A visionary in his ideas, Paras Lohani is the Founder and CEO of B2B S As an entrepreneur, he believes that any business is like a Chinese Bamboo, that requires continuous nurturing with patience to reap the benefits. He has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and innovation, he is constantly challenging himself and his team to do better, bring the change in the current industry trends, inspire others to bring advancements that sweep the business world and take humanity forward.
In the pre-pandemic times, on-ground events enjoyed a prominent position. Enters the coronavirus into the picture and the event industry has to face various disruptions. The impact is so severe that the sector had to hit the pause button on the physical events due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and social distancing norms. Consequently, virtual events came at the forefront. According to the AnyRoad report where 100 global companies were surveyed, 51% of respondents shared that virtual events were relatively new experience for them in the year 2020.
The present scenario is that online events which were once an option have emerged to be the dire need of the hour! The pandemic coupled with the digital revolution of the event industry enabled businesses to leverage the power of virtual events and tap the global audiences.
Virtual events: An integral element for brands to have global reach
Foster connections with the global audience
Digital events enable brands to tap the masses. Leveraging the power of these events, companies can surpass all geographical barriers, time constraints, as well as logistical challenges and tap audiences at the global level. The virtual event aggregators and platform providers play a major role in helping businesses expanding their audience base and ensuring inclusivity while enabling successful implementation of virtual events.
The on-demand resource enabling curating customized content
Online events help extend high-quality and relevant event experiences with their potential of tailoring content to cater to the diverse demands of the audiences at the global level. They also help target a particular section of the audience that is distributed globally. The potential of the virtual events can be harnessed as on-demand resources wherein a variety of content formats, be it textual, quirky graphics, videos, podcasts, live streaming, etc. can be used to attract the attendee attention and to keep them engaged as well as to retarget global audiences.
Association with quality speakers and industry leaders
The quality of any event majorly relies on the quality of thought leaders, domain experts, and keynote speakers that it manages to associate with. Online events have a wider scope for businesses to collaborate with high-end speakers and industry leaders at comparatively much reduced costs when compared to on-ground events. They enable brands to have access to renowned speakers which further helps in capturing audience attendance and engagement at significant levels across the globe. This was pointed out by Markletic in its report which states that the second largest allocation of the budget by brands while planning virtual events is for associating with speakers.
High-end experience creation
The success of a virtual event depends on the crucial aspects of audience engagement and the overall experience that they offer. Markeletic’s report highlights this trend and states that 49% of marketers are of the view that audience engagement is the major factor contributing to the success of a virtual event. Hence, businesses focus on implementing the right combination of the event agenda, keynote speakers, a customized tech framework, and interactive gamification techniques, along with the involvement of international celebrity guests with the sole aim of meeting the preferences of the global audiences. Markeletic’s report also points out that 59% of marketers incorporate gamification strategies to improve audience engagement in online events. Digital events are thus helpful in delivering a deeply engaging, interactive, customized and high-end event experience to the global audiences.
Adding to it, celebrity presence certainly adds the much-needed X-factor to your event. It helps add the glitz and glamour to the event and upscales the overall audience experience when renowned international celebrities including standup comedians, performers, artists, etc., virtually engage with your global audience. This strategy also helps enhance the quality of your virtual events which further leads to successful targeting and retargeting of the global audience base.
Global Sponsorships, Alliances, and Partnership Opportunities
Since the potential of the audience is limitless in the case of virtual events and they offer greater reach, virtual events offer platforms to form strategic alliances to sponsor the events. This further plays a major role in making the events impactful and successful. The brands thus receive greater interest from sponsors at the global level due to the vast reach of online events. Offering the opportunities of virtual sponsorships and extensive networking, businesses can expect optimal event participation and partnership opportunities from virtual events. According to Markeletic’s research, a whopping 91 percentage of event organizers allow sessions to be sponsored to generate extra sponsorship value from the virtual events.
Summing Up!
Given the prominence virtual events have gained over the period of time, they are here to stay due to the abundance of opportunities that they offer.
Virtual events help curate customized content meeting the expectations of the international audience as well as focus on delivering them new-age tech-enabled event experiences. They offer opportunities to associate with sponsors across the globe and ensure that the attendees are engaged via their high quality content, event engagement as well as the presence of recognized keynote speakers and celebs. Offering all of these benefits, virtual events enable brands to successfully reach out and engage with the masses at the global level.