21 Dec How to create an interactive virtual event

How to give your virtual events that special touch, and create a great interactive virtual event environment and user experience? And here I’m talking way beyond virtual backgrounds. In that case, it’s a good idea to have a possibility to use a professional service provider. They will make you and your event stand out, and your audience will be more than satisfied.

Virtual events branding

Branding in a virtual environment is important as one for live events. At first sight, it might seem different, but some basics of event branding apply to the virtual world as well.

The main goal of virtual events branding is managing and influencing the reputation of an event to attract attendees and sponsors to increase event revenue. In the virtual world, once you have the name of the event, you can focus on features as logo, colors, images, the tone of the events, and communication through key messages. To be able to implement all of your brandings it’s good to choose the right event app where all of it will work for you, your event, and your audience.

How to prepare for the interactive virtual event

Attention span during virtual events is one of the things to be carefully managed. With careful planning and neat organization, you will easily accomplish your goals. One of the first steps is to choose a virtual event experience platform. You want to create a smooth virtual experience for your audience. Meaning you want to have a single source where all the activities from registration to networking are coved and where you can easily update event details.

The next step is to prepare all the info about the event. You need it all in a format that supports the virtual event experience platform:

Create the line-up

Write all the automated messages for your attendees (from registration to following up after the event has finished)

Prepare all the presentations of your speakers

Create polls and surveys for interactivity and attendees feedback

Plan some time for Q&A sessions

Create virtual exhibition space for your event partners and sponsors

Brief your moderator and technical support about the event scenario

When you implement all of this correctly, your attendees will not have to hunt for event information across different pages. They will have all of the information organized in one single place. And would gladly come back and attend more of your events.

How to organize virtual education in travel and tourism

When I started to think about my virtual education for the travel and tourism industry, I wanted to create a pretty surrounding and interactive virtual event. It was the time when most of us were tired of Zoom experiences (nevertheless it saved us when we needed it the most). I had a feeling like I’m looking for a new venue for my event. And I found it!

Eventrify and their empl.io virtual event experience platform was the right choice. With a great technical solution, I’ve got great customer service. Their team introduced me to all the platform’s benefits and helped me on the way to having a successful set of educational webinars, ie. tourism product.

In the beginning, I was a bit skeptical if this would work for me. Then I started to explore all the possibilities. And I realized that even an educational event of only two hours has a huge amount of content that can be presented through the platform.

Basic steps for organizing an educational virtual event

One of the first things I determined was my goals and key messages. Then I created a banner with basic event info. The next step was to write the event description and to create all email templates. They are very helpful in leading a conversation with your attendees and giving them the right message at the right time. Here you can use let’s say a classic approach:

One email after they register for the event with instructions to log into the platform

Another email with all the event details 

Then an email one day before or/and on the day of the event

And finally thank you email after the event

This is a basic framework that works in most cases. Depending on the type and the size of the event you might need to adjust it to your special needs. 

And then I planned polls. My goal with polls was to engage the audience after each caption. In that way my education was dynamic. I had a chance to take short breaks. And what is most important, I created a meaningful dialog with my audience and helped them to stay focused and feel included. The same type of interaction I used at the end of the event when asking for feedback about my education. During the whole event, the chat was very active as well. 

Exhibition space for interactive virtual event

My education was sponsored and I used the opportunity to create a virtual exhibition space.

I just loved the possibility to give my sponsors a place where I can promote them with a dedicated exhibit booth area with a direct call to action. To promote your partners and sponsors in the right way you’ll need some basics of digital branding. And you’ll need some meaningful written content, pictures, presentations, and video materials. 

Why do you need technical production and support for your virtual event

When you have all your content ready for your interactive virtual event it’s time to brief your technical production and support about the event’s dynamic. Your technical production and support are important as they can save major issues that might happen during the event like some issues with live streaming. Even if you are organizing a webinar. Most of the time you might have a feeling you can do most of it by yourself. Believe me when I say that you want to be focused on your audience and your content, not on the technical side.  

Record your virtual event

What if your audience can’t attend the event, but they registered? In the case of Eventrify attendees can watch a recording as long as you let them. I left it open for everyone who registered for one week, and the results were amazing. After following up around 20% of registered watched the event at some other time. And at the very end, I had more attendees than I thought.

Collect powerful data of your interactive virtual event

And last but not least the platform has a dashboard with analytics for collecting powerful data. This feature enabled me to deliver a detailed report with attendees’ activities to my client. Besides basic presentation who registered and attended the event, I also presented their activities in the exhibition area. In the end, everyone was happy. Attendees were happy as some of them could watch content at their own time. Partners and sponsors were happy as their message went to almost every attendee. And I was happy as I got positive feedback not only on organization and content but also on the whole appearance of my education for travel and tourism.

The whole experience with the Eventrify team and their virtual event experience platform was positive. I’m aware that due to the size of my event, I didn’t use all of the platform’s features like networking, monetization, or some integrations. But when I’d plan a bigger virtual or hybrid event, I know who I’m talking to.