Host Online Events that Turn Virtual Handshakes into Hot Leads

Webinars have come a long way, especially considering that the first webinar was basically a chat. Nowadays, these events are much more immersive, enabling businesses of all types—including managed service providers—to demonstrate their authority, build connections, and generate leads without sinking their marketing budget.

Let’s discuss how to set up these events, from the planning phase to execution, and how to follow up afterward.

Planning and Promoting Your Online Event

Four parts need to be addressed at the very beginning of your event planning endeavor:

1. Identifying your target audience and setting the appropriate goals to achieve.

   • By establishing a buyer persona that represents the type of person you are trying to reach, you can craft content that speaks to them more effectively. At the same time, you need to establish goals for your event in terms of registered attendees, qualified leads generated, or other key performance indicators that matter to you.

2. Selecting a topic that touches a pain point this audience experiences and creating content to educate them about it.

   • For your event to attract the audience you want (and ideally convince them to investigate your services further), it needs to address a need that most of your audience faces. Listen to your clients, review your service records, and investigate the challenges that most of your ideal audience faces. Once you’ve identified the common threat, prepare materials to share during and after the event that focus on one of these challenges and outline the steps involved in addressing it. Utilizing a variety of content formats can significantly enhance the perceived value of the information and insights you share.

3. Gathering a team and assigning them different responsibilities throughout the event.

   • For your online event to go well, you must build a team instead of trying to handle every aspect of your event independently. Find someone to be a speaker, find someone to moderate your event, and assign someone to cover any technical needs. Invite guest speakers to expand your reach and enhance the credibility of your words.

4. Spreading the word about your event.

   • Of course, for your event to bring you any value, people must attend it. Therefore, you need to promote it across all available channels, including social media, email marketing, partner collaboration, and word of mouth. Create a simple landing page that makes it easy for people to register, and consider offering incentives to those who register early.

3 To Dos During Your Event

So, your event is going on… how can you ensure your audience is getting everything you’ve promised out of it?

1. Emphasize engagement.

   • It’s crucial that you keep your audience engaged and focused on your message, so be sure to incorporate elements that require some level of interaction. Share polls, host Q&A sessions, and enable live chat to give your attendees a chance to contribute. If it's appropriate, consider how aspects of your event could be gamified to add a touch of fun.

2. Encourage communication.

   • It’s crucial that you keep your audience engaged and focused on your message, so be sure to incorporate elements that require some level of interaction. Share polls, host Q&A sessions, and enable live chat to give your attendees a chance to contribute. If it's appropriate, consider how aspects of your event could be gamified to add a touch of fun.

3. Examine data.

   • Events like these can be a goldmine for data. For instance, your most engaged attendees are most likely to be your most promising leads. Tracking who attended what and how much they participated can give you insights into what your future events should focus on. If you move quickly enough, you can even leverage this data to make real-time adjustments and further optimize your event.

The Wrap and Follow Up

Of course, your efforts can’t stop once your event ends. There are several things you can do after the fact that will enhance the overall impression of your event.

1. Follow up promptly and thoroughly.

   • You want to ensure that you follow up with your attendees to express your gratitude and provide any promised resources, such as recordings of your event. Try to personalize these follow-ups based on what the attendee seemed most interested in. This will help reinforce your business as an attentive provider, one that is actively looking to assist them in following through with the lessons they learned.

2. Identify your leads and work to convert them.

   • Events can be great opportunities for lead generation, provided you stay involved with them. If you obtained permission to email them, send drip campaigns with your most relevant and valuable content on display. Once they’ve had the opportunity to review these materials (or, alternatively, if they seem not to have), reach out to schedule a one-on-one discussion to walk through what they learned and how they could benefit from it… with your help, of course.

3. Recycle the materials you used in your event.

   • After all the work you put into your event, it would hardly make sense to let all of the insights, content, and quotable moments go to waste. Instead, take the content from your event and tweak it into other lead-generating materials. Churn out some blog posts, social media posts, or even on-demand videos to extend your event’s impact.

Make Your Next Event as Impactful and Invaluable as Possible!

For any marketing event you host, whether it's an online webinar or an in-person event, it's crucial that you cultivate an audience to make the most of it.

If you aren’t sure how to go about it, we’re here to help! We specialize in providing marketing services and support, and helping plan an event falls nicely under this umbrella.

Learn more about our services by exploring the rest of our website, or give us a call at 888-546-4384! Alternatively, please fill out the form on this page so we know how to contact you.