How do Businesses Use Virtual Events?

Virtual events are still crucial to driving performance but understanding how to maximize their potential can be tricky. Click to learn more.

How are IR and Corporate Communications professionals using virtual events? After all, the virtual events industry is exploding in popularity. During mass social distancing in 2020, businesses were forced to go virtual, and in doing so, they became more aware of the distinct benefits that virtual events provide, such as the ability to reach a larger audience more cost effectively. That’s why virtual events are going to remain important to businesses even as the pandemic subsides.

To understand the strategic priorities of public firms’ communications executives, we partnered with the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) to survey the organization’s members across several industries.

Most participants focus on investor relations and corporate communications as follows:

74 percent represented large (1,000+), very large (5,000+), or global (20,00+) companies.
75 percent were either vice president or director-level.

Here’s what they told us:

Virtual Events Are the Corporate Workhorse

Respondents are relying on events to manage a variety of corporate communications efforts ranging from investor road shows to annual meetings. We asked respondents to identify the various ways they run events. We saw widespread adoption:

Source: see our Connect.IQ Virtual Events Special Report for more virtual event insights!

Respondents are relying on events to manage a variety of corporate communications efforts ranging from investor road shows to annual meetings. Events support critical business needs ranging from bolstering investor confidence to increasing executive visibility.

The only areas where virtual events have not gained a serious foothold are talent recruitment, media days, press briefings, and community events. However, the low penetration level likely reflects the fact that the respondents we surveyed are not actively involved in public and community relations.

Key takeaway

There is no turning back with virtual events. They’ve become an essential tactic to achieve important business goals, and businesses are relying on virtual events to support a wide range of communications efforts.

There Is a Disconnect with Content and Engagement

When we asked respondents to identify the features most important to them in a virtual event platform, they placed a heavy premium on reliability, ease, of use, and data privacy/security. While those are important attributes, we also discovered that respondents ranked crucial capabilities such as content and audience engagement low on their list. For instance, only 16% of respondents identified live Q&A among the most important attributes, and only 2.3% value on-demand content highly.

Source: Connect.IQ Virtual Events Special Report

These findings suggest a disconnect between IROs’ priorities and audience expectations. As research firm Gartner noted in a recent report, ‘As virtual events continue growing, chief marketing officers must captivate digital audiences across various geographies through engaging and interactive content and tools.” Research firm Forrester noted that a need for better content and audience engagement are influencing how events platforms develop new capabilities. According to Forrester, “marketing event solutions are incorporating native content capture and delivery features, with a primary focus on video, to differentiate offerings.”

The days of just getting by with a standard PowerPoint presentation about your company are long over. Audiences have been living remotely on Zoom calls and webinars for several months at a stretch, and their expectations are rising. They want compelling content delivered by speakers who understand how to captivate and inspire through digital. For their part, businesses are waking up to the power of virtual events to deliver strategic and essential content.

Key takeaway

At a time when audiences are raising their expectations for what virtual events can deliver, businesses that place a higher priority on engagement and content will have a distinct advantage over those that do not.

We published more detailed findings in our Connect.IQ Special Report on virtual events. Using our proprietary Connect.IQ methodology, we reviewed over 300 criteria that create an effective digital presence, including the use and integration of virtual events into their IR communications regime. In addition to our survey and analyst research, we studied the best of the best - the global leaders that are pushing stakeholder expectations and experience to a whole new level. As the bar for virtual events is constantly increasing, read the report for the top five trends that we found.

Contact IDX

The time is now to tap into the power of virtual events to tell your story effectively to your most valuable audiences with a single masterstroke. But you need a secure and scalable solution to do that.

A free app just won’t cut it when your entire reputation is on the line. This is where IDX Live can help you.

IDX Live is our in-house Webcasting, Webinars, and Live events service. We support more than 750 global events a year through a team of dedicated professionals and our proprietary technology solutions. We are the event experts.

We know how to communicate your biggest news. To build meaningful connections. And to positively influence the people who matter most to your business.

Request a demo here!