With virtual meetings entrenching themselves in business communication processes, Cvent's Patrick Smith offers some suggestions to maximize their value.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to relocate our professional and personal lives into online meeting rooms and other virtual environments.
Getting used to this 24/7 screen life hasn't been easy, however. More and more, the term "Zoom fatigue" is being used to describe people's simmering frustrations with the two-dimensional online meeting experience as working remotely continues for many into 2021.
These are the kinds of frustrations Cvent needed to tackle to convert our own annual Cvent Connect US and Europe customer conferences authentically and seamlessly to virtual this past fall. We overcame challenges and learned a lot along the way to hosting thousands of event and hospitality professionals, and the experience provided valuable insight that informs my tips and takeaways for planning and hosting a more engaging, impactful virtual event.
To start off, keep in mind that whatever you had planned for your in-person experience, it will not make for a simple transfer to virtual—your original goals will need some reshaping.
Consider shorter, snappier content. Our planning for Cvent Connect was well underway when Covid hit the U.S., so we had to decide what needed reimagining for our virtual conferences. In transitioning we realized: shorter, snappier content must replace those longer in-person presentations. Less pressing topics should give way to the most helpful, actionable information. And success metrics and KPIs should drive your event design, specifically around engaging a virtual audience.
Lean into new tech demands. Revisiting your objectives also lends itself to rethinking and integrating your team roles and responsibilities—and it's vital to do this company-wide. Working closely among the marketing and IT departments to build an engaging event is critical, because digital events can deliver vast amounts of information on attendee interests. As the digital transformation of events of all types accelerates, planners will have greater opportunities (and an amplified necessity) to lean into their evolving roles, not just as event planners, but as core event technologists that deeply understand digital tech and engagement across virtual, hybrid, or in-person settings.
Consider under-the-radar factors. Next, you need to build in as much pre-production and preparation time as you can on the front end of your event. Successful virtual events are so much more than scaled webinars. In fact, the two are almost nothing alike—it is a completely different level of effort trying to keep people entertained over a two-day virtual event versus a 45-minute webinar. So much of a compelling virtual experience is grounded in time-intensive, under-the-radar factors, such as sourcing studio spaces and videographers, editing lower thirds or developing compelling interstitial content and interactive booths and forums to keep attendees engaged between sessions. Getting all of these details right—and doing it under time and budget constraints—is essential to making audiences feel included, interested, and engaged.
Production value can't make up for weak content. As you build your event, however, do not substitute bells, whistles, and slick production values for what your audiences really want – great content and thoughtful perspectives that they can't get anywhere else. Quality experiences that look great are obviously essential and indispensable, but top-notch content is the linchpin of your event. By sharing content through an expert speaker lineup that spoke to the interests of our attendees—most of whom were hungry for guidance and encouragement on the future of the industry—Cvent was able to attract more than 43,000 registrants for Connect US and 8,000 registrants for Connect Europe. And once we had an audience of that magnitude, we were acutely interested in how they navigated the event and what took interest in for themselves.
The data will be there, leverage it: Understanding and improving on ROI for virtual events requires a deep understanding of each attendee—before, during, and after the event. Using the Attendee Engagement Scores from our new Virtual Attendee Hub allowed us to collect data around the effectiveness of our event through session attendance, exhibitor booth visits, live Q&A and other sources. Tracking these types of data points will not only give you better insight into attendee interests, it will also help you personalize the customer experience and direct your post-event campaigns to the most relevant audience with the right message.
And keep leveraging it: This leads me to another key callout—the rich attendee information at your fingertips lets you keep the conversation going after your event concludes. We had to move quickly when it came to lead follow-up and prioritization after Cvent Connect. We decided before the event what leads would be "sales-ready" in this virtual landscape by setting thresholds for attendee engagement scores, and we used the rich attendee insight to carry on the conversation in the most appropriate way through appointments, related content, and focused chat sessions. It bears repeating: do not forget that virtual events can deliver insight that will help you have more informed conversations once sessions wrap up!
Do not be afraid to embrace the creativity that comes with virtual! You will learn a lot—and fast. Your team will take on new roles, becoming video editors, TV producers and tech troubleshooters. But what you learn, you can apply again, and your next virtual event will be easier. The lessons learned from virtual events will show everyone that the digital transformation of events is here to stay across all event types. It may seem daunting, but when you embrace digital transformation with an open and agile mind, your events program will flourish.