The year 2020 has called for various businesses in the events sector to find opportunities to grow in different ways. Technology and digital tools play a vital role in reshaping the companies and their perspectives of considering virtual events as an excellent alternative.
With the shift in the event industry, several event planners realized that virtual is not a momentary fix, instead, it is an essential component and holds immense value in the forthcoming days – one that incorporates not just virtual but hybrid events too.
Today, it’s 2021, and we all have witnessed that adapting the virtual space at the right time led to hosting various successful events. Today virtual events can not just be hosted but can also be a lucrative and remarkable investment.
Considering this as the future of the events industry, let’s deep dive into the advantages of virtual events:
Increased Attendance
This is such an obvious and evident advantage of virtual events over in-person events. Hosting online events can include attendees from any part of the world. This amplifies the chances of brand awareness and obtaining qualified leads. This is a win-win situation for both the attendees and the organizers as they can preserve the expenses of traveling, accommodation, or meals.
Great Opportunity for Sponsors
With virtual events trying to replicate the experiences of physical events, they hold great opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors that can help them meet their requirements. With the incorporation of virtual booths and excellent interactive & engagement features, virtual events can be a great place to interact and build new connections. Exhibitors/Sponsors can not only connect with the attendees but also showcase & promote their offerings through various mediums.
Excellent Networking Opportunities
Networking is a notable feature of any event. It is considered one of the fundamental reasons why people attend any event. Networking acts a critical role in assuring event success. Virtual events allow excellent networking opportunities for attendees to connect and interact in real-time.
Virtual events include various networking opportunities that allow you to make new connections from any part of the world. Starting from 1:1/group discussions using video, audio, or chat functionality, virtual networking tables, B2B meeting scheduler, AI matchmaking, business card exchange feature, and a lot more.
Cost-Effective Process
Virtual events are a great way to save maximum resources like time, money, and energy. The cost needed for traveling, booking accommodation, renting a venue, food & drinks gets entirely eradicated with virtual events. For virtual events, you simply have to spend a nominal registration fee similar to physical events.
Event planners can utilize these savings to raise their budget for hiring a robust, competent virtual event platform. This will help you generate higher ROI and conduct more successful virtual events.
Saves a Lot of Time
Once the important task of determining the appropriate virtual event platform is over, it becomes apparent how these events can save an ample amount of time for the event organizers. Since everything occurs virtually, less time is needed for promotional objectives.
Registration and digital check-in can happen instantly, unlike physical check-in procedures. Hence it goes without saying, that the time allocated for traveling can also be eliminated. Instead, planners can simply focus on adding value to their events to recreate the experiences of physical events.
Lead Retrieval is More Manageable
Even if the organization is able to get in touch with several people – holding their records such as names, contact numbers, or emails in a systematic manner is a challenge. Besides, with virtual events, maintaining the attendee’s valuable data is quite simple. Hence, the number of profitable leads generated on an online platform can be increasingly more when compared to an on-site event.
Collecting Feedback is an Easier Task
There have been a lot of apprehensions about organizing a virtual event, especially for event planners, endeavoring to do it for the first time. However, these virtual events can serve as an important tool in designing a roadmap – since accumulating attendee feedback and judgments is very simple in such events.
Organizers can include live polls, surveys, rating systems, or send push notifications – to find out attendee choices for forthcoming events. With relevant feedback, it becomes very simple to plan the upcoming virtual events.
Meaningful Data Analytics
With physical or in-personal events, it’s pretty challenging to maintain track of the attendee’s every activity. Things are much easier when we talk about virtual events. Right from knowing the number of registrations, real-time attendee activity, the hotspots of virtual events, most liked sessions, to the most enjoyed games, every information can quickly be accessed. With more insights, it becomes a lot more manageable to assess the progress of an event.
More Learning Opportunities
The biggest possible hurdle for event planners when they organize a virtual event – the technical slant – is no more a problem. With the inception of the latest digital tools pandemic, virtual event platforms are incorporating cutting-edge, innovative, and user-friendly features.
Also, today each virtual platform is equipped with great customer and tech support that has the ability to troubleshoot any technical errors faced by the attendees. Virtual events might have been imposed upon us due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are clear – and valuable – benefits linked with virtual events.
Virtual events have endless and obvious benefits, but how should you use them to obtain fruitful results? The answer to this is very simple – understand your business requirements, choose the right virtual event platform, and strategize your efforts accordingly.
Use this opportunity to bestow knowledge, review the newest innovations, and connect with global delegates right from the comfort of your desired location. Hope the advantages mentioned above were beneficial and delivered a clear understanding of the benefits of virtual events.
