The coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in virtual events, which have become more widespread as a result. There has been an exponential surge in virtual exhibitions and virtual trade fairs as huge physical meetings have been completely stopped since the outbreak of the epidemic. At first, a virtual show appears to be a risk for exhibitors because of the new event format and technology’s involvement. Though virtual event formats have their advantages, they’ve taken advantage of virtual event technologies as a result. If you intend to participate, you should plan.
Exhibitors and spectators benefit significantly from online exhibitions, which provide many advantages over traditional shows. With internet connectivity, institutions can showcase their products and services. Visitors and exhibitors alike benefit from the advantages of online exhibitions. Hence, let us discuss a few advantages of hosting trade shows digitally!
Advantages of Virtual Trade Shows
There are many advantages of virtual trade shows. Some of them are:
Generate More Leads
Using a virtual booth allows you to reach a wider audience. Your virtual booth may be accessed from anywhere in the world with just a few mouse clicks. It’sIt’s all done for them; they don’t have to pay for travel, paperwork, or lodging. You can expect a high number of visitors to your virtual booths because they can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Because of this, people can visit your booth as often as they like once it’s online.
The more individuals you have in your booth, the more likely you are to generate leads.
Increases The Brand’sBrand’s Recall Value
Virtual exhibitions allow people to relive their experiences in vivid detail. In the world of events and exhibitions, the idea of a virtual exhibition is novel and exciting. Online exhibitions use 3D virtual environments to immerse visitors, a new and advanced way of engaging with them. Users can interact with virtual exhibitions in a variety of ways, including:
- Move around the booth in a virtual world.
- Engage with a wide range of different things.
- Communicate with a virtual representation and receive information in the form of the ich media material.
This experience may aid in the retention and recall of your brand.
Enhances The Sales Experience
By incorporating an immersive, dynamic, and engaging user experience, virtual booths can completely transform the way people connect with brands. Individuals may navigate within the virtual booth using their pointing devices, which provides a 360-degree experience. With a few mouse clicks, they can then interact with various parts of the virtual booth. They can check out a product on display, peruse numerous documents, or engage with a representative within the virtual exhibition setting.
Always Open For Business
It is possible to host virtual booths at any time. Virtual booths are available 24/7, so people who couldn’t make it to your live event may still view it. The best part about virtual booths is that your audience can watch you the same way on a television setup, a phone, or a laptop as they would have had they attended traditional trade shows. A virtual exhibition booth is like a live display that is open 24/7. Visitors to your virtual exhibit represent potential customers. To enhance lead conversion rates and ensure a smooth experience, exhibitors should develop a customer service team that can assist visitors at any time of day.
Increased Brand Exposure
There is a longer lifespan for virtual trade fairs than there is for physical events and trade shows. How do you explain it? In contrast to a physical one, a virtual conference can go on for as many days as you choose. With the right virtual trade show platform, you can extend the live show for as long as you want. You can also set a days limit for the events on-demand. You can opt for the events to be available for a period of either 15 days, 30 days, or 3-6 months. You can also choose to have permanent access to booths, papers, presentations, films, etc.
Whether the trade shows happen in an offline or online setup, the most important is marketing the trade show. If your trade show were offline, marketing would have been a lot more different than now, when the trade show has shot online. However, virtual events are not as easy as they look. They need a lot of comprehensive planning and implementation to achieve what they wish to accomplish.
Having put immense effort into getting the trade shows right, why should you not concentrate on marketing? There has never been a better time to make use of technology than now!
Create Event Page
The first thing that you need to do is create awareness about the event’s existence. To start with an effective marketing approach, you will first need to create a page about your event on various social media platforms and a landing page on your website that will show your audience, specifically a page that talks just about the event. A landing page will help you accomplish 2 crucial things:
- The attendees of the trade show will know about the event’s purpose, who the speakers are, the event’s schedule, and the various activities.
- Your landing page will also aid in getting maximum people to sign up for the event by filling the event registration form on the landing page.
Use SEO to your Advantage.
SEO is an important aspect of any marketing strategy, especially if you’re targeting an organic reach. SEO helps in ranking your website on top of the web search results. Hence, to get your website with your landing page feature on top of the search engine results, you must use SEO strategies to make sure that your website is more visible amongst others.
- Conduct keyword research and use those keywords effectively and naturally in the content of your landing page.
- Write more blogs relevant to your virtual event and what your audience would like to read. Include relevant and well-researched keywords in your blogs so that you can rank for those particular keywords on the search engine results.
Email Marketing
Next, you’ll want to take advantage of your existing email list. In your email builder, create an eye-catching HTML event invitation that you can send to your mailing list to encourage them to attend. This list will allow you to quickly and easily market to those who have expressed an interest in your product or service.
But how should the correspondence be formatted? From the start, you want your audience to be enthralled. This calls for attention-grabbing headlines, lively content, and pertinent images. You can also attach images of your speakers and exhibitor logos. Including all of these will make your email a delight for your customers.
Social Media Ads And Contests
Social media, when used wisely and smartly, can yield great results. In today’s world, hardly anyone doesn’t browse through the various social media platforms. In such a case, running paid advertisements on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram can prove highly beneficial as more and more people would know about it through paid ads.
You can also run contests as people usually enjoy the content that engages them and amuses them. Hence, if you want to gather your audience’s attention, think of innovative and unique ideas to engage them via contests.
Leverage Your Sponsor
If you were successful in convincing sponsors to promote your virtual event, you should consider how you might partner with them to speed your marketing efforts. After all, it is also in their best interests that the virtual event draws in the appropriate audiences to achieve their sponsorship objectives.
Promote the virtual event on your sponsors’ websites, social media platforms, and any other digital material that they are creating.
Send emails to their list of subscribers or publish a guest post on their site if they permit you to do so.
Again, you must collaborate closely with them to ensure that the message is received correctly. The more effective the copy of the marketing content that they push, the better the results will be in the long run.
Press Release
PR is a great way to get your message out to a wide audience. If you want your audience to know all about your virtual events that are mostly B2B in nature, a press release at the right time can be of great help!
Keep in mind that effective messaging is important while writing your press release. Make clear what the event is about, who it’s aimed at, and when it will take place. You also need to highlight any sponsors or speakers who are going to be present at the event. As the last point, make sure you link your landing page to a relevant place in your write-up.
With online press releases, readers and journalists may also share them on social media, allowing you to take maximum benefit of the press release while also gaining good exposure at the same time.
Reminders
Once all your strategies and plans are in place, the next is to set reminders for all of them. Remind yourself what you need to do to engage and invite maximum people to attend your show. You need to also remind your audience through various channels that your show is coming up, and they must register for the same if they haven’t yet!
Conclusion
Trade shows, when organized well, virtually can reap the same benefits as traditional ones. All you have to do is leverage technology in the right way and use it to benefit you! The pandemic has moved not just humans but businesses online as well. Therefore, it is definitely possible to find all your target audiences online, perhaps waiting for you to get those advertisements up and running!