Ways to market your virtual event

Almost marching towards the end of 2021, and covid-19 is still on its last legs, just as businesses adapt to remote work, they are also learning how to fit their in-person events into the virtual spectrum. 

But on an unprecedented turn of events, what started as a temporary solution has allowed brands to identify newer perks of virtual events. For instance, unlike in-person events, virtual events with live streams or webinars have the potential to enable your brand to gain awareness among international crowds. 

The trend that began in early 2020 has now withstood the test of time and has turned into a lucrative and competitive market. Even when you scroll through your social media wall on any given day, you’ll see an ad or a post promoting an online event. For any given niche, there are at least a handful of competitors with similar and enticing webinars, live streams, and Q&A sessions. 

If you are one of the companies planning to switch your entirety of events to the virtual realm, how do you promote yours to stand out from the crowd? What do you do to increase your leads and keep your attendance at an all-time high?

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Here at Wiz365, our experts have curated the top ways to market your virtual event.

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Be crystal clear about what your audience will get

In any event, regardless of whether virtual or offline, the setting expectation among your audience is always an important promotional tactic. However, it becomes even more so in the case of a virtual event. With every other brand offering similar content, the audience has set their virtual events’ bar really high that every single detail that you give out is crucial. 

Make sure you answer all the questions that your audience might have about the event. For instance, is it an audience-interactive session? Will they be able to ask questions to the speaker? Are their cameras going to be switched on? Just make sure that the right people are registering for the event and that they have a truly exciting and satisfying experience towards the end. 

Also, apart from letting them know about the nitty-gritty of your event, you must also plan a strong email marketing strategy - send enticing yet gentle reminders of the event and reiterate why they signed for the event in the first place. After hammering the first nail, keep answering all the whys in your subsequent reminder emails. 

This tactic works best as reminding the registrants regarding why they need to show up increases the chances of them actually being present.

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Explore Co-Branding Possibilities

Co-branding or co-marketing is a proven tactic to market your virtual event. The idea here is to partner with another brand or sponsor to organize an event together and let your respective audiences know about the event. 

The best-worked formula yet is the three-pronged approach - which includes a brand partner, a community partner, and your brand. While the brand partner helps add credibility to the event, the community partner helps find better leads that belong to your niche. Make sure your community partner has the right kind of audience in the specific ecosystem that you are targeting. When engaging with an event-specific influencer, their audience trusts them and if they specify that your event is worth their time, they are more likely to attend. 

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Another suggestion here is in case there are speakers or thought-leaders from the other organization who are a part of your event, ensure that they promote the event on their handles as well. The rule is, the more relevant audience sees your event, the better.

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Audience Segmentation is Pinnacle

While a senior manager at an organization would want to attend your event for one reason, a fresher might be interested in another. In case your event explores different topics on a broader scale, it is always wise to segment your marketing funnels according to different groups and demographics. 

One simple, efficient, and personalized way could be audience segmentation with email marketing. Before pushing the send button, ask yourself, “is the event adding value to each and every one from the mailing list?” If you answered no, try splitting your audience into different sections and highlight just what essential value will the event bring across different groups.

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Keep Track of Your Promotion

To adapt to the changing landscape of the virtual event marketing strategy, it is always wise to track your marketing results. For instance, this will help you understand why a time-consuming tactic did not yield the expected results and draw a comparison with excellent results arriving from the idea you thought was the weakest. 

In the coming days, you can use these results to plan your next marketing tactic accordingly. 

When promoting your digital event, make sure to add a number of tracking URLs to study where your signups and event-specific traffic spikes came from. 

While there are no hard and fast rules to market a virtual event, the aforementioned pointers could be a great way to kickstart your promotion. 

In case you feel stuck, get in touch with the virtual wizards, Wiz365 for all things virtual events!

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