07/02/2020

Three Tips for Boosting Engagement at Virtual Events

COVID-19 has forever impacted how we learn

Start engaging before the event begins.

“Driving engagement is probably the most difficult part of our job when we create a digital event,” says Isabelle Deniaud Lassara, Director PCO & Asset Development, MCI Benelux. She advises starting the engagement process ahead of the event, continue engaging during the event and follow up after. “The engagement will rely on the experience we will be able to offer to the participant,” Deniaud Lassara says. “If the experience is timely, unique, creative, and inspiring, the engagement will start and the participant will be active and contribute.”

Associations may want to establish a channel of communication that lasts as long as a year, offering on-demand video content from past events that helps drive engagement and discussion around a particular topic and encourages participants to register for upcoming events. “Make clear what data can be collected that will show participants’ interaction levels with the sponsors’ activities and what the expectation on ROI would be (participation tracking, interaction tracking etc.),” advises Silvano Schär, Head of Sales & Marketing, Congrex Switzerland. “This is one of the major advantages of virtual platforms, as audience interactions can be monitored and analyzed infinitely better than during F2F meetings.”

Stick to shorter sessions.
Sessions should be short and professionally moderated, advises Schär. “It is essential that you train the speakers, because most of them are not used to talking to an audience they cannot actually see,” Schär says. “The sessions should give the participants the possibility to ask questions and to engage. At the setup stage, the participants’ journey is extremely important and needs to be well-documented.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Boardroom.