Forced move to a remote location forced businesses to increase their presence online and adapt marketing tools to the new conditions
Since we are not likely to see large offline events for a very long time, we decided to tell you why online events are useful for business and how to promote the company with their help.
What are online events?
This is a variety of conferences, webinars, online workshops, live broadcasts on information sites on the Internet and social networks, which gather a specific audience for a particular subject.
With the beginning of the pandemic coronavirus and move into isolation mode, many companies began to actively develop this niche in a variety of areas: business executives began to organize online meetings and webinars to share experiences in managing the business in crisis, marketers – to offer their services through useful events on social networks, SEO-promotion, useful services for business transfer to remote with minimal losses, and sometimes even the opposite.
Just like at offline events, the global goals at online events are twofold: to present the company to a wide range of people interested in your product and to find useful connections for future joint projects. Thus, only the form of interaction between people and companies changes, but the goals remain the same.
How do online events work?
Over the course of the quarantine, two forms of online events have developed, both of which are very popular with their organizers: live events on social networks, and large-scale conferences at Zoom with multiple speakers.
Live broadcasts on social networks
This format is popular with bloggers and businessmen who consider themselves experts in their fields or who want to respond quickly to events and discuss them with their audience.
It looks like this: a blogger launches a live broadcast on Instagram, YouTube, VK and goes out to communicate with his audience, giving a lecture on a previously stated topic and devoting time to respond to viewers’ messages in an online chat.
This format can kill two birds with one stone: you give people important, useful information, increasing audience loyalty, and you can also sell some of your company’s products, which will also be useful in relation to the topic you were communicating about today.
Note that each social network has its own specifics and peculiarities. For example, in Instagram you can go live with your guest, but the broadcasting time is limited to one hour, in VK – immediately to study the community on which the live broadcast is held, and in YouTube you can broadcast an entire TV show online, connect the donation services and integrate high-quality advertising – everything depends on your capabilities and the number of audience that will come to your event.
Online conferences at Zoom
In this blog, we wrote about how important Zoom’s video conferencing service was during the quarantine. Literally everyone began to use it for business and educational purposes, and it is not surprising – Zoom provides a wide range of opportunities for online interaction in business: it can be both corporate communication and using Zoom to connect with the audience at online events.
The Zoom video conference format allows for several speakers to participate and discuss the topic at the same time. The rest is up to your imagination. You can give a link to watch the event to literally an unlimited number of people and even include some of them in the discussion of the topic, not only in the broadcast chat, but also directly in the video conference.
How do you organize a large-scale online event and get new customers?
It’s not enough to just go live via one of the platforms you have at your disposal. Remember the two goals we outlined at the beginning of this article: new customers for the company and useful connections. So here’s how to get the most out of attending or organizing an online event:
The more announcements the better
You just have to make sure that your company’s participation in the event will not go unnoticed by your target audience, so you just need to take care of all the information sites and marketing channels in advance: social networks, mailings, SMS-alerts, targeted and contextual advertising – everything must go if you want to be truly heard. Also, don’t forget to reach out to your fellow event attendees ahead of time and arrange for reciprocal announcements and social media reposts.
Take care of the analytics
Just like at a regular offline conference, you should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of participation in an online event. To do this you need to create a separate tag for deals from this event in the company CRM-system, connect this tag to the end-to-end analytics system and monitor the number of requests to the company after the conference on this tag, and analyze how many of them will go to a successful sale. This way, you will know absolutely for sure if the cost of advertising and promoting your participation in this event has paid off.
Who are your experts?
When organizing a trade show, it is important to understand that you are consolidating several large communities of people under each of the speakers. Thus, it is necessary to carefully select the composition of your speakers, study their audience in terms of both quantitative and qualitative indicators, look at the expert’s media exposure and awareness of the declared topic of the speech, as well as their ability to present material in an interesting way. The cooler and more popular your speakers are, the more successful the event will be.
Pros and cons of online events for business
At last, let’s assess what opportunities have opened up to us with the development of online events, and which ones have disappeared, and we will wait for the return of offline events to take full advantage of them. Let’s start with the disadvantages.
The disadvantages of online events
- The lack of live communication. Live experience is still not enough, so the opportunity to communicate with people you are interested in – this is one of the most vivid impressions that can be obtained from participation in the event and we really miss it, because participation in off-line events – this impression and experience that will stay with you for a long time. Online conferences will erase much faster, and in the end, the knowledge and useful experience from it you will take out less.
- Lack of visibility of scale. amoCRM gathered literally stadiums of participants at their conferences. Even with a similar number of registrants for an online conference, you simply won’t see how cool the work of the conference organizers looks. It’s just more inspiring for people who have been to such an event to do new things in the profession, so scale is one of the most welcome phenomena to return to live venues.
- Lack of networking. It is the direct live online interaction between the participants of the event, during which close connections between people are formed. These are what drive the business forward, forcing everyone at the event to work as a team even after the event is over. In online chats such density of interaction is simply not possible yet, although this direction is actively developing.
Advantages of online events
- Independence from the location. You don’t need to gather participants only in your city, now your audience is the whole country, the whole world! You can look for your CA in a huge space, scale the event, and as a consequence, the business.
- Cost of the event. Rent a venue, take care of food and accommodation for the speakers, prepare stands and printed materials, hire a sound engineer and a stage lightener – this is only a tiny fraction of the cost of holding an offline event. An online event is a venue, marketing costs and, on rare occasions, the cost of inviting speakers. And all this with a potentially times larger audience! Truly new opportunities!
- The ease of attracting participants. In order to come to your event offline, a person needs to come to a certain place at a certain time and spend all day there. In order to come to your event online, a person just needs to follow the link and pour themselves a coffee. This little fact tells you how easy it is to attract an audience to an online event, but remember: It’s proportionately harder to retain them.
The most popular types of events in different industries
Each industry has its own favorite types of events – those that best fit the goals of companies and the characteristics of the target audience. Even events of the same type can differ markedly depending on the industry to which the company-organizer belongs. For example, the conference of an IT-company working in the B2B segment – not the same as the conference of a retailer.
The Harvard Business Review once again confirms this. The researchers surveyed 739 international companies about the types of events they have hosted or sponsored recently.
Below are responses from:
- Financial institutions;
- IT companies;
- Retailers;
- Medical companies;
- Industrialists;
- Telecom-operators;
- Enterprises in the sphere of services for business.
Participation of Canadian online casino projects in industry events and conferences
The online casino industry is a booming business, and its annual conference is a highly anticipated event. This year’s conference will be held in Vancouver, and a number of Canadian online casino sites are expected to participate. Best Online Casino Sites is one of the leading Canadian sites, and it is known for its high-quality games and excellent customer service. The site will be showcasing its latest offerings at the conference, and it is sure to be a big hit with attendees. Best Online Casino Sites is just one of the many Canadian online casino sites that will be participating in this year’s conference, and it is sure to be an event to remember.
Financial services: workshops and educational seminars
Financial organizations – banks, investment, insurance, leasing companies, etc. – The main focus is on educational events.
According to the study, most often they hold one-day training seminars or workshops. Financial services – a complex product, which can not touch with the hands or take for a test drive. In addition, an important component of success in the market for such companies is a high level of trust and recognition of its expertise.
Demonstrating and teaching is an effective way to promote complex services and at the same time build a reputation as an expert in the financial industry.
On the other hand, most of the sponsorship event marketing budget of these companies is spent on entertainment events and charity events, without neglecting industry congresses.
IT: big educational events and VIP-meetings
Most educational events are held by technology companies engaged in software development, IT consulting and Internet services. In the arsenal of event-marketers of IT-companies leading places are one-day conferences, events for dealers and partners, as well as workshops and training on the product.
Complex products require training, and in addition, at such events, current and future users communicate, share experiences and form a loyal brand community.
This principle, for example, is applied to the annual conference Cisco Connect, for which the organizers make a mobile application on the platform of Eventishas.
In addition, VIP breakfasts, lunches and dinners are popular with technology companies, where companies can talk behind the scenes with their biggest customers.
As for sponsored events, industry exhibitions and congresses are leading with a large margin. For companies operating primarily in the B2B segment, trade shows help introduce the product to as many consumers and industry professionals as possible.
Retail: Presentations and promotions at the point of sale
In their event strategy, retailers place the main emphasis on activities directly at the point of sale. Their main goal is to attract more customers to the outlets.
In order to increase brand awareness, retailers also sponsor various events, the most popular of which are mass entertainment events and press and blogger hangouts.
Healthcare: lectures, conferences and philanthropy
The health care sector includes a wide variety of products and services related to all phases of treatment and care, from hospitals, to health insurance companies, to drug manufacturers. For companies in this industry, the most frequent events are lectures and conferences for physicians.
This is to be expected: the healthcare industry is in constant development, and companies organize educational events to share the latest achievements and ideas or the results of medical research.
An example of such a conference is the congress “Southern Constellation. Union of Beauty and Health”, which is organized by YuSystem Group for cosmetologists.
Companies in the healthcare sector also actively sponsor events of this type, acting as partners at major medical conferences and congresses, but the most popular sponsored events for them, according to HBR, are charity events.
Manufacturing: product training and educational events
The manufacturing sector includes all companies (both consumer and manufacturing) that are involved in one way or another in the production and processing of everyday goods: textiles, cars, food.
Manufacturing companies invest most in the organization of events related to the promotion of specific products, but focus not on end users, but on partners (dealers, retailers). First of all, these are training sessions on products and presentations of new products. Also popular are one-day product conferences.
The emphasis on product-related events remains in the selection of sponsored events. Not surprisingly, the most popular type of such events are trade shows, which allow you to showcase your products to new potential partners.
Telecom: presentations, road shows, and entertainment events
Telecom-companies mean mobile operators, pay-TV operators and Internet providers. These companies prefer events designed to stimulate demand and promote services to consumers. New product launches, one-day educational seminars, and road shows help educate potential customers about new products.
The most popular sponsored events are industry trade shows/congresses, multi-day conferences and entertainment events.
Professional & Business Services: VIP Dinners & Educational Events
The professional and business services sector includes companies that provide services to other organizations (advertising and PR, consulting, staff training), as well as to members of certain professions, such as architects and interior designers.
The most popular types of events held in this industry are conferences, workshops and VIP breakfasts/lunches/dinners. Large educational events also play an important role for these companies, as they allow them to connect with an extensive client base.
In terms of sponsorship activities, companies in this sector prefer to sponsor events where they can present their brand to as many people as possible: trade shows and congresses as well as one-day conferences and seminars.
Concluding review article b conferences
As you can see, an interesting and challenging period in life has brought us many new things. This “new” we actively used in the transition to “online” mode at various events, preserving the best of the live meetings at offline conferences, forums, exhibitions, seminars. We began to communicate more remotely, more actively interact with people and companies from other cities and countries, began to spend less on participation in the events and their organization, but also lost a lot.
When the restrictions will be removed, we will return to the good old offline, but we will be much more effective, because online events have opened up new horizons, which must be explored.
