Thinking of organizing a virtual event?
Virtual events have massively grown in popularity in 2020, mostly out of necessity – but turns out, there are a lot of big benefits to running your events online: they’re cheaper, they’re super scalable, they’re considerably eco-friendlier than a regular in-person event and it means that people all over the world can attend.

Plus, there are multiple ways to leverage virtual events:  online training sessions and courses, online conferences, performances, interviews, and many more. It’s up to you what you want your online event to be, based on your objectives.

And whatever type of virtual event you’re thinking of launching, follow these easy tips to help you run a smooth and successful event:

Start with a plan

Before you start sending out any invitations, you need to put a clear plan in place:

• What is the objective of your virtual event?
• Where will it be held, how long will it last?
• How will people be able to access the event?
• How will people be able to access the content?
• Will the event be live or on-demand?
• When will it be held? Make sure there are no other events that day and that people will be able to attend!

You can use a roadmap template to help with the planning side and ensure that you’re not missing anything. 

Promote your event

Promoting your event should be a huge priority: make sure to drive registrations by promoting the event across all of your channels.

This is particularly important right before the actual event (about 1-2 weeks before) – that’s when most people will sign up so focus a lot of your efforts on your event promotion during that time.

Prepare, prepare, prepare!

As anyone who’s ever run an online event will tell you, tech problems are not just common, but almost expected. Especially if you have any guest speakers or interviews.

Because of that, you need to test everything before you start the event and ensure that everything is working OK – from your website speed to your microphone and to your presentation.

Ideally, you should run a simulation/rehearsal of the event so that you can discover any potential issues; if you go through each step of the event, it’s much easier to ensure you’re not missing anything important.

Make it easy for people to engage

Just like regular in-life events, engagement is an important part of it – perhaps even more important in a virtual setting.

It’s important to keep people engaged because that means they’ll stick around or longer and take action. Here are a few tips to help you increase engagement:

• Ask questions!
• Provide a chat or another safe place where people can easily talk
• Use polls and quizzes
• Create a contest or giveaway
• Take requests from your audience

Ready to host your own virtual event?

Use the tips outlined in this article and you’ll be well on your way to running a successful virtual event – remember to plan in advance, promote your event as much as possible and make it as engaging as you can!