Enable Social Distancing by Taking your Business Online During COVID-19

Your business must go on.

But in what may be the start of a new normal for companies worldwide, your workforce is likely remote to prevent transmission of the COVID-19 virus. 

The good news: you’re not alone.  Globally, employers are implementing social distancing practices at the workplace. These include reducing the number of employees in the office, asking employees to work from home, prohibiting access to common areas within offices, restricting office visitors, and using virtual environments for communication and collaboration.

And even better news: there’s a wide variety of tools and technology to help virtualize office environments and enable teams to continue to work well collaboratively and simultaneously.  A 6Connex Sales War Room, for example, is a fantastic virtual environment that allows sales leaders to check in anytime, anywhere to a digital command center that tracks real-time progress to goals for every business segment.  Teams worldwide receive continuous deal updates and alerts, in addition to having access to an easy, virtual way to collaborate on sales activities such as scenario modeling.

Other tools, such as e-Learning, are perfect for training internal teams or customer user groups alike.  At 6Connex, our e-Learning environment is user-friendly, easy to set up, and most importantly, available across a wide variety of devices and operating systems to ensure everyone on every device has equal access.  Attendees receive real-time feedback during their training course, and management can get up-to-date analyses on how courses are performing, as well as track the progress of individual participants.

And on a day-in, day-out basis, companies can’t beat live event streaming as an online alternative to in-person conferences and meetings.  In fact, virtual events,with deliberate planning and excellent facilitation, can be very effective, and 6Connex has been working with customers worldwide to move various AGMs, stakeholder meetings, conferences, and business events online.  While the obvious benefit is that these meetings have been able to take place as scheduled, many of our customers have also been pleased to discover that in moving their events to a digital format, there are ancillary advantages including:

  • Increased attendance
  • Improved engagement
  • New and creative opportunities for brand promotion
  • Automatic creation of Videos on Demand (VOD)

So if you, like many, are promoting social distancing and transitioning the meetings and events on your calendar to digital formats, here are three best practices to keep in mind:

1.     Pick the right solution.

Virtual events can take many different forms, and the right virtual event provider will have multiple solutions from which to choose.  For example, are you hosting a meeting?  An event?  A training program?  When you’re planning an online event, think about what you want your user experience to look like.

Webinars

If you expect attendees to mostly just listen, a webinar is probably your best option.  A webinar format is similar to a lecture or presentation. They’re ideal for sharing content with large audiences and may be open to the public. Typically, webinar attendees do not interact with one another. Though 6Connex provides features like a Q&A and polling to enable additional engagement, your average webinar adopts a ratio of one or two speakers to many attendees.

Virtual Events

On the flip side, if you’re inviting a large audience and you’re expecting more back and forth communication between them, a virtual event might be the better option.  With a virtual event, you can host interactive sessions and invite lots of audience participation.  You can even create an event environment with various “break out rooms,” where participants are assigned to virtual side sessions and can then reconvene for a main meeting.   

Video Conferences

A web-based video conference most closely resembles a face-to-face meeting and is likely appropriate when the main purpose of your event is real-time, internal communication and collaboration.  Participants can connect to the video conference from their desktop or device, and all participants can see and hear each other.  Video conferencing is most useful for board meetings, company announcements, and team meetings where it’s critical for participants to see each other, present, and work as a group efficiently.

e-Learning

And if the goal of your meeting or event is training, then an e-Learning platform is probably the way to go.  With e-Learning, you’re recreating the classroom environment, complete with characteristics like instructor-student interaction, Q&As, discussions, games, collaborative projects, quizzes, etc., but the instruction takes place online.

2. Be Prepared

Let’s face it: this is a best practice for any meeting regardless of whether it’s taking place in person or online.  Create an agenda for your virtual meeting or event and distribute it in advance.  (Tip: include it in the calendar invite.) If you’re new to virtual meetings and you’re using a virtual platform for the first time, be sure to take it out for a test drive and make sure there aren’t any connectivity issues. Also, be considerate of attendees’ different time zones and schedule the event at a time that’s reasonable for all participants.  The goal is to host an effective event, and if you take time to prepare, chances are your attendees will be prepared as well and you’ll maximize your event ROI.

3. Utilize Interactive Features

No matter which platform you use or event format you choose, be sure to take advantage of all of the engagement features that come with it.  For webinars, virtual events, and e-Learning in particular, tools such as chat boxes, Q&As, polls, and more are not only well received by attendees, but they allow you to track participation data so you can see how well your audience is responding to the digital format.  And with social distancing required in some states for at least the next three weeks, this data will enable you to improve your digital events for the longer-term.

Options in the Wake of Coronavirus

While in-person interactions and meetings greatly contribute toward building relationships and fostering collaboration, virtual environments can go a long way to replicating this while still enforcing social distancing, whether the goal is internal communication, sharing thought leadership, or training new employees (because some of us are still hiring!).

Still have questions? Contact a 6Connex product specialist to learn about our online event consulting services or get a demo today!

The fierce competition for attention in today’s virtual world makes it all the more important for businesses to scout out fresh ideas that will help them engage with their prospective clients.

Many marketers have picked up on the new valuable trend of hosting virtual summits: An educational, webinar-like event growing in popularity among organizations for their amazing lead generating abilities.

Before blindly running off to host your own virtual event, we’ve set up a virtual summit checklist of top mistakes to avoid from an experienced virtual veteran so that you’ll end up getting the most bang for your buck.

What is a Virtual Summit?

If you are wondering “what is a virtual summit?”, then read this next part.

Virtual summits are akin to physical events (keynote speakers, seminars, networking, etc.) only they are held in virtual environments, accessible from anywhere in the world with a WiFi connection. Check out this physical vs. virtual events infographic for more details.

Virtual events can help businesses gain authority in their industry and increase ROI for digital demand generation, and advances in virtual summit software have made it extremely easy to run your own.

Hosting online conferences can seem daunting at first, but if you find a virtual summit platform with a team that offers 24/7 support and guidance throughout the process, you’ll quickly discover that it’s easier than you think.

For a more in-depth look at planning your own virtual summit, download our free e-book.

planning a virtual summit

Before You Begin: 6 Costly Mistakes to Avoid

The best way to learn is by doing! Lucky for us, we know a virtual pioneer who has paved the path for us.

Kara Widdison, Marketing Manager at SnapApp, is our 6Connex case study subject for this article. She sat down with us in our own virtual theatre to go over lessons learned through her experience running a virtual summit.

virtual summit examples

SnapApp Innovation Marketing Virtual Event with 6Connex Virtual Event Software

This is her virtual summit checklist of the top 6 things to avoid when hosting a virtual summit.

virtual summit tips for success

1. Don’t Leave Everything Until the Last Minute

In our meeting, Kate shares that “timing is everything” and that you should plan for a virtual summit well in advance.

She recommends planning 2-3 months before a summit so that you can have plenty of time to get everything in order.

There is much to think about when planning a virtual summit so make sure to give yourself enough wiggle room for anything you might have missed or for any problems that might come up. Kate recommends having everything set up a week before the actual summit.

Not only will you thank yourself later for organizing everything ahead of time, but so will your partners and sponsors for the extra time they will have to get their presentations ready.

2. Don’t Make Sessions Too Long

People’s attention spans seem to be getting shorter by the second. I mean this quite literally!

If you want participants to stick until the end of a session and be engaged throughout the entire conference, cap session durations at 20 minutes max. Attendees generally stay in sessions between 10 and 20 minutes so try not to push this limit.

If speakers are worried about getting enough information in their talks, they can always add resources to complement their sessions in the virtual platform!

3. Don’t Choose Sponsors That Offer the Same Services

Kara pointed out the importance of finding and securing virtual event sponsors that complement each other rather than compete with each other.

You don’t want sponsors pitted against one another during your conference, so make sure you find ones that offer different kinds of services.

Be strategic with the sponsors you bring on. Think about any partners you currently have or integrations you have with different products and leverage those in your summit to reach out to an audience you “already know matches your ideal lead”.

4. Don’t Pitch Your Virtual Audience

There is nothing more awkward than hearing an unwanted pitch during what you thought was a no-strings-attached session. Although speakers might want to highlight their own services, the general rule is to avoid pitching to your audience during a session.

There is a time and a place for everything and you should use the different capabilities in a virtual platform to pitch to attendees when appropriate.

Here is an example of an appropriate way to do this:

In the 6Connex virtual event platform, you can do this by offering prospect sections and customer-focused sections in different spaces in your online summit. Attendees can actively go to inquire about features, instead of being forced to listen to a sales pitch.

5. Don’t Forget About The Value of Current Customers

An additional tip Kara mentioned in our virtual meeting was to not forget the value of current customers in demand generation.

But what does that mean?

Virtual summits offer the perfect place to keep engaging with customers by offering them more resources and value in a convenient way. Make sure your virtual platform has the tools that make this convenience possible.

6. Don’t Choose The Wrong Virtual Summit Platform

Many businesses make the mistake of choosing a virtual platform that doesn’t fit their needs.

That is why it is important to evaluate different virtual platform providers and choose one that checks all the right boxes to help you deliver an online summit that exceeds everyone’s expectations.

Kara mentioned the importance of choosing a platform that can support a business in every stage of the virtual summit process.

From tech training done before the summit to live support on the day of the event, Kara praised 6Connex for helping her get through the entire event fully equipped.

Remember to look out for a virtual platform provider that provides intuitive tracking tools so that you can monitor where people’s attention is going.

This is extremely important because it helps you qualify hot leads and disqualify ones that you shouldn’t be putting through your sales funnel. Luckily, 6Connex offers these tracking capabilities for you.

On Your Way to Virtual Summit Success! 

Finding innovative and integrated ways to provide value to consumers is how businesses can succeed in attaining and maintaining a prospective client’s valuable attention.

This is how Snap App’s marketers qualify leads, which is why they chose to run a virtual summit to gain insightful information about their own audience.

If you would like to jump on the train to lead generation, learn how we can help you run a virtual summit by requesting a 6Connex demo today.

I can almost hear your marketing team gathering around their round table and discussing “What are the best demand generation solutions of 2020?”

That’s when they come across the results-driven phenomena that are virtual summits, which includes benefits like:

  1. Expanding brand awareness
  2. Enhancing network opportunities
  3. Saving on physical event costs
  4. Increasing value and ROI

But how exactly do they do it?

Keep reading to learn more about how a virtual summit software can help your company build a solid demand generation strategy.

But first, a quick definition.

Definition of Demand Generation

What is demand generation?

Simply put, demand generation is the process of increasing awareness and building excitement around your product. It’s more branding-focused, which is the major difference between demand generation vs lead generation, the latter tending to be more customer-focused.

demand generation process

Demand generation strategies like using a virtual summit software can help with various aspects of marketing, including the ability to:

  • Reach new markets
  • Promote product features
  • Create consumer buzz
  • Generate PR
  • Re-engage existing customers
  • Build a loyal customer base

If you’re creating a demand generation plan for your business, virtual events should be at the top of your list.

Why Virtual Summits are the Most Powerful Demand Generation Tool

Let’s get into the four ways that virtual summits help your business generate demand.

1. Virtual Summits Increase Brand Exposure

When hosting a physical event, attendance is often limited by the amount of physical space available and the number of representatives each company can afford to send.

By switching to virtual summits, you can reach thousands of attendees and potential leads, especially if you have speakers self-promoting and attendees helping spread the word about your event.

But here’s the best part.

Virtual events can be attended both live and on-demand afterward, so attendees can avoid conflict obligations and more of them can attend. This convenience is integral to any demand generation strategy.

2. Virtual Summits Create Better Networking Opportunities

virtual summit software

Multi-sponsor virtual summits are becoming a more popular way to conduct virtual events.

These summits allow companies to connect with attendees through virtual booths and sponsored sessions, creating new networking opportunities for your attendees that aren’t as widely available at physical events.

Hosting a multi-sponsor virtual summit can also help your own business build and strengthen valuable relationships with your event sponsors.

3. Virtual Events Save On Physical Event Costs

Historically, businesses have only hosted physical events in order to generate demand.

Hosting and attending physical events and conferences can cost companies thousands, even millions of dollars for large, company-wide events. Direct event-related costs like travel, venue rental, hotels, decorations, food, and more all add up fast – not to mention the cost of lost productivity from being out of the office.

While hosting virtual events can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000*, it still saves a considerable amount on costs over hosting physical events.

Here’s the real kicker – you can host more events for the same price, and charge less for entrance.

This generates demand because entrance fees are much lower (often free), making it more popular, scalable, and budget-friendly.

4. Online Summits Increase Event Value And ROI

Virtual summit software has the ability to keep the event running so attendees can rewatch a session or catch up on one they missed. This is also a useful feature if an attendee wants to find key collateral to share with their CEO.

To create even more hype around your content, you can sell exclusive All-Access Passes to specific content and valuable industry insight.

Whatever the case may be, the online summit software can create an environment that attendees can revisit whenever they want.

Amazing, isn’t it? If your team already plans on investing their time to create valuable content and conduct speaker outreach, then a virtual alternative would make the SAME content exponentially more valuable.

The Ultimate Demand Generation Tool: Virtual Summit Software

If your marketing team is planning on making virtual summits their next demand generation effort, then the 6Connex virtual event platform is the tool for the job.

Why? Our strategic partnership with the marketing agency Demand Frontier.

This is the new demand generation frontier— when clients choose to enter in partnership with the 6Connex family, they also have the opportunity to bolster their marketing efforts around their virtual events and improve demand generation efforts in the process.

For more information on how 6Connex and Demand Frontier can help you build the perfect virtual summit for demand generation, schedule a 6Connex demo.

Start Seeing Real Results for Your Demand Generation Efforts

Virtual summits are one of the most powerful demand generation tools in the digital marketing arsenal to date. Don’t waste any more time chasing after leads– let them come to you, and start learning how to nurture them more effectively.

Visit the 6Connex blog to learn more about how to start planning your own virtual summit today.

Modern demand gen marketers know that virtual summits are among the most effective online lead generation tools today. A collaborative online event, a virtual summit connects your audience to your content. Thought leaders present keynote presentations, and the audience can interact with experts and peers. Partners or sponsors are often invited to participate by hosting virtual booths, showcasing complementary solutions with immediate access to resources and salespeople. Done right, virtual summits are helping companies like BambooHR and Hootsuite achieve incredible ROI.

Oracle OpenWorld, Microsoft Ignite, IBM InterConnect, and Dreamforce are all very large marquee conferences that attract thousands of attendees, include hundreds of sessions, and require countless hours of planning and very large budgets. Physical attendee estimates across these conferences range from 25,000 to well over 100,000.

Creating-Packages

Leverage your Virtual Event for greater sponsor revenue.

If sponsors are an important part of your program strategy, 6Connex can help. Virtual Event & Environments provide a great platform for bringing together customers, prospects, partners with salespeople and product experts. You can leverage this connection and engagement to generate more revenue from your sponsors and partners.

Download our datasheet to learn more.

Case study: Bamboo HR

BACKGROUND
In preparation for hosting the world’s largest virtual HR conference in 2017, the human resources software experts at BambooHR sought out a virtual events platform up to the task of connecting over 20,000 registrants from around the country for 60 highly engaging and interactive sessions.

Their research led them to 6Connex, a leading provider of cloud-based virtual events and environments. 6Connex offered BambooHR an innovative, easy-to-use and highly configurable platform that helped ensure the success of this large-scale online event.

THE GOAL
BambooHR’s ultimate goal was to bring together industry leaders and human resource generalists to change the way human resource departments work, while keeping up with the fast pace of technology.

The idea behind offering such a large online event was to unite all sectors of the HR community, which includes promotions, recruitment, onboarding and education, while also generating leads for BambooHR and participating partners.

THE EVENT
The online conference consisted of 60 short online sessions across 8 focused tracks, allowing attendees to choose their specific HR sector of interest.

The 6Connex virtual environment offered participants numerous areas to explore:

Theater
This room included 60 highly engaging and interactive sessions, each featuring a guest speaker along with a live questions and answer session side-by-side with the presentation.

Expo Hall
Key partners were featured in the Expo Hall, each with their own branded booth to share downloads, videos, and other resources with attendees. Attendees could also request a demo from any sponsor, with the click of a button, using the 6Connex call-to-action feature.

Resource Center
The event resource center offered participants a central place to explore surveys, eBooks, interview templates, blogs, brochures, and more!

The Help Desk
The help desk offered immediate assistance to participants with questions or technical issues, so they could continue enjoying the virtual conference.

The Briefcase
The briefcase allowed attendees to save all the items and resources they liked in one easily accessible room.

THE RESULTS

  • 20,000+ Registrants
  • Almost 10,000 Attendees
  • Over 150,000 content items viewed
  • 75,000 webinars viewed
  • Almost 20,000 booth visits


THE TAKEAWAYS

6Connex’s flexible online event platform enabled a constant flow of interaction and cultivated lasting connections among attendees.

For the first time in the conference’s history, participants were able to access the entire event from their mobile device.

Participants were able to interact throughout the conference via live chat as well as after the live event via email and social networking outlets.

The high performance, reliability and scalability of 6Connex’s platform allowed BambooHR to dramatically extend their reach, without over extending their budget.

BambooHR was able to custom-design their own virtual room backgrounds to bring their brand to life for all attendees.

6Connex’s intuitive, easy-to-use platform allowed participants of any generation, from millennials to boomers, to enjoy the full experience at Elevate Virtual 2017.

“The 6Connex virtual platform presents information in a non-invasive, engaging way while putting participants at ease.”
– Brenda Travassos

Have you or your staff spent countless hours sitting at a tradeshow or conference, wishing you could follow people around and write down everything they do and say? Just think what you could sell each and every person if you knew just what they read and said! Hosting a virtual event can give you quality details on each and every attendee, helping you create a picture of your best sales opportunities. Read on to learn how.

Field marketing for many enterprise organizations aims to support field sales reps in directly connecting with prospects and customers.  If you know sales reps, you know they are not always the easiest audience to please.  They continually want new tools, new contacts, new ideas.

If you’re successful in capturing the attention of prospects, however, you’re on the right track to making your reps happy.  Help those same reps become advisors and resources for customers, and you’re on the way to a win.  Of course it’s always about the content, whether that’s face-to-face or online.  Connect the dots and enhance your value in all directions with a virtual hub for field marketing.

Last week I shared six initial ideas for adding more value to virtual event or virtual conference sponsorships, and specifically to sponsor virtual booths.  This week, I have a couple more ideas around booths, as well as a few ideas to help extend the sponsorships throughout your virtual conference.  Here we go:

1 – Preparation is key.  Sales reps may be the last ones to show up for training, but they are crucial to sponsorship success.  While you don’t want reps stalking attendees during the keynote, you do want reps who know how to use the virtual event platform and who are prepared with appropriate outreach and appropriate answers to common questions – even questions about the general session agenda.  Make sure reps know how to leverage experts for small group conversations, and encourage them to think about a next step, whether that’s a whitepaper download, a scheduled demo or an invitation to next week’s webinar.