Six Innovations that Can Amplify the Impact of Your Virtual Event

This surge in corporate interest in virtual events is easy to understand. Of those surveyed who attended a virtual event in 2020, 75% say they agree with the statement that “it is more cost- effective to generate leads at an online event than a traditional in-person tradeshow.” Of those who did not attend a virtual event in 2020, only 53% said they agreed with the statement. When it comes to virtual events, it seems, seeing really is believing.

But while virtual event platforms are drawing initial rave reviews from those participating in these online public gatherings, this category of technology solutions still has a long way to go in terms of optimizing its impact on marketing performance. Indeed, while market demand and interest in virtual events continue to grow, the plain truth is that the market’s understanding of how to best leverage virtual event capabilities remains relatively limited.

WH believes that not all virtual events are created equal. Online sessions that might have been “good enough” for a captive audience of pandemic attendees will need to up their game in order to attract audiences as we all enter a post-COVID environment where individuals will have a broader range of options competing for attention.

In this report, WH will highlight six different ways that event planners can meet the challenge of getting the most out of virtual events in a post-COVID world by embracing innovations that can supercharge the impact of their events and help sustain momentum in virtual event adoption and attendance.

65%

65% of all survey respondents agree that “I would attend more conferences overall if given the option to participate remotely.”

Six Innovations that Can Amplify the Impact of Your Virtual Event

Virtual event platforms can serve as hotbeds of technical innovation – a fact that some event planners can sometimes overlook due to the familiar nature of the components embedded in these solutions. Virtual events can integrate a variety of capabilities, including video collaboration, one-to-many presentations, attendee registration tools, and viewership tracking solutions.

Viewed individually, none of these technologies would be perceived as particularly revolutionary. Each element has been part of communications and marketing platforms commonly used in other venues. The special sauce of virtual event solutions, however, comes in how these commonplace technologies are woven together so that they foster a new type of end-user experience in the digital public square.

Indeed, it is fair to say that many event planners just now are becoming familiar with how these existing technologies can be combined to create an engaging online experience. In the pages that follow, WH identifies and describes six ways that event planners may leverage existing