Get More Value Out of Your Virtual Events and Webinars

Virtual events and webinars have been around for a while, but these digital meeting and online education spaces got a major boost in 2020—for reasons that are probably obvious. This presented a number of challenges and opportunities for businesses. As companies were forced to transition away from in-person events temporarily, they struggled with new technologies (such as video hosting and streaming platforms) as well as ways to raise awareness around these events.

But even though in-person events are back, it doesn’t mean the proverbial genie is going back in the bottle. Marketers and Salespeople love virtual events and webinars because:

• They’re inexpensive compared to in-person events,
• They offer new formats to instigate audience engagement,
• They increase brand awareness and educate the market,
• And they help identify opportunities for the Sales team based on consumption

But for every pro, there’s usually a con. Registering for an online event is a much lower commitment than in-person, meaning attendance rates are usually lower. And with the explosion of virtual events over the last two years plus general Zoom fatigue, there’s some serious competition for audience attention.

Smart revenue teams need comprehensive pre-event and post-event strategies to squeeze the most value out of their virtual events.

Let’s take a look at different ways your business can boost pre-event awareness and post-event follow-up to increase event ROI.

Pre-Event: Awareness, Attendance, and Appointments

The pre-event is all about driving awareness and attendance. Depending on the size of your intended audience, it’s most likely that outreach is conducted through a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP). Curated audiences or high-value leads or prospects might receive a personalized message from a Marketer or Sales Development Rep (SDR), but this is difficult to scale for hundreds or even thousands of would-be attendees.

This is where tools like Conversational Automation can make a significant impact. By scaling personalized, two-way conversations that invite contacts to a webinar or virtual event, businesses have the opportunity to better engage contacts than impersonal, mass-blast email campaigns.

Better yet, Conversation Automation solutions—like a Revenue Digital Assistant™—can preemptively ask would-be attendees if they have any questions that might be best answered by a Salesperson. If they do, the digital assistant will schedule a meeting and alert your Sales team.

Conversations driven by a Revenue Digital Assistant can work in tandem with regular Marketing Automation. This provides a scalable, personalized touch on top of regular marketing emails in much the same way that an SDR might follow up with a lead outside of your typical marketing outreach.

All of this means contacts are given the best awareness about upcoming virtual events and the opportunity to raise their hands if they need more attention from your team.

Post-Event: Next Steps Towards Acquiring Revenue

Post-event activities are just as important as pre-event activities. In the case of registrants who did not attend, this might be as simple as delivering them an on-demand recording link in a “sorry we missed you” email.

But to really squeeze additional value out of virtual events and webinars, you need to do more to actually move leads through the funnel.

This means connecting with attendees to see if they have questions, are interested in additional content, or would like to meet with a Salesperson.

Strategies like this perfectly meet your prospects’ needs no matter where they fall in the funnel—whether that’s more education for top-funnel contacts or someone to push them towards converting into a customer.

While SDRs do a great job of delivering these kinds of messages to a handful of contacts, scaling personalized outreach to thousands of contacts is impossible. Again, Conversation Automation makes a difference. By offloading repetitive outreach and two-way conversations to a Revenue Digital Assistant, SDRs and Salespeople can better focus on problem-solving, building relationships, and closing deals.

Maybe you’re already planning your next virtual event or webinar. Why not put your Marketing and Sales teams in the best position to drive revenue opportunities by adopting Conversica Revenue Digital Assistants?