Trade shows provide a great opportunity for small business owners in any industry to find major clients and expand their business. Unfortunately trade shows can be very expensive, time consuming and demanding making them an often difficult marketing tactic for small businesses to use.

The idea of virtual events has been around for many years, but it took the economic downturn of this year to bring on an explosion of growth in the virtual trend. More and more companies are starting to incorporate virtual events into their marketing budget—small businesses among them.

Besides the economy driving the popularity of virtual events, there are several other factors as well, according to Michael Westcott, Managing Director of the Event Marketing Institute.

“One is that technology has been refined to where it is easy to use and execute for both attendees and hosts,” Westcott said. “There is obviously also a lot of interest around the environmental benefits. Another thing is there is a greater interest today in finding new revenue streams and new ways for people to connect and collaborate. People are becoming more comfortable with that as a medium.”

Westcott added that virtual events are definitely a viable option for small businesses in a number of ways. “The price points are becoming within the reach of smaller organizations and companies,” he said. “They can often host their own event for a reasonable sum. As I mentioned before, many are using them as revenue generators. In the publishing industry, many small publishers are finding that they can be a whole new source of revenue for sponsorships and advertisers.”

According to a survey by ON24, a San Francisco-based virtual events company; there are many aspects of virtual events that participants find particularly appealing including:

• 75% appreciated that there is no travel required


• 64% liked that they can attend the virtual sessions on their own time schedules


• 58% found it useful to be able to “forward” virtual sessions to their colleagues that they thought would be on interest to them

More than one third of respondents cited the social networking benefits of virtual events, including the ability to see a list of all attendees in advance (35%); to contact other attendees online throughout the event (40%) and to get information on people (32%) and companies (34%) they meet electronically.

Another advantage to virtual events is that the quality of leads are higher and more cost-effective, according to Joerg Rathenberg, Marketing Executive at Unisfair, the leading provider of virtual events, virtual trade shows and online job fairs.

“In a virtual environment, everything is controlled,” he said. “From the moment a person signs on, every click is monitored. We can give you a report that will tell you things like how long they were signed on for, how many white papers they downloaded and which booths they visited. It generates sort of an electronic footprint so you don’t just get an empty lead.”

A typical virtual environment includes the main hall, which allows access to all the event locations and activities. Rathenberg said some of their customers use that as their home base and will give them pictures of their headquarters.

The exhibition hall hosts booths that you can organize into groups and each booth allows for live interaction with attendees. Another unique aspect is a virtual briefcase that participants can fill with presentations, information, and contacts and can be exported as a zip file at any time.

An area that is also very popular is the networking lounge that serves as a central meeting place among attendees. There, you can set up some predefined topics of chat and discussions.

Even though the economy will eventually improve and marketing budgets will again be plentiful, virtual events will see continued growth and it would be wise as a small business owner to take advantage of this amazing technology if you have the opportunity. —Lynn Celmer

EMI Executive Insights:

Top 10 Virtual Events Best Practices

1. Its Still an Event! Begin your virtual event planning with a clear strategy and goals; a virtual event requires just as much thought, planning and effort as a physical event on the front end.

2. Standalone or Hybrid? Decide whether or not your virtual event will be an extension of an existing physical event or a new, independent program. While a virtual event can educate, engage and create new space for customers, channel partners or employee groups, they will never replace a handshake or direct look in the eye.

3. Audience First, Always. Identify and segment your target audience, understand your audience’s pain-points, needs and motivations.

4. Off-the-Shelf Product or Technology Partner? The provider you pick should be willing to work with you throughout the planning, development, sales and implementation process, beginning with in-depth discussions about your marketing objectives and including training for all appropriate staff.

5. Make Marketing Motivating. Map your promotional campaigns the same as you would a physical event based on compelling content, emphasizing keynote speakers, session topics and sponsors.

6. Build Relationships Over Time. Keep the upfront registration process simple by asking registrants only for basic “business card” information, i.e., name, title, company, address, e-mail and phone number. It will be easy enough to collect deeper attendee data later at the virtual event through networking and matchmaking tools, as well as through pre- and post-event polls and surveys.

7. Content Drives Community. Make the event content motivating and relevant to your audience and minimize the marketing pitches that some speakers will inevitably try to present.

8. Keep Their Attention. Schedule a virtual event like a physical event, BUT keep session times a bit shorter than live experiences to reduce drop-off and distractions and leaving enough time between sessions to encourage attendees to visit the exhibit hall and network with exhibitors and other attendees.

9. Measure, Analyze and Apply the wealth of data that is available from a virtual event. Key metrics include the number of registrants vs. attendees, downloads, chat sessions, sponsor revenue (if appropriate), leads generated and sales initiated or closed. Behavioral metrics should include where each attendee went and how much time they spent at each session or booth, what questions they asked, what interactions they initiated, and what and how many materials they downloaded.

10. Continuous Improvement. Act upon your data analysis to better understand your customers’ needs and help you identify specific measures to improve and set goals for future virtual events that you host or participate in.

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