I’ve always been a big fan of hosting virtual events. For one thing, they’re much less work than traditional conferences—there’s no need to book a venue or buy meals for all your attendees, after all. 

But more importantly, I’ve found that in many cases, virtual events can actually be more effective at engaging participants and driving results than their physical counterparts. And yet despite this added benefit and the many advantages it offers over traditional conferences, many people still aren’t hosting them (or doing so poorly). 

So today we’re going to take a look at why you should consider using remote meetings as part of your next event strategy—and also share some tips on how to make sure yours is as successful as possible!

Goals & Structure

The first step to creating a virtual event experience is to determine your goals and structure.

• What are your goals for the event?
• What is the structure of the event?
• How will you communicate with attendees?

Beyond these basic questions, think about what it is you are hoping to achieve by hosting a virtual event. Do you want to build a community or share information/resources with others? These answers will help shape how you set up your online experience and where participants come from.

Platform

• Choose a platform that is easy to use.

When choosing a platform, think about ease of use for yourself and your audience. The last thing you want is to have to spend hours trying to figure out how the site works just so that you can run an event! If your event involves multiple speakers or presenters, make sure they can easily navigate the platform too. You don’t want them having trouble with it while they are on stage! Finally, consider whether vendors need access as well – if they do, then choose a platform with easy vendor management tools built in.

Engagement

If you want to turn your business physical event into a virtual one, there’s one thing you need to know: engagement. It’s the most important part of any online event, and it’s what keeps people coming back for more. The good news is that engagement can be used to drive ticket sales by encouraging participants at your live events to follow up with their colleagues (and friends) afterward over email or social media. 

• Encourage interaction among attendees using polls, questionnaires, and voting systems
• Use them as opportunities for learning by offering presentations on topics relevant to participants’ industries or fields of interest
• Have speakers record their talks so they can be replayed later on demand.

Registration/Ticketing

You want to make sure you have everything you need to sell tickets, and also keep track of who has bought tickets and who hasn’t. It’s best to use a ticketing service. You can also use Google Forms, but it would be more difficult to manage your registration list if you decide to go that route.

Make it easy for people to sign up: Users should be able to get through the registration process quickly, so don’t put any unnecessary steps on your form—just collect their name, email address, and date of birth (or whatever other information is required).

Scheduling

The first step to scheduling your event is to determine your target audience and then schedule your event accordingly. This can be tricky, but it’s important that you do so in a way that makes sense for both the individual and the business.

You should also consider:

• What time slot works best? The most popular times tend to be lunchtime or after work hours. Do these times fit in with the rest of what you have planned for the day? If not, try switching things up a bit!
• Is this time slot relevant to my brand? If not, now might be a good time to consider changing it up! You should always keep consistency with marketing efforts as much as possible — especially if they’re working well!

Promotion

Promote your event in a variety of ways. You can use social media, email marketing, paid advertising, offline marketing and word of mouth to promote it. Organizing an event is no easy task and there are so many details to think about! It is best to hire professional event planners, to ensure the best event that will be remembered.

Here are some examples:

• Use social media to promote the event. Post updates about it on Facebook and Twitter so that people who like you or follow you will know about it. People who aren’t following you might see these posts in their feed and be interested enough to click through for more information.
• Send an email newsletter with details about your event to all of your subscribers inviting them to attend if possible or watch online (if there is one).
• Buy ads on Google AdWords or Facebook Ads that target people who have searched for terms like “live events near me” or “events this weekend” recently so they know what they can expect when they arrive at yours!

Analytics

What is analytics and how can they help you?

Analytics are data that help you understand the performance of your virtual event. This information can be used to understand the impact of your efforts and make improvements for next time. There are many different types of analytics tools, from free tools like Google Analytics to paid tools like SalesforceIQ, but all will provide similar information about your audience. Analytics can tell you things like who is coming to the event; what activities they’re engaging with; when they’re engaging with them; how long it took them to finish an activity (and whether or not they finished); what content resonates most with attendees—and much more! The information in this section will help you interpret this data so that it’s useful for improving future events.

Having a solid plan when hosting a virtual event will make it more successful

When it comes to hosting a virtual event, having a solid plan will make your life easier. A good plan will help you stay on track, avoid problems, increase efficiency and effectiveness and ultimately be more successful.

When planning for your virtual event, you should try to consider the following:

• Who is the audience? Are they from your home country or are they spread around the world? Where do they live – in big cities or small towns? Get an idea of who might be interested in attending this type of event and then make sure that their needs are met throughout the conference.
• How can I engage with my audience? Do I need moderators or panelists for discussions? If so, who can I get to moderate these sessions? What topics should we cover during each session so that everyone gets something out of them without being overwhelmed by too much information at once? It’s important that attendees feel like they’re part of a community while also getting knowledge from experts who know what they’re talking about!

Hopefully, that gives you an idea of how to turn your next event into a virtual one!