Avoid broadcasting boring or underwhelming content in your webcast and virtual event. Knowing what you can do to make your webcasts and virtual events more impactful and interactive will help increase your event’s attendance and message delivery.
webcastingandvirtualevents.com gathered the following ideas, information, and tips to help you arrange and produce interactive and insightful virtual events and webcasts with more impactful messaging.
Webcasts and Virtual Events
Virtual events and webcasts are here to stay. Even in a post-COVID-19 environment, virtual events still provide opportunities and significant benefits that will continue to improve and transform how we conduct business.
So, if you are going to spend your time and resources on a webcast or virtual event, you want it to fully engage the largest possible audience and result in increased and repeated conversions. To achieve this, you must ensure that your content, branding, and messaging are powerful, interactive, and insightful. Consider the following:
1. Establish Clear Goals
Before planning the event schedule or assigning tasks for your virtual event, make sure you have fully defined why you want to hold an event. Establish specific milestones, and make sure your entire team in charge of the project understands what you want to achieve.
2. Display Your Product
Telling your audience about your product is essential. However, showing them its capabilities and results is significantly more impactful. If you are introducing a new product line or service, you should find a way to demonstrate it during your live presentation. If your team has developed a revolutionary touchscreen system, demonstrating its capabilities and ease of use will likely be more beneficial than a simple description.
Tip: Practice any live demonstration(s) beforehand to avoid any glitches or confusion during the product’s presentation.
3. Broadcast with a Live Audience
A live audience at your webcast is optional but highly recommended. The ultimate goal of a webcast or virtual event is to reach your audience at their homes, offices, and on the go; a live audience adds a different engagement level to the production. Invite your clients to attend your event in person. Make sure that those you invite actively participate in the product presentation. Those viewing on their devices will enjoy the added interactive level that can only come from live audience engagement.
4. Offer Incentives
Getting your audience to interact with you can often be challenging, especially those shy individuals hiding behind their computers. Offer some sort of incentive that you can offer to your online audience asking questions in the chat room.
Tip: Incentives could include coffee gift cards awarded for each great question or getting your name entered in a post-presentation raffle. Whatever prizes you select, announce the incentive at the beginning and in intervals throughout the event for those joining late.
5. Engage the Audience and Mix it Up
Your audience won’t sit through an hour-long lecture or slow-moving presentation. Instead, plan activities that require active audience participation. Encourage your event participants to have conversations with one another and ask the hosts questions.
Keeping your viewers engaged requires a well-thought-out plan, especially since their dropping off is as easy as a click. Having multiple people involved in the presentation is an excellent start to an exciting webcast. You can also mix in PowerPoint slides, images, and videos that support your product and demonstrate why your audience needs it.
Tip: Presenting different multimedia throughout your event will help keep things fresh and engaging while appealing to a larger portion of your audience.
6. Make Event Content Available Afterwards
All your event content has value (to your organization, attendees, and people who couldn’t attend the event), and your virtual conference content can serve as lessons/instruction for years to come. This footage can be a significant selling point for your event. After all, with a virtual conference, your audience isn’t paying for a one-time event; they’re signing up for lifetime access to informative, entertaining, or educational content and its incredible resources.
Tip: Your institutional knowledge can be further monetized by selling access to virtual event recordings, lectures, and panel discussions.
7. Follow Up
Keep attendance records and communicate with your audience, after the event, about how they can gain access to recordings and support material. This also encourages your audience to join again at the next event.
Powerful Webcasts and Virtual Events
In this article, you discovered valuable information, ideas, and tips that can elevate the quality and effectiveness of your webcast or virtual event.
Knowing how to elevate content quality and keep your audience engaged with your virtual event will leave you with a better conversion percentage and significantly increase future event participation.
Not knowing how to create engaging quality virtual content will cause your audience to prematurely leave your event, resulting in lower attendance, conversions, and event success.
Sources:
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/100697/10%20Standout%20Virtual%20Event%20Ideas%20From%20Around%20the%20Industry.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
marketing.alliant.edu/helpdesk/KB/View/32805245-5-creative-ideas-to-propel-your-webinars
career.uoregon.edu/blog/five-tips-making-meaningful-connections-virtual-networking-events
