Virtual events have come a long way over the past two years, and it’s clear they’re not going away any time soon. With so many online events occurring across nearly all industries, it’s vital to give some thought to how to position your online event as one that stands out to your audience and that’s worth their time to attend.
Webinars are an effective marketing tool that allow people to share knowledge and ideas via video workshops or presentations and are a great way to form relationships with your customers. Whether you’re hosting an online trade show, conference, meeting or networking event, there are many reasons to incorporate webinars into your virtual event space. The following are three of the most important:
- Reach a larger audience: Being that they’re online, webinars surpass geographical barriers and allow you to reach a larger audience, regardless of where attendees are physically located. Because travel times and attendance costs are reduced, if not eliminated wholly, webinars come with built-in convenience and this also correlates with an increased reach. A larger audience means increased brand awareness in your industry and beyond. You also have a perfect opportunity to recruit more and more diverse speakers for your webinar; speakers are more likely to be able to participate than they would if they had to travel to a physical venue.
- Cost-effective: Compared to traditional in-person events, webinars are so much more budget friendly. The cost of renting a physical venue is eliminated, along with myriad other costs such as materials, travel, technology and staging. Furthermore, the cost of attending a webinar is minimal, which makes them very appealing to prospective attendees.
- On-demand content: Webinars and other virtual events can be recorded and posted online for playback on demand. This makes them even more accessible than they already are, as your audience can watch the event at any time from any place. The event exists as far into the future as you choose, and with continued promotion can be a long-lasting and effective marketing and brand awareness tool.
It’s worth pointing out the flip side of having a webinar available on demand, and that is f attendees know the event will be available into the future and can be watched at a later date, they may feel like they don’t need to attend live. Insufficient numbers of live attendees reduces engagement as well as perception and networking opportunities. It can be helpful, therefore, to include ways in which live attendees receive increased benefit and remain engaged, for example with tools such as live chat, Q&As, polls and opportunities to network.
Without a doubt, webinars provide an efficient and cost-effective way to connect with your audience, generate new leads and inform people about your company and products. They provide benefits for attendees and presenters, as well. Having your audience put a face to the name of your company will ultimately strengthen trust and relationships with your brand.
If you’re looking for a trustworthy and established virtual event platform for your next webinar, rAVe [LAVNCH]’s lead-generation based platform has proven success delivering personalized virtual events for the AV industry catered to your needs.
