Why a Strong Strategy Must Define Your Virtual Event

Virtual events have become the stars of digital communications, and not just because many businesses moved their in-person events online in 2020. The fact is, businesses have been succeeding with virtual events for quite some time: 73 percent of business-to-business marketers say that a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads. But how do you get started creating a successful virtual event? The answer is the same one for offline events: you need a clear strategy.

The Why, Who, and What

Every virtual event starts with a why, who, and what:

• Why do you want to have your event? Are you supporting the launch of a new product or service? Building your brand? Your why is your north star that guides every decision you make, ranging from choice of content to format.

• Who is your audience? It’s best to create a brief profile of your audience, down to their titles, interests, and pain points. The more you humanize your audience, the better you’ll be able to create a virtual event that connects with them.

• What will you do to give your audience a reason to attend your event? The most effective webinars provide valuable information and cover topics that your audience really care about. The key is to deliver this information in a compelling format with strong visuals interspersed with interactive elements. But it’s not always easy to define a what. One way to get started is to ask your sales team and/or customer service team what questions they’ve been dealing with on the front lines of working with customers and prospects. These teams can be a goldmine of information. They are constantly hearing and fielding questions from your audience.

Map Your Why, Who, and What to Measurable Goals

We suggest that you map the why, who, and what to measurable goals (such as attracting qualified leads). Consider whether your webinar/virtual will accomplish any of the following:

• Generate marketing qualified leads.
• Generate sales qualified leads.
• Generate new revenue.
• Move prospects through the customer journey faster (accelerate sales cycle).
• Improve conversion rates.

It takes some time to consider what you will need for your event. We put together a Webinar Strategy Planner to help you think through all the things you might include in your webinar or virtual event. The document is set up as a form fill, so you can easily answer the questions and have a detailed strategy for your event.

We also created a companion document, the Webinar Timeline Checklist, to establish a timeline. The document is set up as a checklist to make sure you’ve got all your deadlines in place.

Download Our Guide

For more information on mastering a virtual event, download our Guide on Webinars, Webcasting and Virtual Events. This guide provides you with all the insights you need to create close emotional bonds with your audience at scale, get high attendance and engagement, faster and more cost efficiently than you would with an offline event.

The guide builds off the expertise of Investis Digital Live, which is our 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.