The situation with COVID-19 has changed the landscape of how business as usual is conducted. The “in-person” business event tactics has essentially been reduced and in some industries even eradicated. Many companies now are moving their “in-person” operations online, in the digital world. Video conferences and live webinars are slowly taking the place of hosted live events. As you move these events online, your marketing strategies and goals still remain similar. You still have to target the right people, and encourage the targeted audience to become your members or customers.

Embrace Bringing Your Events Online

Large public gatherings are no longer a viable option for your business or membership organization. It’s time to embrace shifting from a mindset of gathering your people in a room for a trade show or an expo to that of bringing your people together in a digital space. Instead of having a live conference with a speaker, have a live webinar with a speaker. Aside from being cost-effective and reducing expenses, a webinar would give you access to a wider audience. Fighting bringing your events online is erroneous. It’s time to adapt. Embrace the change and maximize the opportunity by learning everything you can about organizing a live webinar. You can host your webinar on a range of various topics and styles. It can be a discussion or presentation with a Q&A style or a workshop where you teach the attendees how to replace spark plugs in your car yourself.

Use Your Landing Page Wisely

An indispensable component of organizing an online event is your landing page. This is the page where your potential webinar attendee would register for the webinar itself. It is indispensable to have a landing page that converts well, meaning that encourages the page viewer to sign up for the webinar. This page helps sell the online event, therefore it is paramount that you do everything to optimize the likelihood that someone landing on that page will register. All the information on this page needs to be clear and concise. Aside from curating your registration information, speaker’s bio, agenda, login information, etc. to appeal to your prospective attendee, the design and feel of your landing page needs to be taken into account. Essentially, the look and feel of your event have to be consistent across all the channels. Bonus points if your design ties in nicely with your brand.

Promoting Your Event Online

Without promotion, you are guaranteeing an extremely low attendance. People can’t show up somewhere if they don’t even know there is a somewhere to show up to. You need to have a promotional plan. Social Media is perfect for such an endeavour. Mind you, it is not enough to only have one post on Facebook about your event. Unless you already have a disgustingly high amount of friends and followers on social media, one promotional post isn’t going to cut it. Ideally, you should develop a calendar of content centered towards your event and a detailed plan for promoting on social media. In the months or weeks leading up to your event, give your audience a taste of what your event is going to entail by writing up a blog article (or several) on what your event is going to be about. Depending on the nature and complexity of your event, you may also consider using paid online advertisement. You can design a marketing campaign that involves precise and deliberate targeting of your ideal attendee.

Every so often, things happen in the way people conduct business that require you to adapt and overcome the changes. Yes, this pandemic is a catastrophe; however, the future is still at hand and it’s up to us to make it bright. If you’d like to learn more about the various tools we offer to help you transition your live events to the digital space, feel free to Book a Demo and don’t forget to subscribe to The Boss Blog to get more helpful tips for you and your members.