Tips on how to market your next virtual event for best results?

Lead generation is a crucial part of the event marketing strategy. The ever-increasing digital presence of event-goers has led to new avenues for generating leads. It has particularly helped In-person events as their marketing potential isn’t confined to the offline world anymore. Now the main question is- If the online marketing helps to promote your in-person events, why not try it with virtual events also?

In the current scenario, many events are going virtual to ensure social distancing amid the COVID-19 outbreak. In this article, we will cover various marketing hacks that you can follow for lead generation in virtual events.

Why you should market your virtual event?

Many event planners struggle to find that right platform that can boost the digital visibility of the event. It not only impacts their capacity to generate leads for the events but also limits the ROI on the event.

If you are looking for a platform which can give your virtual event a real boost, here are these 3 Ts that you must keep in mind-

For Targeted approach

Make sure the platform you are choosing has a very targeted approach for community-building. It’s important that the platform helps you attract professionals from the niche industries relevant to your event. You don’t need just impressions, you need attendees that can add significant value to your event. You need a good return on investment. You need a connection that you can retain over the editions. In short, you need a good business. And choosing the right event listing platform would help.

Trustworthy

Your platform must be trustworthy among event-goers. The more global presence it will have, the better it will be for your event. It will help you in scaling up the reach. Moreover, the location isn’t a constraint in the case of virtual events. Thus, going global with the help of a global event discovery platform is the next big thing that you can do to your virtual event.

Time-bound strategy

Time is a constraint for event planners. The success of your event depends on how quickly you reach out to the potential audience. This is again related to the overall reach of your platform.

Thus, it’s obvious that your marketing potential for the next virtual event will depend on the marketing agency/lead-gen partner that you choose.

These are the steps that you should follow to market your virtual event for best results-

Identify your needs- 

Even before you host your virtual event, you must identify your needs first. This includes defining your goals. These goals need to be very definite, measurable and time-bound. It’s a good practice to develop the desired persona of your target audience based on the geography, industry, taste, etc. Especially in the event industry where a single event can deal with a number of closely-related industries, this approach works as organizers don’t miss out other industries. Now that you are clear about your requirements, it will be easier for you to market your virtual event. You’ll also be able to convey all these requirements to your lead gen agency, which will make the campaign more effective.

Go for industry leaders- 

The event industry is a global industry spanning across borders. There are many events that are not able to attain the desired scalability simply because they don’t recognize their hidden potential. Event planners need the right exposure for their events. Moreover, this exposure needs to invite the desired set of attendees. List your virtual event at an event discovery platform where people from the like-minded community can reach out to it. It really helps if your listing platform is global in terms of reach. The biggest advantage of working with a firm of the global level is that you always have the chance of scaling up your event.

Assess the quality of visitors on the platform

There are many ways to do this. See the diversity of the events that are listed on the platform. You may also go through the profiles of various professionals that are active on the platform.

As you look for the leads for your virtual event, here’s the thumb rule- A large scale reach with less relevant leads won’t be of much use. You should also keep a track of the quality of leads that you are getting and whether it’s adding some real value to your event. Analyze whether the leads are of the right set of audiences (from relevant geography, industry, etc). If your lead gen partner is working with a different set of industries at a global level, it’s likely that they have a rich database. If it isn’t so, there’s a high chance that you lack in quality data for your marketing campaign.

To sum it up, for lead generation, these are the attributes you must look for in your partner agency/service provider-

• The extent of Global reach
• Relevance in the event industry
• Additional event solutions- e.g.- event app/website
• Quality of visitors on the platform