The Covid-19 pandemic fueled the revolution of digital events over in-person conferences. The change was already in the air, but the pandemic spurred the new digital platform to new acceptance. As life returns to normal and you begin planning for the return of in-person events, digital events will play a role.
As an event strategist, you're always scrambling to find the right tools and bandage your tech to make it work for you. This isn't uncommon. In the fast-paced world of event strategy, you need some essential skills to keep up with the new digital event platforms and become a successful digital event strategist.
1. Diverse Communication
You already know that the way you speak to your boss is different from the way you talk with your coworkers. To be a successful digital event strategist, you need to master communicating with a diverse group of attendees. You need to be able to communicate with:
- Executives: The executives within your company will share their vision of the future and outcomes so that you can align the digital events to align with those goals.
- Event planners: You need to be able to effectively communicate with the event planner, who is concentrating on the details, to create the ideal digital event.
- Sponsors: Use communication to determine their goals and ways to entice them to sponsor your company's digital event.
- Attendees: You need to know how to communicate with potential attendees to pique their interest enough that they follow through from registration to attendance.
You can't talk to each group the same. Diverse communication skills help you master digital strategy.
2. Event Theme and Messaging Selection
These two essential decisions need to work hand-in-hand together. It's important that you provide a concise vision with the theme and messaging. While the messaging needs to be concise, it needs to resonate with the customer base you're trying to reach. The event theme and message must result in actual attendance to be effective.
After determining the event theme and potential audience, you'll craft messaging that makes it easy for your customers to understand the value of attending the event, drive them to register and actually attend it.
3. Agenda and Content Design
What can you do during the digital event to keep the audience engaged? The agenda and content can make your event a success or a failure, and you need to be a master at crafting engaging content and an agenda that does not leave the attendee feeling fatigued.
Amazing, high-energy digital events don't just happen. It takes a master who knows their audience to create the right balance to pump up the crowd and drive the desired results from a digital event. Organize the agenda and supporting content collaboratively to keep audience members engaged and drive them through the funnel, both during and after the event. The ability to create an engaging agenda and organize supporting content makes you an outstanding event strategist.
4. Speaker Research and Recruitment
Finding the right speakers requires researching possible candidates and the information that your customer base most wants to hear to stay engaged. You want to find a speaker who offers the right messaging while complementing your overall theme and/or content strategy.
To reach this goal, it's a good idea to find a thought leader in a specific industry and specialty and/or marquee speaker that appeals to your target audience. This speaker needs to drive your attendees to stay and listen to the information they offer because it offers real value to the reason they attended in the first place.
5. Attendee and Sponsor Acquisition
You'll need to work your diverse communication skills to identify and entice the ideal attendees and convince the ideal sponsors to help out with your digital event. When choosing the companies to approach for sponsorship, you need to look for businesses that add value to your digital event and attract the right attendees.
You want to market the event to the right sponsors. This helps you to acquire the customer base you most want to engage with both during and after the event. You need to find a sponsor that lifts the value of the entire digital event.
6. Measurement
How well did you do? Well, before you can determine that information, you need to develop the measurements that you're going to use to judge success.
You need to have a system in place that identifies the goals and key milestones that determine the success of your digital event as you start the planning and strategy path. When you don't have a measurement strategy in place, it's difficult to define key business outcomes and make necessary adjustments for future events.
Conclusion
As an event strategist, you can start to develop these essential skills to make your digital events even more successful in the future. At Impact Point Group, we're ready to help you plan or strategize your next digital event along with how it will complement your in-person event. Our team has already mastered these skills, and we're ready to put them to work for your next digital event. Contact us today!