can start planning the details, the real nitty-gritty. Here’s a checklist of the things that will need to be planned beforehand:
- The platform/ software you’ll be using.
- The date, time, and length of your event.
- The value that you’ll be giving your audience.
- The speakers who will be featured in your event.
- The pre-promotions (social media posts, email sequences, etc..)
- Your event agenda.
- The help and skills you will need to host a successful, professional virtual event.
Know Your Tech
To live stream or not to live stream… that is the question. Using the right platform is a HUGE part of hosting a successful virtual event. Is the event exclusive or paid? If so, you may want to utilize Zoom or another video meeting or webinar streaming platform. If your event is not exclusive and most of your audience hangs out on a social media platform such as LinkedIn or Facebook, using live streaming software such as StreamYard or BeLive may be the best choice.
Work with the tech that you choose and do a few test runs before the event to ensure that you can overcome any hiccups. As the size of your audience increases, so will the size of problems that can be caused by tech issues. Technical issues can really lower your level of professionalism in the eyes of attendees.
Have a plan in place to help attendees who are struggling with their tech/ struggling with getting into the event. You can include a short written guide or perhaps a video that outlines exactly how they can get into your event. Having an assistant on hand who can help attendees with this is also helpful.
The Audience’s Journey
What’s in it for your audience? Providing value and an excellent experience should be at the top of your list when planning a successful virtual event. Delivering excellence will help reinforce that your service, product, or education can and will help the attendees overcome their pain points.
Part of delivering excellence is ensuring that each participant feels important, especially in a B2B environment. Make your attendees feel welcome and take them on an inclusive journey- even before the event starts. This will also help fuel engagement. Set up activities and opportunities for your audience to engage, feel seen, and perhaps laugh a little.
Ask for Help
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You almost need eyes in the back of your head and two extra arms to run a virtual event successfully. This becomes especially true the larger your audience gets. You may need more and more hands on deck as your virtual event grows to help you deliver excellence and a professional event to your audience.
Hiring an assistant, or two, or five will help your bottom line by taking care of tech issues, customer services, and many other moving parts of an event. Here are some tasks to consider outsourcing so that you don’t have to feel the need to be in two or three places at once:
- Communication coordination with the event’s speakers and helping them with their needs.
- Creating/ updating promotional graphics and email sequences.
- Monitoring registrations and waitlists.
- Queuing presentation materials such as slides and videos.
- Keeping the event’s schedule on track.
- Technical problem-solving and assistance for event participants.
- Monitoring the content in the chat to ensure maximum peace, friendliness, and safety for all participants.
- Virtual event recording, including the uploading of said recording to your cloud.
- Post-event follow-up with speakers and event participants
I hope that these tips will help your next virtual event be successful, deliver excellence, and meet relevant KPIs for your sales funnel.
If you have a virtual event coming up in the near future and could use a helping hand on both the organization and moderation sides of managing your event, click here to learn about how our virtual event support services can help make your next virtual event successful.