In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies ramped up their virtual events to replace in-person conferences. However, now that the return of in-person events is on the horizon, continuing to drive attendance to those events is not as simple.
Aspects of digital events are still expected to generate leads, prospects, and revenue pipelines to help your business grow, and event strategists must be flexible enough to adjust strategies and plans when something is not working the way it was meant to work.
Forbes sums up the challenges that many event teams are facing when trying to drive virtual attendance, long after the novelty of digital-only has worn off:
"It's no longer enough to merely stage a virtual or hybrid event. People are no longer enamored by the novelty of it. Any event must deliver against an organization's business objectives and provide value to those attending."
This guide is designed to help you increase lead generation and discover ways to event design to increase future revenue.
Virtual Event Design and Demand Generation
The first step in any virtual event is to create demand for the information that's covered during it. There are essential elements to include in the virtual event to generate demand, including:
- Webinars
- Thought leadership sessions
- Digital keynotes
The key is to identify the information and industry leaders that most interest the prospective attendees to get them excited to attend the virtual event. These elements engage the customers and drive them to participate in the virtual event and activities within or outside of the conference while never needing to leave their offices.
A carefully crafted virtual event design can help a company gain net-new contacts and increase brand visibility. These events require a new spin on an old reliable activity, such as a webinar. According to Forbes, "Business leaders use this opportunity to generate new leads, understand their target audiences, and more."
Customers and potential customers benefit from new knowledge and ideas while the company benefits from their engagement. Choosing the right speakers and topics should drive the virtual event design to engage the highest number of potential participants.
3 Ways to Generate Leads to Your Virtual Event
For the success of a virtual event, the customer base must attend along with a pool of potential clients that result in new leads. Generating leads is one of the best ways to determine the success or failure of any event, whether it's in person or virtual. However, virtual events have changed the approach.
According to Forbes, "The entire idea of generating leads through discussion and direct approaches now needs to be reevaluated. Luckily, there are concrete ways to create leads through these virtual events and conferences as well."
New leads are one of the best ways to help a company grow and reach its potential, and any event needs to create a new group of leads. Here are three ways to get them:
Tease Content Strategically
Building excitement for an upcoming event is essential to generate new leads. One way to do this is by teasing potential attendees with the content available during the event. It's a good idea to provide them with just enough information about the content to make them want to learn more.
When marketing the virtual event, it's essential to strategically choose snippets of information about the content of the event to build a buzz around it. On the landing page for the virtual event, offer sneak-peak downloads of pre-crafted content to give potential attendees a taste of what's to come.
Teasing content can also drive paid traffic through certain keywords to the landing page for the virtual event. The more excitement generated ahead of an event directly correlates to the number of attendees and new leads generated.
Target Engaged Audiences
You know your customers and understand their goals, pain points, and interests. Target the existing customers that can help generate new leads and convert them to the company's goals and offerings. These converted customers will naturally bring new leads with them as they talk up the virtual event and its value.
The customers become event ambassadors in a way. Then, it's time to target the potential customers around them, such as coworkers and friends. These targeted customers and those around them — especially in the workplace — likely share the same goals and challenges that the virtual event is going to address.
Identifying a potential event ambassador can make it easier to tap into their network. As event ambassadors are identified, the lead generation can grow exponentially.
Create a Compelling Value Proposition
Existing customers and potential clients are busy with their own companies and need a reason to attend a virtual event. It's essential that the event provides them with something that they want and need, and it makes a difference for their own businesses.
There must be a compelling reason for them to sign up. It could be an industry leader that they want to hear more from about a specific topic or a webinar that covers a topic of interest. Some things to consider include:
- Training opportunities
- Celebrity engagement within the industry
- Sponsorship giveaways
When you know and understand your customer base and potential base, it's easy to provide them with a value proposition that drives them to attend a virtual event.
Virtual Event Design and Future Revenue Growth
The design of the virtual event should set up the company for future revenue growth. When a virtual event is crafted carefully, it generates demand and drives lead generation from that demand.
When the marketing department and sales team craft a well-designed follow-up contact cadence that engages the leads with a clear plan in mind, the leads can become customers for the business. This is the way that a virtual event generates future revenue growth. It should be the goal that drives every aspect of the event design and planning.
Conclusion
Virtual events are here to stay even though you might be planning some in-person conferences as well. You can easily drive your customers and potential client base to the virtual event with careful event design and strategy.
At Impact Point Group, we can help with event planning and strategy, so your company can realize future revenue growth. Contact us to learn more.