For your virtual event to be a success, there are two essential aspects with which you must refuse to compromise: expertise and communication. It is a constant: good communication is essential. What is communication for a virtual event? Follow the guide, we’ll tell you everything!
Before the event
“Above all else, preparation is the key to success” said Graham Bell. And just as the inventor of the telephone prepared well, try to do the same: if your event is magnificent, very well planned, exciting…but no one has ever heard of it, it’s a guaranteed failure!
This is why it is important not to start too late, to establish a schedule and not to forget the six fundamentals of good communication before a virtual event.
1. Creating a landing page
For you, the objective of this landing page is to promote the event by presenting its content and speakers.
It’s up to you to choose the right landing zone, depending on various factors (nature of the event, budget, type of audience, etc.). Here is a non-exhaustive list of possible landing pages:
- A page on your website (we’ll talk about this later)
- A page on an event site
- An event page created by an online service
Now that you have the container, let’s move on to the content. What do you put on this landing page? You present your event by answering the WWWWHHW questions:
- Who is organising the event?
- What is going to happen?
- Where is it taking place, on what site?
- When is it taking place?
- How can people participate?
- How much does it cost to participate?
- Why is it taking place?
2. Réaliser un emailing
The landing page is ready, now it’s time to get people to land on it. To do this, there are several promotional techniques.
The first is to carry out an effective mailing, because it is targeted. Sending invitations to rented (sometimes very expensive) databases of contacts is not very effective and often ends up in the trash or in spam. To avoid this costly waste, aim for the right thing: rather than spreading the word, inform your targets, your customers and your prospects.
And rather than informing them in a single, long and therefore unattractive e-mail, create a serial effect by using the AIDA method. This method consists of sending one or more e-mails that successively generate :
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
3. Create content on your site
Never forget that your event is a product that you must promote and that your website is your showcase. It is therefore only natural that you should reserve a special place for this event on your site.
A place… or rather a number of places, many and varied. As we have seen, the landing page can be on your site, but whether or not you have made this choice, you can also create articles with interviews with speakers, announcing the issues addressed during the event, using various forms (written, photos, videos, etc.).
This strategy will be all the more effective if you are careful to speed it up as the event approaches, by producing and distributing one or more teasers on various communication media, for example.
4. Communicate on social networks
Communicating effectively about a virtual event without being present on social networks is like building a cathedral while refusing to use any tool: you can try, but if you succeed you will be the exception.
But be careful not to mismatch the tools. Here is a list of social media to use depending on the nature of your event:
- Facebook or Instagram for a B2C event
- Linkedin for a B2B event
- Instagram if the event is about business development.
- Twitter for any type of event
This digital communication can be paid and/or organic, depending on your preferences and the resources you wish to allocate to it.
5. Use your partner network
Communicating is good. Having many people doing so is better.
Never hesitate to rely on your network of partners. Of course, you may think that this will annoy them, take up their time, and ultimately be counterproductive. To avoid this pitfall, prepare a communication kit for your partners.
This kit allows you to manage your indirect communication better. It should/could include:
- Banners for social networks presenting the event
- Standard emails that your partners can send to their contact base
- A defined strategy for joint sharing on social networks
6. Use PR
Since the advent of the internet, it has become fashionable to underestimate the power of the traditional media. However, it is no coincidence that the press is called the “fourth estate”!
So don’t forget to use public relations and announce the event in the media via a press release.
And reinforce this editorial announcement with articles in the specialist media.
During the event
Your event has been announced, it has started, it is a success… don’t ever consider that the hardest part is done. If you stop communication at this point, it is like believing that the journey is over when you have barely left home.
The success of an event is not measured in the first few moments. It is essential that you never stop creating a buzz throughout the event.
To do this, you need to involve your partners and, if possible, non-partner participants and influencers as much as possible. How can you do this?
By collecting as many testimonials as possible and relaying them in the press and on social networks. Positive accounts of experiences are worth their weight in gold: they allow you to project yourself, to create interest and get people talking.
7. Create a hashtag so that all participants communicate
In addition to this direct communication, develop indirect communication by encouraging participants, whether or not they are partners, to communicate also.
To help them in this task, create a hashtag dedicated to your event.
8. Create content that can easily be shared
Always with the aim of facilitating indirect communication, produce content that can be shared easily.
This content can take various forms on the different communication media:
- Videos
- Visuals without an explicit message, which are appealing
- Visuals with an explicit, informative message
- Interviews
- Teasers
In addition to being a tacit incentive to communicate for each participant, this content is in addition to the content you have already created and published on your site.
9. Offer kits that can be shared on social networks
Finally, to further motivate participants to communicate, don’t hesitate to design and provide them with shareable kits.
These small gifts, such as goodies, should be easy to share on social networks. They allow everyone to say “I was there” and create a feeling of group belonging.
Or how to become “the place to be”.
After the event
That’s it, the event is over… but is the communication over too? Not yet! To be effective, communication must be ongoing. Because the buzz can fade away like dry grass.
A past event is an experience whose history must be written, its strong points highlighted.
10. Create a highlight or replay video
Firstly, and to ideally complete the teasers, make (or have made if you do not have the resources in-house) a souvenir video. You can replace it – or better still, complete it with – a replay of the most memorable moments of the event.
The distribution of this content will generate two feelings: pleasure for those who were there, and motivation for others.
11. Make the slides and presentations available
We’ve dealt with feelings… but this is a professional event: beyond the feelings, the content is essential.
So think about making the slides and presentations available to each participant – or to some if you want to select the “happy few”.
This can be done in various ways, all of which can be combined:
- On your website
- By link sent by email on request
- By link sent by e-mail automatically
This way you reinforce the professionalism of the past event. It is a quality guarantee: something tangible remains of your event.
12. Share the event’s “metrics”
As we know, clients and prospects are fond of metrics.
Because numbers don’t lie, there is nothing better to measure the success of an event.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of the metrics you can use to communicate (it is up to you, of course, to choose the ones that give you the most added value):
- Number of one-time visitors
- Number of simultaneous visitors
- Connection time per user
- Number of stands visited
- Number of contacts created
- Number of presentations viewed
- Number of hours of conversation
13. Produce testimony videos (clients/prospects)
And to combine and consolidate the feeling of belonging with the professionalism of the past event, there is nothing like testimonies. You have seen that it is important to make videos of testimonies during the event. It is just as important to make others afterwards. In addition to the immediate impressions, these testimonies provide a subsequent analysis and highlight the positive consequences of the event.
These videos also have a double advantage:
- Those who share their experiences feel important, which cements the form of tacit partnership that you have tried to establish (and succeeded in doing so, if you have followed our advice).
- Those who discover the testimonies start thinking, “What if, next time, it was me?”
Because a testimonial from someone who has had a successful experience helps to remove the barriers for prospects.
14. Create content on your site
Finally, because your site is your showcase, the image of the company, and what you show is what you want to put forward, what people remember about you, don’t forget to put content on your site. Content that you provide to partners, of course, but also other content that you reserve for yourself.
If you have followed this step-by-step procedure, you have communicated effectively about your virtual event. The event was not only a success, but above all a harbinger of future successes. It is the first brick in a long road strewn with many memorable virtual events… which you will certainly communicate about effectively!
Would you like to organise a successful virtual event? Come and discover our solution for digital events.