Brands Resorting To Virtual Events For Marketing
To survive and thrive in the market, amidst the pandemic-induced uncertainties, businesses have undergone significant transformations. In such a scenario, ‘digital’ has emerged as the pivotal solution for their marketing strategies. Virtual events, for instance, that gained prominence due to the coronavirus outburst are now being leveraged by enterprises across sectors and have successfully replaced the traditional on-ground events.
As COVID-19 remains prevalent with the ongoing second wave and the chances of the third wave hitting soon are highly likely, brands have realized that innovation is the key to sustaining their businesses and having a competitive edge in the market. Hence, companies are introducing modifications in their operational and marketing strategies and virtual events are likely to emerge as a commonplace practice and go-to marketing strategy for brands.
Brands Adopting New-age Technologies And Virtual Events
Businesses are being pushed to devise a long-term game plan specifically from the marketing and communication point of view, considering the various aftermaths associated with coronavirus. They have now resorted to the online space to increase their brand visibility, enhance their brand image, and upsell their offerings. To ensure the same, the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies and virtual events have transpired to be the ideal solutions for brands to achieve their marketing targets. They play the perfect role of substituting on-ground events and have enabled brands to achieve their marketing objectives in a tech-savvy, cost-efficient, and time-saving manner.
Event software, online event registration platforms, virtual event aggregators, the usage of cloud-based and real-time communication tools, incorporation of gamification, exchange of virtual business cards, adoption of virtual live streaming tools, solutions enabling social media integration wherein you can include social media feeds to your virtual event through live streaming, or AI-enabled tools helping in real-time translation and interpretation of voice content thereby eliminating the need of a human translator, facial recognition of attendees and event chatbots for customer service, are some of the new-age technologies that event organizers have adopted event to reach one step closer to their marketing goals and make their virtual events a huge success!
Improved ROI And Increased Sales
Technology has rendered a helping hand and has empowered businesses to organize multi-format events such as round tables, conferences, product launches, seminars, expos, etc., on virtual platforms. Virtual events with the power of new-age solutions extend more significant advantages to the sales team.
They surpass the conventional events and methodology of networking. Instead, they offer data on attendee’s preferences, including sessions attended, collaterals downloaded, time spent on a specific kiosk, their engagement with the event, etc., via market intelligence and event analysis. This further enables them to strategize, act, and modify the virtual events in real-time and in the future as per the interest of the target audience.
This customized sales pitch with a specific target and a customer-first approach via the medium of virtual events results helps in increased conversions and delivers a better return on investments. As per a recent report by Markletic 2021, in which 3,851 B2B marketing companies participated, 39% of marketers shared that their sales team generated a significant amount of registrations and brand awareness in the online event.
Instant Networking, Brand Awareness And Positioning
Online events have helped businesses communicate effectively and instantly with their target audience by optimally utilizing the potential of the digital medium. They ensure swift, instant, interactive, and engaged networking to help brands attract eyeballs more than ever. This was significant amiss the physical events!
Digital events are also a sure-shot way for brands to showcase and promote their offerings amongst the enormous audience base in the virtual space in an innovative and immersive fashion. They provide the perfect platform for brands to step into the limelight- to increase their awareness and enhance their visibility amongst the humongous customer base.
If conceptualized and implemented successfully, virtual eventsIf conceptualized and implemented successfully; virtual events can dramatically contribute to the brand’s growth and image building. According to research by AnyRoad, which surveyed over 100 companies managing 20,00 virtual events annually at the global level, highlights a similar trend and states that most of the respondents, 85.3% state that the online experience of the event industry is here to stay even after the pandemic subside and will grow at a significant pace.
Virtual events: The Future Of The Event Industry & Brand’s Marketing Strategies
Markletic 2021 research highlights that most companies allocate 10-20% of their marketing budget to virtual events. This trend is picking up pace because brands have realized that online events will help them reach their marketing goals efficiently and at a faster pace. It also states that 90% of businesses plan to invest heavily in virtual events ahead. All these statistics present a broader picture that online events are set to be the trendsetters of the businesses from the marketing perspective in the times ahead, and brands will be jumping up the bandwagon soon to make the most of this opportunity amidst the changing scenario.
Summing Up!
The coronavirus pandemic has upturned the event industry altogether, and online events have risen to be the appropriate and fruitful alternative to on-ground events for brands to expand the reach of their marketing objectives. Due to the plethora of benefits of digital events, they will rule the event industry and brand's marketing strategies even in the post-pandemic times. While the concept of using virtual events as a marketing tactic is still in its nascent stages, they will soon step up to be the ideal solution for businesses to step up their marketing game to ensure their image is sustained in the market, the communication with their customers is constant and their sales volume hits an all-time high!
