[Editor’s Note: At press time, the outlook for in-person events seems precarious. As such, we asked Jamie Kightley, head of client services, IBA International, to discuss how B2B companies can bolster media opportunities at virtual events.]
The virtual work environment is a product of trial and error. At this point, many of us are complacent. Virtual meetings include pets or small children walking into view, speakers forgetting to un-mute our microphones and drinking coffee on camera. In the event world, however, these are positive things.
There’s been extensive growth in virtual events in the last 18 months, ranging from webinars and roundtables to full-scale conferences and product launches. One virtual event vendor said business on its platform surged 1,000 percent.
Owing to the Delta variant, nobody’s certain when in-person, large-scale events will resume. This makes it imperative that B2B companies have a refined virtual event strategy.
Media Members and Virtual Events
At events, many organizations handled press members differently than typical attendees. With virtual events, press still need to be managed before, during and after.
Indeed, the virtual format results in unique challenges. Research from Integrate found 58 percent of marketers in the U.S. and UK said they needed to rethink their strategy to ensure success and meet goals with virtual events.
With this in mind, here are ways to maximize press for your virtual event and gain benefits for sales and marketing.
Planning is Key
Typically, in the pre-COVID-19 world, event planning required six months or more of strenuous logistics and implementation, executed with military precision.
Thankfully, online events remove the complexity of location and logistics. That’s not to say all planning is ceased. Allowing one to two months for journalist invitations will ensure a healthy turn-out.
This recaptured time, about four months, allows B2B organizations and communicators to focus on producing insightful content, ensuring good reception from media.
Being organized in good time should boost audience retention and offer a chance to promote pre-event engagement. Virtual events allow communicators to widen their outreach to journalists who may have never been able to spare the time to attend a physical event. In addition, it lets media members expand their coverage to parts of the world that were out of reach previously.
Post-registration, sending timely invites and follow-up emails as agendas become concrete, alongside confirming access details were received, ensures journalists are engaged and equipped with information leading up to the date.
Get Creative
Once press attendees are enticed, it’s time to focus on creating engaging content. You want more than their attention. The goal is encouraging a thought-provoking environment where press will walk away with knowledge and be prompted to write about the content.
Pre-recorded session content, including animations and graphics, allows you to provide media members with the best possible experience, while ensuring you control messages you want them to hear.
There are far more distractions when journalists attend an event virtually. So, it’s your job to enhance sessions.
Plan sessions that are short, attention-grabbing and concise. Make it easy for media to navigate your event platform. This means they can focus on session content.
Redefine ‘Here and Now’
Despite the best efforts to get invitations delivered months in advance, journalists are busy people with multiple deadlines. Making event sessions available on-demand helps press members with busy calendars or short attention spans.
Viewing a session at their leisure enables journalists will digest key information, take detailed notes and familiarize themselves with a topic when it suits them.
For international events, this helps widen your outreach. Instead of missing a session, journalists in various time zones can access a panel as and when required.
Content prepared for on-demand replay opens several opportunities. For example, it allows marketers to create follow-on content for post-event media pitching.
Developing live and on-demand events enables content drafting to be approached from different angles. For example, thought leadership sessions can be written in blog format and pitched for additional event coverage and exposure.
Hard Questions and Positive Media
Virtual dashboards can include command buttons so media may submit questions. Companies have a policy choice. They can allow journalists to ask questions live or do so behind a firewall. If it’s the latter, the company has more control, of course. You can never control fully earned media, but managing the Q&A process can help reduce the potential of rogue reporting.
Make sure PR and marketing also see the questions, as it will inform communication and marketing choices. and the answers company experts provide.
In conclusion, virtual events will remain beyond COVID-19. The benefits to companies are sizeable: increased lead generation, reduced costs and easier logistics. These give companies an opportunity to focus on content and messages they want to convey. With the number of B2B journalists declining, virtual events can benefit media, as reporters bounce between multiple business events in short time periods.
A shift from glitzy aesthetics to a focus on pre-, during and post- event content and delivery mean businesses can polish their core messaging to perfect the art of virtual events, securing media coverage now and into the future. n
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