Below are some of the largest benefits we’ve found when making the switch to virtual conferences!
Budget
As many can attest, your budget determines the scale, detailedness, and uniqueness of your conferences. When planning a physical conference there are so many additional costs such as venue, food & beverage, and travel. But with a virtual conference you can eliminate multiple categories, bringing your overall budget down. This is great for smaller businesses who want to reach a large audience but may not have the means to host 1,000+ attendees in a physical space. With a virtual conference the world is your venue!
There are still costs to consider when planning a virtual event to ensure you’re creating a welcoming and engaging environment. Make sure you’re using the correct platform to stream your conference, ensure the webpages, speaker backgrounds, and promotional materials are all top notch, exciting to look at, and create a professional environment that mimics a physical conference.
Booking Speakers, Panelists, and Entertainment
Often it may be hard to lock down larger speakers who have incredibly busy schedules and might not be able to commit to travelling to your city. With virtual conferences you give your potential speakers, panelists, and entertainers a better opportunity to say “yes”.
Without the physical limitations of an in-person conference, your speakers only need to dedicate a few hours to your conference, rather than a few days. This can often lead to commitment from more speakers and panelists, and also allow for multiple sessions streaming at the same time. With less restrictions than at a physical conference, speakers are often more inclined to add additional VIP access or giveaways in their packages.
Audience Reach & Engagement
Since the world is now your venue, virtual conferences allow accessibility from almost anywhere! This means you can potentially grow your conference attendance dramatically just from switching to virtual. Many video conferencing applications, such as Zoom, allow you to host tens of thousands of attendees, which can be extremely difficult to do so in the physical world.
For your attendees, the accessibility is endless. With virtual conferences, everything can easily be recorded and downloadable with same-day access. Allowing your attendees, the ability to purchase audio files, download video recordings of speakers, attend private Q&A’s, and other online interactions at the same time, gives them instant access to everything they need.
Lead Generation & Analytics
Virtual conferences offer amazing analytics that can’t always be gathered from physical conferences. With analytics provided from your platforms, you can often easily download information such as which attendees watched certain panels, what the click rate of specific sessions were, and record the Q&A sessions or polls throughout the conference. Once this information is downloaded, you can keep it for years to come, and utilize these targeted analytics for future conferences, sales, marketing, and so much more.
Sustainability & Accessibility
Sustainability is an important aspect to any event, and virtual events solve a lot of issues that we may see at physical conferences. Virtual conferences help to reduce travel costs, pollution, and accessibility concerns, as there is almost no carbon footprint involved. Although there may be less draw for larger sponsors and physical marketing, many platforms allow for customizations that can help to draw sponsorships in.
These virtual conferences also end up being inclusive as your audience can log in from the comfort of their own home, and enjoy with options such as live captioning, language selection, and speed of speech.
Overall, there are so many great aspects when making the move to virtual conferences. They not only benefit your own business, but also benefit your audience and speakers. Make sure to work with professional A/V and web-streaming companies, who understand the back end of virtual events. This is very important to ensure your connectivity and conference runs smoothly and keeps your audiences engaged.
Modern Concierge is your dedicated concierge team that handles all of your lifestyle needs. From offering home concierge services to being a luxury travel agency and event company in Toronto, we give you access to the best lifestyle management available. If you’re ready to make life easier, contact us today!
