Solving online events’ most common ROI-affecting challenge

The sudden tilt toward online events during the first half of 2020 triggered an onslaught of digital and virtual event solutions of wildly varying degrees of usefulness. What actually works?

What works of course depends on what challenges you’re addressing. So let’s approach the question by reviewing some common ROI-affecting challenges to reaching customers online, and offering proven ideas to solve them.

Challenge 1: Nobody’s coming

Online events aren’t limited by time and space constraints, and attendees can join in from wherever they happen to be. On the other hand, online events won’t inherently grab the attention of potential attendees either. To get your online space bustling, you’ll not only need to let the right people know about it, but get them excited about it.

Better audience segmentation: Understand why your brand is connecting with its target audience and focus on the data points relevant to that, rather than on traditional demographic parameters like age groups and locations. This should set the tone for a successful event strategy. Event strategists should also balance content with context to achieve the desired engagement outcomes.

Well-planned pre-event promo: The idea is to build anticipation with a hint of the fascinating, highly relevant content and fresh experiences attendees can expect. When done in an engaging way, it will keep your upcoming event on their minds and convince them to stay tuned.

A recent virtual press conference by Global-Link MP provides an example. Global-Link MP is a leader in trade events in the Philippines, and organises a number of offline shows in the region every year. A highlight of this year was their launch of VX Events, a new business division aiming to pivot traditional offline events to virtual while allowing buyers and sellers to stay connected.

To that end, Global-Link MP needed to convince their offline tradeshow audience to go online. Therefore, their virtual press conference hammered home the potential of VX Events with impressive demos of virtual exhibition hall and speaker-attendee dialogue. It wowed the audience with a clear picture of what to expect from online events and showed them to be a sound long-term proposition.

Challenge 2: Nobody’s staying

Online events are as easy to leave as they are to join – it just takes one click. Typically, online events will suffer a high drop-off rate if they offer too little audience communication and engagement. Experiences that keep your target audience stays vital and refreshed is the key.

Relevancy is key. Make sure you provide your target audience with relevant, engaging content that can naturally attract your audience. The more targeted it is, the easier for them to stay and engage with your information.

One example of this is the OMEN Underground virtual livestream event, which featured a live video game 'face-off’ between professional skateboarders as its centrepiece. The face-off was irresistible to the young gaming community – precisely the market this gaming laptop brand of HP wanted to reach.

Incentivising attendees also goes a long way to keeping them in your space. The incentives could be anything from unlisted download links to event materials and deliveries of special event kits, to various giveaways. OMEN Underground’s livestream notably featured an OMEN product giveaway that helped generate 4,600 engagements for this one-day event.

Injecting interactivity or gamification into your event is a very direct way of keeping attendees interested and engaged. Live polls, comment boxes, Q&A sessions and games can also be useful in gauging whether the experience, content and format of engagement are effective in real time, allowing the host to manage expectations continuously.

A recent webinar by Pico further proved that a certain level of interactivity affects ROI. The live chat encouraged questions from attendees and aimed at 'leaving no question unanswered’. It saw a drop-off rate of just 20% - a good result by industry standards. More than 60% of participants said they appreciated their webinar experience, driving referrals for potential cooperation.

 

Manage your content wisely: It’s important to note that overcommunication can also drive away attendees in droves. Piling it on may result in a long event that will leave your audience drained. So how do you get the balance right? If you have lots of content to share, it can be best to distribute it across digital platforms with an integrated ecosystem. These should offer an established reach, bespoke media for engagement, and practical help in driving the path-to-purchase.

Challenge 3: Nobody knows what works

Online platforms collect a vast range of audience data. It can be a huge challenge to digest it all – and even harder to dig out actionable insights for ROI measurement and strategy optimisation.

Know beforehand which specific data matters to your ROI - whether it pertains to the diversity of your audience, the sales generated by the event, or both. Knowing what you need in advance will also enable you to blend the appropriate data collection points into the audience journey, in the form of interactive features and content.

Don’t forget attendee sentiment: Apart from hard numerical data, emotional data can reveal what really matters to online audiences and generate valuable actionable insights for future digital engagements. Online events can paint a picture of attendees’ emotional experiences via collection points such as buttons for emoticon reactions, comment boxes and post-event surveys. Facial recognition tools can also be very useful in revealing precise sentiments.

As demand for impactful, engaging, memorable online events grows, so does the need for the expertise and tools to deliver them. Pico Virtuosity provides hugely customisable digital and virtual solutions that bring core competencies of experiential design, brand engagement and digital enablement into a borderless digital world, allowing businesses to continue effective dialogue with consumers in the current environment of uncertainty.

Read our COVID-19 Impact Report for more insights and actionable advice.