(Editor's note: Joerg Rathenberg is senior director of marketing at Unisfair, a virtual events firm. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
While virtual events have been around for a while, they’ve seen their reach expand exponentially recently, due in part to the economic crisis and advances in the technology. They offer companies the opportunity to connect with customers, prospects and partners without having to leave the office – saving all parties time and money.
Historically, virtual events – ranging from user conferences, trade shows and worldwide product launches to corporate training and job fairs - have mainly been hosted by large corporations, who created webcasts in professional studios with extensive equipment and expertise. In recent months, though, there have been significant technological advances, enabling startups to quickly create their own virtual venues. These can be anything from virtual booths to webcasts to global user conferences.
Beyond the cost savings, there are some marketing advantages to virtual events over live ones: The biggest of these is the interaction of every attendee can be recorded and evaluated. As a result, the sales leads are much higher qualified . For example, demographic information can be combined with detailed insight into an attendee’s virtual booth visits, chats with booth staff, collateral downloaded and presentations viewed.
For users of these virtual events, the experience has evolved as well. Audio and video are high quality and chat sessions can be translated simultaneously into up to 50 languages. Attendees can attend workshops, ask questions and engage in real-time conversations about the topics at hand.
Still on the fence? Here are a few more things to consider about virtual events.
They’re not one-time things. Virtual environments can be leveraged during every stage of the customer lifecycle--from awareness to retention. This gives the customer an opportunity to not only learn more about your offerings, but also to discuss their experiences and build a community, fostering customer loyalty.
They can be creatively engaging. Surveys, polls, group chats and networking sessions during these events allow the exchange of ideas among attendees. This provides your company the ability to better assess their interest level in specific products, ideas or themes.
Follow-ups. The beauty of a good virtual event is that your registrants can visit it any time they like. Still, a number of registrants will forget that fact and may never log on to see the on-demand version. Use email and social networking tools to follow up with non-attendees, share some of the excitement and encourage them to join the on-demand environment.
Nothing’s perfect, of course. Interaction with leads and customers in a virtual capacity have made vast steps forward, but they don't eliminate the need for actual face time. While they’ll save you (and your clients) time and money, you still need to get out in the field from time to time.
Going virtual can also remove some of the physical fun of attending a trade show, where many people are just as interested in tchotchkes as they are in getting business done. (To counter this, some organizers will send attendees kits with t-shirts, coffee mugs and other trade show giveaways to recreate the feeling of a physical event, or even offer on-site catered lunches.)
Physical events aren’t going away, but for many businesses on a tight budget, virtual events are a cost effective way to both market themselves and generate sales leads.