Needless to say, there’s nothing better than in-person meetings, when it comes to having rich, personal experiences in a real-world environment. However, online meetings have their own advantages – not to mention they are a great alternative to in-person meetings, especially during times when travel is restricted or infeasible.
Thanks to live video streaming technology, countless nimble companies are now organising virtual events and achieving desired results with them, instead of opting for simply cancelling their events and waiting for the curbs to be lifted.
So, is it a good idea for your company to jump on the online events bandwagon this year? In this article, we share what are the top reasons you should consider before organising corporate events online over the next few months, and what we have learnt as a leading corporate event planner in the UK, having plenty of experience with managing both live and online events with a high success rate.
Features and Perks of Running Company Events Online
#1. Significant Cost Savings
When you organise virtual or hybrid events, there’s no need to hire a venue, arrange for catering, devote service staff, or manage the logistics. In addition to this, using the digital medium, you have far greater control over the expenditures and the ROI.
If this wasn’t enough, attending a physical conference requires travel, transport, accommodation, food and drink, apart from other expenses, which typically add up to thousands of pounds, if not more, depending on the scale of your corporate event. In short, the operating cost for virtual events is much lower than their in-person counterparts, and for SMEs and startups, that’s a pretty sweet deal!
#2. Wider Audience Reach
With virtual meetings, you offer the participants the flexibility to attend the meeting from the comfort of their homes or wherever they are in the world. As long as they have an active internet connection, and a computer or mobile device, they can simply join in without having to travel. This is why the attendance rate for virtual events can be many times higher than that of a physical event.
In fact, that’s exactly what happened when EJP noticed our team as one of the leading virtual conference organisers in the UK and asked us to organise a successful hybrid event for them during the lockdown phase. The result? Their annual One Health Global Conference attracted more than 700 attendees (instead of an audience of around 300 that their team had initially expected), and the virtual conference clocked more than 36,000 viewing hours!
#3. Hassle-free Meeting Experience
Considering that your event is virtual, not only will you save yourself and your staff a lot of time and hassle, but your attendees will also enjoy the same benefits. Apart from setting up the event website and the registration form, your team won’t need to fret over physically managing the logistics of the event – not to mention save plenty of time that they would have spent on travelling to the meeting venue.
No need to print marketing material and distribute it around, when you can simply promote your event by sharing across the link to your website on social media and other online channels. It anyways makes more business sense for your employees and attendees to utilise all that time to work on other important tasks that need their urgent attention.
#4. Real-time Access to Valuable Data
Without data, decision-making suffers. However, with the help of online events, you will be able to better track and collect useful information about the attendees, such as tracking the attendance for each session, understanding which sessions had the highest participation from the attendees, and what kind of content attracted the most attention – all in real-time.
In addition to this, you can get your event attendees to answer real-time polls and surveys, during, in between, and after the online sessions. Not only will this feedback help the presenters gauge precisely how well their session is going, but it will also be a good measurement of the overall success of your company’s virtual event.
As a business, this will allow you to better determine the preferences of your audience and align your future campaigns to meet their needs and expectations. Plus, you can use this data to motivate your audience towards achieving your company’s specific business goals. When you have clarity with accurate and readily available data, the sky’s the limit!
Final Thoughts
It’s good news for companies of all sizes that virtual events have now got the incredible potential for both audience engagement and sales growth, when used strategically as a tool for promoting the company’s brand and business. When done right, using sophisticated tools and technology, these kinds of events can not just meet but even exceed the kind of goals event organisers would typically set for physical events.
So, when was the last time your company hosted an online event? If the answer is “not recently”, then its time to give virtual events a try and explore the various ways in which they can benefit your businesses!
If you’re not sure whether your company should host a virtual or a hybrid event, and what would be an estimated budget required for organising an online event that suits your requirements, feel free to reach out to our team of in-house event planners who can guide you and answer all your questions!
