FACTORS FOR SUCCESS DURING VIRTUAL EVENTS

Virtual events – also described as online events – are enjoying growing popularity in companies. They represent a cost-effective and time-saving alternative to presence events such as press con-ferences, product presentations, employee information sessions or even analyst calls.

The application cases are many and varied – but the steps to-wards a successful event are always the same.

This white paper shows you how to plan, implement and follow up your next online event in a structured and efficient way.

Introduction1

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The main objective of every virtual event is to impart information to a certain participant group. Depending on the focus, other objectives come into play such as, for example, the generation of leads, the deepening of customer relations or the strengthening of a brand.

As with a presence event, planning is the essential thing with a virtual event as well. If you take the most important factors into consideration in the run-up to your event, there will be nothing standing in the way of your event’s success.

Objectives of virtual events

General prior considerations during event planningFor every event, you not only need to plan when and where, or how, the occasion is going to take place, but also what kind of content you want to present: whether you want there to be question or voting rounds, whether communication is only going to be one-way or whether it will be possible and desirable to have active dialogue between organiser and participants.

If you have freedom to decide on the content, put an exciting topic on the agenda. As you do so, take into consideration how much the potential participants already know. Look around for an experienced speaker who will present your content in an exciting way. Make the presentation form varied. Loosen up figure-heavy content by means of brief video clips, and get your audience involved in the event with voting or question/answer rounds. To make sure that everything runs without problems during the event, you should work out a well-structured agenda in advance.

For complex events, where interaction with the audience is desired, for example, you should try to get a co-presenter involved in the event. Together with you, this person will rehearse the running order of the event and support you when you are broadcasting live, by collating participants’ questions via chat, for example, and pre-sorting them prior to forwarding them to you for a response.

Check in advance whether the existing technology for implementing your virtual event offers all opportunities for an appealing and interactive presentation form.

Information is (vividly) imparted,

Participants are able to clarify potential questions and

The event performs well without technical problems.

An event is successful when

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Quick & easy participation with the smartphone too Participation in a virtual event should be possible without technical barriers. In the ideal case, participants will not need to install any additional software/apps/plugins on their computer in order to follow the content online.

Participation via smartphone or tablet should be virtually self-explanatory – here, too, under the premise that no apps need to be installed.

Selecting theright conference solution In order to select the optimum technical platform/solution for your event, you first need to ask yourself what goals you have set yourself for your event (see Item 2) and which technical features you can or should deploy in order to make your event appealing and profitable.

To provide a quick overview, we have summarised the most important appraisal and success criteria for a suitable event platform for you.

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4.1

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Depending on the goal of the event, participants should have the opportunity to contribute their opinion or ask questions during the event. Useful interaction tools such as voting, surveys, question & answer rounds and chats are suitable for this.

Not all interaction instruments need to be used at every event – but it is shown that feedback from prospects, customers, partners and employees delivers valuable insights, which you can use in order to optimise processes, further develop your products or simply improve your communication, for example.

Various methods of interaction 4.3

Possibility to presentmultimedia content An appropriate platform should enable the presentation of various media, since your counterpart will absorb information particularly effectively if it is presented vividly and in a variety of ways. Make sure that your event technology supports the display of presentations, images or other static content along with the playback of videos or audio files.

It is also important that the live video image of the person doing the presenting can be inserted (provided that he or she agrees to this). However, a least a photo of the speaker should be uploaded to the web interface, in order to convey an appropriate image to the audience.

4.2

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Follow-up/reportingIn order to rate the success of your event, you need to be able to see how many participants there were, how long participation las-ted and how many people left the event before the end. It is also interesting to find out the percentage of previously registered parti-cipants who actually came to the event in the end.

You will only obtain this information using detailed reporting. The-refore, make sure that you have appropriate reporting comprising reusable data sets at your disposal. Particularly in marketing, where virtual events are also commonly used as inbound marketing tools, participant analysis is crucial.

4.5

For events that you implement internally for employees at your own company, it is certainly not essential for the web interface of the virtual event to be maintained in your company’s unmistakeable image.

It is a different picture for events where the audience is mostly made up of external participants. In this case, you should be interested in creating the entire presentation in your corporate design – including company logo, of course. This not only makes a very professional impression with viewers, but at the same time you strengthen your own brand (and not the brand of the platform provider).

Therefore, make sure that you get hold of flexible design options that you can use to adapt the interface (and registration and confirmation e-mails) of your online event to your corporate design.

Flexible design andbranding options

4.4

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If, after examining the abovementioned items, you still have the choice of a whole handful of platforms for realising your virtual event, you should opt straight and decisively for the solution that offers the easiest handling.

The first consideration here is the handling of technology prior to the event, so when it comes to setting up the event with all its info materials, presentations, videos and other documents. Added to this is the whole invitation management, the sending of registration confirmations and participant handling.

Things also need to stay simple during the event: The web interface must be intuitive to use, so that participants click the right buttons even when the situation gets exciting. The multimedia content must be quick to find and quickly loaded, to that it can be displayed to participants in synchrony with the spoken word.

Even when a system seems ever so easy – it may be that you will need assistance at some other point or other. In that case, it is advi-sable to go for a solution where you get customer service support in an emergency. In the process, insist on a defined contact partner, who knows you and is familiar with the running order and what you expect from events.

Easy handling, service & support4.6

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The best event will get you nowhere if nobody has heard about it. Inform potential participants in good time in the run-up to your event, so that a large number of prospects register.

For internal company presentations, an e-mail to all employees, in order to reach all potential participants, is sufficient in the event of doubt. For an external event, you should utilise additional advertising channels in order to make your event known.

Launch the promotion at least 14 days prior to the live event using communication methods such as:

Your own website

Partner websites

Expert portals, blogs, online forums

Banner advertising and, potentially, search-engine advertising such as AdWords or Bing Ads

Newsletter & stand-alone mailings

All practical social media channels such as, for example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as well as business networks LinkedIn and Xing

Press releases

Preparing your event 5

Following-up on your event6

Hopefully you have reached a big audience and enthused your listeners with your virtual event. Now the task is to gather feedback and isolate findings.

After the event, e-mail the participants with your thanks for their interest and time.

Highlight the contact options for potential questions and refer to the on-demand version, respectively recording of your event if applicable.

Analyse your participants. Who was there, who not. Why? Who asked questions? Why? For events with external participants, you can check which ones have sales potential, if applicable.

Also write to the registered participants who were not at the live event in the end. Send these prospects a link to the on-demand version/recording of your event and offer further contact options here as well.

Add to your e-mail distribution list for future events.

On the day of the event, always send a reminder e-mail to all participants who have already registered, so that as many as possible of them also take part.

One more tip:

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SummaryVirtual events are a modern and cost-effective alternative to presence events and are enjoying growing popularity. Yet, with many events, the outcomes fall behind expectations – both for the organiser and on the participant side.

Therefore, in order to make a virtual event successful, the most important factors for success should be remembered before, during and also after the event:

Define the goal of your event and concentrate on achieving your goals throughout the whole planning and realisation process.

Take sufficient time to plan and attractively design the content for your event.

When selecting your conference solution, pay attention to easy handling for participants and organisers, options for presenting multimedia content, flexible design and branding options, as well as professional service and support.

Advertise your event and make use of all available communication channels.

Send reminder e-mails to participants before your event starts.

After the event, get in touch with participants and offer further information and contact options.

Communicate the availability of the on-demand version of your event and use it to generate further contacts for your company.

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Based in Berlin, meetyoo conferencing GmbH is an international provider of teleconferences and virtual events. Whether for three or three thousand participants, and whether needed at short notice or following months of intensive planning, our services have been used by over 3,000 clients of all sizes and from all sectors. These clients rely on us to ensure seamless, multi-site communication among all their stakeholders. Additionally, the company has been TÜV-certified for 10 consecutive years – the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification has been awarded to meetyoo due to its outstanding data security standards.

About meetyoo conferencing

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meet yoo conferencing GmbHFriedrichstraße 20010117 Berlin / Germany

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Contact

Professional technical realisation is a central aspect during the implementation of your online event. Audio quality, in conjunction with the smooth interplay of image, sound and, if applicable, video signals, is a crucial criterion in particular. Therefore, place your trust in meetyoo, because meetyoo has been synonymous with quality and security of implementation of teleconferences, web conferences and event solutions for more than 15 years.

Do you have any questions concerning online events or are you already planning your next one? We will be pleased to support you with practical advice.

Find out more at www.meetyoo.com or get in touch with us directly.

The event solutions from meetyoo8 9

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