Categories: Technology

What Are Virtual Events?

Virtual events take place in digital space and are usually only offered and marketed online. Participation works both via the desktop and via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, virtual events can also be implemented using other devices, such as game consoles and VR glasses.

In addition to such virtual events and the well-known analogue events, there is also a mix of both: hybrid events. Here, for example, parts of the analog event are streamed live or digital interactions are installed. The first approaches to this existed even before the corona pandemic, but since March 2020 (further) development has been greatly accelerated.

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Benefits Of Virtual Events

Virtual events offer you as an organizer numerous advantages and completely new possibilities, especially if you have only held your events offline so far. You save valuable resources. The list of saved resources is long. You can do without printed materials – i.e. without production, shipping, storage space, distribution on site and their disposal.

The same applies to other resources that are used at real events. From catering to event technology, exhibition stands, posters, advertising banners, pop-ups, decorative material and much more. Depending on how you want to implement your virtual event, you can also save on renting the conference room or the exhibition hall. At the same time, however, you do not have to do without working with sponsors. You also save a lot of travel time.

They generate a higher reach and leads. Real events attract many participants, but virtual events are real lead magnets. In content marketing, webinars have therefore been particularly popular in the past. In this way you can significantly increase your reach. Your participants are no longer tied to one location and/or the event date. You save the time and expense of travel and accommodation. In this way, they can continue to work at their workplace and significantly reduce their own downtime. Along with the increased reach, you as an organizer or exhibitor with a virtual event also increase the number of inquiries and potential customers, i.e. the leads. You can track them particularly well on the Internet. Always provided: You have communicated this clearly beforehand and adhere to the rules of the GDPR.
They generate additional income. Do you have exciting content that your participants really want to consume? Do you offer knowledge transfer or very emotional experiences such as exclusive release concerts & Co.? Then it is best to set up a so-called paywall and offer the content of your virtual event for a fee. There are now video conferencing and webinar tools that already have such options integrated. Video hosting platforms offer another possibility: Here you can sell your virtual events on demand. In addition, you can already track who was in the seminar for how long and who answered which (survey) questions and how. Based on this data, you issue certificates of participation, for example.
You can precisely measure the success of virtual events. Regardless of whether you act as an organizer or are present as an exhibitor at virtual events, you can calculate and show the return on investment (ROI) of the entire event or of the individual virtual participation. How many visitors were in which lecture? Which speaker is particularly well-received? Which exhibition stands were visited how often and for how long? You will get the answers to these and many other questions thanks to the virtual implementation of your event.
You position yourself as a sustainable organizer. Sustainability is also an important topic in the event industry. If you digitize your events, you can partially or even completely do without the above-mentioned resources and thus make your contribution to a sustainable meetings industry. It is important that you then also critically examine and optimize the sustainability of digital resource consumption. This includes, for example, the power consumption for data and image processing, for streaming, and for the servers.

Your event and its messages are always available and, thanks to the recording, can be experienced almost identically. All lectures, materials, and advertising messages are accessible to anyone with internet access, independent of time and place. What is not possible for real events, you can achieve with virtual events: repeat the experience for the participants over and over again. Participation from any location is an enormous advantage, especially with virtual trade fairs – this is how participants and exhibitors from all over the world come together.