Budgets are always in flux, but in times of financial stress, we often see companies cut down on budgets related to physical events. Be it a shorter agenda, fewer in-demand speakers or fewer staff, cutting budgets often means cutting corners. However, with lower budgets increasingly becoming the norm, our clients are looking for ways to save money and still deliver on their marketing goals. Cue: virtual events. These are nothing new. Take Second Life for example. Microsoft and other companies used this medium for candidate interviews a couple years back and it’s still a thriving community of skill-sharing, promotions and imagination.
A couple of weeks ago, the webcasting and virtual event folks at ON24 released the results of research conducted with MarketingProfs about these virtual events and the attendee experiences. The results, published in the report, “’The Practicalities of Virtual Events,’ [look] into the current state of virtual events from both producer and attendee perspectives and [illustrate] how virtual events are currently being used, funded and measured – as well as where they excel and fall short, and how they are evolving.”
The data found that, rather than full-scale virtual events, successful events offered a two-pronged approach: live learning and engaging experiences with a complementary virtual agenda. Whether the event is all or partially virtual, the team found four key benefits:
- Attracting larger and more varied audiences. The challenge with live event attendance sits primarily with two elements: timing conflicts and cost. Virtual events allow attendees to follow along in real-time or tune in via playback at a later date or time, and without the cost of air travel or hotel. Tuning in from the comfort of your office or living room is much more cost effective.
- Attracting bigger keynote speakers. No longer do you have to schedule your keynote times around your speaker’s schedule. Virtual keynotes or presentations give your speakers the ability to record presentations any time before the event, preventing them from having to interrupt other engagements or travel to show locations.
- Offering broader content and more niche content. Couldn’t create a specific track of meetings because you didn’t have the space to host them? That won’t apply with virtual events – there is really no limit to the amount of content that can be offered. Without onsite costs, too, there is greater ability to offer not only a greater quantity of sessions, but more diversity in topics.
- Monitoring attendee engagement: It’s a little bit more scientific then counting passes at the entry. Virtual events provide the ability to track audience attendance for specific sessions, assess how many presentations are downloaded, and have all of this available immediately for quick analysis.
Our clients have offered streaming keynotes, downloadable session content and more for a while. And according to the study results, this blended approach is key: more than three-fourths of survey respondents noted that they will still attend live conferences and shows as planned. It’s simply an extra benefit to experience the event during the day and then tune in to re-watch the keynote or download the press release from the comfort of an onsite hotel room.
Read more here.
