You’re ready to host a virtual event, now what?

 

Whether by choice or necessity, field marketers and internal corporate event producers are launching virtual events because they break free from the physical constraints of in-person events and allow you to target prospects from anywhere in the world. Not only that, but the barrier to attendance is low since people don’t have to travel or pay for flights and accommodation to attend.

But hosting a virtual event is only 50% of the process – getting people to attend and providing content that genuinely resonates with your audience is arguably even more important. What’s the point of hosting an event if it’s poorly attended or loses the attention of attendees. Without a flashy venue or the promise of networking, flawed positioning, targeting and content has nowhere to hide.

This is exactly why we’ve put together our proprietary Marketing Optimisation for Virtual Events (MOVE) methodology to help you attract the right audience to your virtual event. It’s not just about getting registrations, it’s also about getting your audience to show up on the day – which as you probably already know, is a challenge for free events both on and offline.

Send me my guide to MOVE!

Why you need to MOVE your Virtual Event

The digital landscape has changed over the last few months and marketing a virtual event isn’t as easy as it used to be:

Increased Competition

Whether you’re in tech, finance or cybersecurity, the harsh reality is your virtual event probably isn’t unique. You need to make your event stand out as the event your target audience must attend.  

Position

Position your event so that it resonates with your different target personas.

Reaching Beyond Your Database 

Virtual events allow you to attract a larger number of your ideal event prospects, but from OUTSIDE your CRM. 50% of your attendees should be NEW, unknown prospects, but how do you reach them?

Target

Get the right message in front of the relevant personas and entice them to click through.

Converting To Registration

With so much choice available to them, your target audience needs a compelling reason to commit to registering for your virtual event even if your event’s value doesn’t resonate with them.

Convert

Improve your UX to increase the number of website / landing page visitors that convert.

Attendee
No Shows
 

Virtual events are known for their high number of no shows. MOVE shifts the focus from simply increasing registrations to counter the drop off to keeping attendees engaged after they register.

Tune

Keep registrants engaged with relevant content and remind them why they registered.

What is MOVE exactly?

I’m so glad you asked! As you’ve probably gathered so far, MOVE stands for Marketing Optimisation for Virtual Events. It’s a 360-degree marketing methodology that guides virtual event marketers through a structured process to help them increase the volume and improve the quality of attendees through a series of % wins:

  • Getting a higher % of the right people to your website or landing page
  • Getting a higher % of people who visit your website or landing page to register
  • Reducing the % of “no shows” who fail to attend your event

Every % win increases your virtual event’s attendee figures exponentially.

Move Guide

Position

Effectively conveying your event’s USPs to each target persona.

Target

Targeting personas and accounts across the web.

Convert

Optimising landing pages for conversion & keeping registrants engaged. 

Tune

Using past event delivery to improve on the marketing of future events. 

While each of these quads can be focused on individually, they’re most effective when implemented together.

Learn how to attract the right attendees to your virtual event with MOVE

Whether your event is at the light bulb, ready-to-roll or too-few-registrations-panic stage, MOVE can help you get attendees.

For the first time ever, we’re making our proprietary virtual event marketing methodology available to the public, to help you market your virtual event effectively.

“The Social Effect has challenged our views and proved that we had B2B marketing opportunities in areas we would not have explored… We work with The Social Effect to drive visitors, convert pre-registrations to visitors, create buzz and drive traffic to our events from multiple social media channels.”

– Rob Sherwood (MD, Messe Frankfurt)