Although virtual events have seen a surge in popularity in recent months, it is difficult to see why hybrid or virtual events are still worth the effort. Statista’s 2021 survey found that 40% of marketers globally predicted that their events would be virtual by 2022. 35% predicted hybrid.
There are upcoming trends in hybrid events and they can be a huge asset to your company. Hybrid events not only allow for flexibility in planning and scalability but can also increase the value of your organization. Let’s look at how hybrid events can increase their value for an even better ROI and memorable attendees experience.
Work with your Partners
Your event must have attendees. Do you prefer to spend hours trying unsuccessfully to find people for your event, or do you prefer to leverage the customer base of your partner to grow your audience?
You can promote an event you have hosted with a partner to their audience. You will be able to promote the event to your partner’s audience, which not only helps you find new leads but also allows them to share new content and deals. It is important to choose partners that have audiences similar so they can also gain interest in your product. Hybrid events and joint webinars can bring in a larger audience and provide key networking opportunities.
Personalize your Experience
Personalizing your event is another quick win. Personalization can enhance both the experience for the partners and the audience.
Creating customized landing pages with specific messages, weather alerts or name callsouts for each group of attendees can make them feel welcome. To give attendees a complete overview of the event, and offer benefits they can be excited about, make sure you include a section or page called “Why to Attend” on your event’s site.
Partner can use their audience data to create breakout sessions or one-on-one sessions for potential attendees interested in your products. This saves both time and matches only strong leads to your products with potential partners.
Breakout Sessions are a great way to track and qualify leads
Similar to the previous point, attendees’ interest in certain products will give you a lot more insight. After the event is over, it might not be enough to pass on a list of leads to your sales team. Your sales team must ensure that your leads are qualified and ready for contact. One way to do this is to create breakout sessions based on their current position in the sales funnel.
Your records will show which attendees attended which breakout session and where they are in the sales funnel. This data can be passed to your sales team so they know the information you need based on their current status.
Invest in high-quality networking
It may seem obvious, but investing in high-quality networking will make your event more valuable. You want to deliver high-quality content to your audience. If you want to maximize your ROI, however, you must create networking experiences that are memorable and will be a hit with your audience. These are some examples of how technology can be leveraged to increase networking:
- To match people with similar interests, use an AI-powered matching system
- Encourage breakout sessions with speakers/presenters
- To give both onsite and remote attendees a better idea of what sessions they are interested in, open your event site at least a few days before the event.
Repurpose event content
It’s no surprise that you spent so much time creating content for your event. It’s not fair to let your content go to waste after one day. Repurpose your content is the answer! There are several ways you can use “all the buffalo” in a simple way:
- You can use the recordings from your webinars to offer your audience a series of gated content that encourages people who were unable to attend to keep reading your content.
- You can convert the audio from a recorded session to a podcast so that attendees can listen at their leisure.
- To highlight the event and encourage future events, you can use testimonials and reviews from guests.
- Write white papers, ebooks, blogs and blogs based on specific sessions or events.
There are many options, so your marketing team has plenty of content to choose from instead of creating new content.
Flexibility is a valuable asset
It’s up you to decide what value your hybrid events can bring. Hybrid events can be flexible and offer a wide range of options for promoting your company. An event management platform will be necessary to support your business with event planning and execution.
MYEXPOPRO hybrid technology for event management allows you to manage registration, event websites, marketing campaigns, and other details. You will gain strategic insight, use integrated onsite hardware and add lasting value to each event. Request a demo today to learn more about our platform and how it can help you increase your event’s ROI.