5 Strategies to Improve Your Online Event Experience

With the boom of online events in 2020, most companies have increased their portfolio of virtual events. By now, we are all mostly well-versed in the online space, but there are ways to take your next virtual event a step further in order to provide an even better event experience. 

Brand Consistency

Most organizations need to rely on third-party technology to host their virtual events, whether it’s a web-conferencing system or a registration tool to collect RSVP’s. Using third-party software shouldn’t act as an excuse to leave your branding behind: make sure you keep your brand consistency across all touch points with your audience, including the email invitation, the event website and registration process, the slideshow, and the web conferencing itself. 

Event platforms like Attendease will allow you to keep your brand colors, fonts, images, and more, so you can keep control of your brand on a fully white-labeled experience.

You can go an extra-mile and build a branded background for your speakers as well. Whether you build a real studio for your online events, or a virtual background, this will surely make you stand out from the crowd!

Sponsorship Opportunities

When running virtual events, the sponsorship packages will need to be adapted to a new reality. While you are no longer able to share physical banners or sponsor a dinner, online events can offer different types of opportunities with far less cost for the event producer – which can result in more ROI for you!

In addition to showcasing the sponsors on the event website (bring the physical banner to the online space!), you can also have organizations to sponsor unique sessions of your multi-session event, include their logos in PDF catalogues and supporting materials, as well as showcase them during your virtual event. 

To go an extra mile, you can produce a short video clip to promote your sponsors before or in-between your sessions. Just like a recorded commercial for TV or YouTube, this pre-recorded video will make your event look even more professional, while also giving your sponsors a reason to love you!

Interactivity

While fostering interaction online may be more challenging, there are still ways to engage your audience so you can make them an integral part of your event.

Make sure to ask questions during the presentation, ask attendees to participate through chat, create live polls and surveys, etc. In order to motivate participation, you can also incentivize it by offering prizes for those who are most engaged. 

Use Music to Help Set the Mood

It may be a challenge to keep the energy up for the duration of your online event, especially if the event spans more than a couple of hours. Consider using music to your advantage to help you keep the energy up. 

Music can be used in a break between sessions and also before introducing each new session and speaker. You can either have the music ready to go live, or pre-record the video introductions and break slides ahead of time. There are a number of websites available to download royalty free songs, such as Bensound.

Networking/ Messaging Capabilities

We can’t deny that one big reason people love events is due to the networking opportunities it provides. Translating these opportunities to the online space can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. 

Whether you provide a directory hall where attendees can browse the profile or fellow event-goers, or connect directly with sponsors and exhibitors to book one-on-one meetings can go a long way. Give power to the people and let them select those they’d like to connect with and book their meetings using online event technology.

Finding the Right Technology to Support Your Online Events

Running an online event can be as simple or as complex as the technology you use allows it to be. With Attendease, you can manage all your events, whether in-person or online, from one unique platform. 

From building your white-labeled event website to managing the event registration, email messaging, marketing campaigns, event analytics, post-event surveys, and more: Attendease allows you to manage all the moving pieces of your event.

In the next coming months, Attendease is releasing some new functionalities to improve the online event experience even further. That includes a native broadcasting platform that will allow your attendees to join your online event directly from your event website (no more Zoom conferences, folks!). One-on-one meeting capabilities will also be available soon.

If you would like to try these new functionalities, you can join the waitlist to be the first one to know when it is available. You can join the waitlist here.