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How to Plan & Host a Virtual Conference

There has never been a better time to plan and host your first virtual conference. As the global Coronavirus continues to impact the events industry and society as a whole, businesses need to ensure that they are have some kind of presence within their sector to maintain revenue streams.

This can be achieved by planning and hosting a virtual conference with a virtual events company, however there are certain considerations that need to be kept in mind to make sure that the event is a success.

Define the Purpose of your Virtual Conference

It may seem like something that is obvious, but it is especially important that your virtual conference has a well-defined purpose or topic that is going to be of interest to and engage your audience.

This is because when attendees are at a physical event there are less options to leave and they will tend to stick around even if they begin to feel that it is not living up to their expectations, or if their interest begins to wane. When you are holding a virtual conference, your attendees attend via their computer or laptop or mobile device, and there are numerous ways in which they could potentially get distracted, as well as actually log-off entirely.

Ensure that your topic is clear and specific and that your audience is going to motivated and compelled to stay for the duration of the event and actually want to properly engage with your content and speakers.

Segment & Target the Attendees

Ensuring that you are targeting specific audiences and demographics is essential in ensuring that your event is a success and that there are high levels of engagement. This will also help to increase interaction during and after the event and help to increase attendee-promotion across social media and other platforms. Ensuring that there is an ongoing buzz surrounding your event is essential in making sure that your future ones become oversubscribed, whether it be on or offline.

In order to achieve this, make sure that you are sending out initial newsletters to promote the event to segmented contacts within your database. This strategy should also be applied to online advertising and highly targeted campaigns set up to capture the interest of highly relevant audiences.

Engaging Programme & Speakers

 After you have defined the topic of your conference and decided upon the segmentation of your database and attendee list, it is time to start focusing on planning the programme of your conference and the speakers.

Start by focusing on the main stage where the speakers will present their material.

When holding a virtual conference there are different considerations to be made when planning the format of the event. One approach that can prove to be more successful compared to traditional conferences is having your speakers interviewed on a one-to-one basis.

It is important to keep in mind that virtual conferences tend to be more intimate affairs and this should be reflected in the way in which the event is planned and designed.

Technology Needed to Host a Virtual Conference

In order to make sure that your virtual conference is a success and generating the strongest levels of ROI, it is imperative to work with a virtual events company who are able to provide you with optimal levels of insight into making the event a success, both in the short and long-term.

As part of this you should have a virtual conference website setup in order to host the event – it is possible to setup this on the sub-domain on your existing website to make sure that everything is kept in a central place and that it can all be kept in line with your branding.

This will provide you with the facilities to host your virtual event and to manage various aspects associated with the event, including the possibility to confirm attendance, build a community, and even have break-out sessions amongst attendees.

Live Streaming Technology

Once everything has been setup it is time to start thinking about adding live streaming, this is one of the most important aspects that a professional live streaming company can assist you with and make sure that your event is a success.

Using a professional company will ensure that the quality of the stream is as strong as possible, this is an aspect that has to be given the highest consideration. If it is not as high quality as possible, then there is the chance that users could become disengaged during the conference.

Your streaming for the main stage should include a ‘one-to-many’ stream where your speaker and moderator can be on the screen and the audience can engage through live chat and respond in real time to questions. In order to have an optimal experience there should ideally be someone moderating and responding to the comments and directing the audience to relevant resources and other areas that could be of interest.

Another advantage of live streaming the event is that you can use the recorded streaming at a later date as part of future marketing campaigns and to increase demand for future conferences.

There are different options to utilise this, including offering those who did not attend the possibility to download it in exchange for signing-up to your database, or even using it as part of a paid advertising campaign to increase both awareness of your brand and future conferences that you may hold.

If you utilise positive audience comments and feedback as part of your campaigns, this will increase social-proof of your event and will assist in generating future interest and making sure that your events are oversubscribed in the future.

Investing in a professional live streaming events company will ensure that your event is of the highest quality and will increase future interest in your conferences, both on and offline. This will help to increase awareness of your brand and generate increased revenue in the long-term while growing your business overall.

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