Setting up a virtual event, including webinars, conferences, training, workshops, and more

In many sit­u­a­tions, it’s more appro­pri­ate to organ­ise an event that is 100% online as opposed to in per­son, and this is a trend we have observed among organ­is­ers who use Weezevent. Tech­no­log­i­cal tools are now devel­oped enough to allow you to eas­i­ly organ­ise dif­fer­ent types of events online. Here are our tips for get­ting start­ed in organ­is­ing vir­tu­al events with a sol­id foun­da­tion, cov­er­ing webi­na­rs, con­fer­ences, train­ing, work­shops, and more.

Sum­ma­ry

1. Know the advan­tages, dis­ad­van­tages and pre­req­ui­sites
2. Man­age your online reg­is­tra­tions
3. Pro­pose a pay-what-you-want option
4. Com­mu­ni­cate the link to your vir­tu­al event
5. Re-empha­sise impor­tant infor­ma­tion
6. Con­stant­ly rein­vent your event
7. Find new part­ners
8. Main­tain con­tact between each event

1. Know the advantages, disadvantages and prerequisites

No room rental fees, reg­is­tra­tions are made acces­si­ble in all 4 cor­ners of the world, a wider poten­tial tar­get audi­ence… the argu­ments in favour of organ­is­ing vir­tu­al events are many. The most appeal­ing of them is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of attract­ing atten­dees in a very direct way: you can redi­rect your audi­ence to your reg­is­tra­tion site (see point 2) with online adver­tis­ing or spe­cialised con­tent. You can even track the con­ver­sion rate of your com­mu­ni­ca­tions (see point 8). This is a far cry from the con­ven­tion­al means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion involved in most events, such as adver­tis­ing in local venues with­out track­ing con­ver­sions, which can lead to poten­tial inef­fi­cien­cies in com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, organ­is­ing a vir­tu­al event requires an inter­est in dig­i­tal tools. First, you need to down­load and con­fig­ure a video­con­fer­ence soft­ware pro­gram — e.g. Zoom, Skype, Slack — with the nec­es­sary options, includ­ing a chat win­dow, file send­ing, etc. You will also require a good inter­net con­nec­tion and you’ll need to have enough charis­ma to run an event of this kind. For begin­ners, it’s bet­ter to start with small groups in order to gain con­fi­dence.

2. Manage your online registrations

To car­ry out online reg­is­tra­tions for your vir­tu­al event, you can cre­ate an event with Weezevent in just a few clicks in order to pub­lish a reg­is­tra­tion mod­ule on your own site or on a ded­i­cat­ed mini-site. This will ensure that your atten­dees ben­e­fit from a smooth and secure reg­is­tra­tion expe­ri­ence. On your side, the advan­tage is the abil­i­ty to gath­er key infor­ma­tion on your audi­ence, allow­ing you to bet­ter under­stand them and improve your future events.

3. Propose a pay-what-you-want option

Dif­fer­ent peo­ple will per­ceive the val­ue of a vir­tu­al ser­vice in dif­fer­ent ways. It may there­fore be use­ful to pro­pose a pay-what-you-want option for your webi­na­rs, con­fer­ences, work­shops, etc., espe­cial­ly if you are a begin­ner. This will help you to under­stand what your ser­vice is worth in the eyes of your atten­dees. You can then set a defin­i­tive price if you wish, in addi­tion to improv­ing your ser­vices to increase their per­ceived val­ue.

4. Communicate the link to your virtual event

All those who reg­is­ter for your event via your mod­ule auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive a con­fir­ma­tion email with legal infor­ma­tion, includ­ing the organiser’s email and address, the date of the event, etc. Add the link to your vir­tu­al event and prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion in order to reas­sure and guide your atten­dees. Do your utmost to ensure they attend on the day.

5. Re-emphasise important information

With Weez­Tar­get, our email­ing and mar­ket­ing tool, send all those reg­is­tered the steps to fol­low, as well as the link to your vir­tu­al event, around 1 hour before the event starts. Since your reg­is­tra­tion mod­ule is direct­ly linked to Weez­Tar­get, there is noth­ing else you need to do.

Tip: At the begin­ning of your vir­tu­al event, check the atten­dees with their first and last names by going to your Weezevent inter­face, then Appli­ca­tions > Access con­trol > Access lists > Actions [Name of your event] > Start tick­et val­i­da­tion. You can then tick the box­es cor­re­spond­ing to the peo­ple present and work out your atten­dance rate.

6. Constantly reinvent your event

This can’t be repeat­ed enough: an event must con­stant­ly rein­vent itself in order to avoid decline. Organ­is­ing vir­tu­al events is a good way to inno­vate, pro­vid­ed you do so fre­quent­ly in terms of con­tent and form: find new sub­jects, invite inter­na­tion­al speak­ers, run the event dif­fer­ent­ly with inter­ac­tive for­mats, and so on. The only lim­it is your imag­i­na­tion!

It’s very easy to think that all you need to do is repli­cate a face-to-face event to make it hap­pen online, but don’t fall into this trap. A vir­tu­al expe­ri­ence is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent to a face-to-face gath­er­ing. Inter­ac­tions must be all the more present, with ques­tions and answers, games, or oppor­tu­ni­ties to share expe­ri­ences. For instance, if you’re organ­is­ing webi­na­rs or work­shops on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, show the office you’re using for remote work­ing and what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s all about pro­vid­ing some­thing to inter­est your atten­dees to ensure that they ben­e­fit from your vir­tu­al event.

Tip: The best way to boost your reg­is­tra­tions is to sched­ule a keynote speak­er from your sec­tor of activ­i­ty. Their renown will attract a large num­ber of peo­ple, and you can nego­ti­ate a low­er fee than would apply to an event requir­ing them to trav­el.

7. Find new partners

Organ­is­ing an online event can allow you to cre­ate a new net­work of part­ners. By spon­sor­ing your­self through online adver­tis­ing on plat­forms such as Insta­gram, YouTube and Face­book, the knock-on effects will be ben­e­fi­cial for them as well: the part­ner will gain greater vis­i­bil­i­ty through con­tent that is sep­a­rate to their adver­tis­ing for their prod­ucts, or they could acquire an image of a mod­ern com­pa­ny keen to col­lab­o­rate with inno­v­a­tive events. As for you, you will also have more vis­i­bil­i­ty and there­fore more reg­is­tra­tions for your event.

8. Maintain contact between each event

Vir­tu­al events are not incom­pat­i­ble with face-to-face events. Indeed, they pro­vide a use­ful addi­tion­al way to address dif­fer­ent themes, encour­age peo­ple to get togeth­er, and so on. They also allow you to eas­i­ly keep in touch between two face-to-face events — which are more dif­fi­cult to organ­ise. Even so, the vir­tu­al link will nev­er be as strong as a face-to-face link, unless it is recur­rent and reg­u­lar — a meet­ing, in short.

So, between each of your vir­tu­al events, engage in dis­cus­sions with your atten­dees by ask­ing them what they like about your con­tent, what they’d like to talk about next time, and so on. With Weez­Tar­get, you can eas­i­ly seg­ment the mes­sages you send and sim­pli­fy your life. In just a few clicks, send attrac­tive mes­sages to the right peo­ple, at the right time, and via the right chan­nel, be it email, social net­works, etc. You can even track the num­ber of reg­is­tra­tions and the turnover gen­er­at­ed by each cam­paign in real time.

You have all the tools you need to lay a sol­id foun­da­tion for your future online events. Dis­cov­er all of Weezevent’s fea­tures and effort­less­ly col­lect reg­is­tra­tions by click­ing on the but­ton below:

Launch reg­is­tra­tions