How VMUG’s Virtual Conference Attracted A Global Audience

Adding to our list of successful virtual conferences is VMUG’s online event hosting industry experts, keynote speakers and interactive partner exhibitors all in one convenient online setting. With the objective of bringing together an international community of VMware users and product fans to increase their membership volume, their conference hosting strategy achieved excellent attendance and resource sharing in an environment that reflected a real-world physical convention without the expensive price tag.

About VMUG (VMware User Group)

Officially launched in August of 2010, the VMware User Group (VMUG) is an independent, global, customer-led organization, created to maximize members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration, and events. It provides members with opportunities to collaborate online and in person with various membership plans and discounts for VMware certification exams, VMware-delivered classes,  Fusion and Workstation licenses and the VMworld conference.

Challenges

• Expensive costs of hosting a full-day event with limited outreach restricted to only local guests.
• Inability to connect with out-of-state and overseas existing/potential community members without having them incur hefty travel expenses.
• Poor lead generation and overall brand visibility for participating partner businesses.
• Unengaging event experience with low networking opportunities.
• High charges associated with marketing collateral and technology setup to host Q&A sessions.
• No way to reshare and promote industry keynote speeches; the informative sessions had unfortunate one time value to offer.

Strategy and Functionality Solutions

1) Amplified global audience outreach & visibility

The VMUG virtual conference was able to attract a highly qualified audience of over 1500 guests – a number otherwise impossible to accommodate in a physical setting without an extremely generous budget to allocate towards the cause. Providing the luxury to VMware user group and followers to come together in an online setting to learn about latest product developments and industry trends allowed the host’s message and networking initiative to be shared internationally, alongside being complemented with powerful branding impact.

2) Growing memberships through knowledge sharing and engaging webinars

VMUG (VMware User Group) aimed to maximize the usage of their technology and partner solutions, a goal best pursued by establishing reputation as thought leader. The host made use of our live webinar features to further strengthen their authority as industry experts; keynote speakers from the CEO and Chief Technologist Storage & Availability, in addition to other breakout sessions of interest to the audience made it easy for VMUG to share their messaging with a vast international audience. With webinar content known to increase customer interest in audiences by upto 74%, VMUG took advantage of building credibility and growing memberships by presenting their ideas, innovations and problem-solving solutions amongst a target audience of like-minded individuals. The Q&A sessions played a key role to grow engagement and allowed audience participation to ensure that 2 way communication was not an area of compromise.  

3) Improving event experience through gamification

To add to the power of the webinars to attract and maintain attention of the visitors,  gamification was used as an incentive to further ensure that attendees did not miss out on the amazing virtual conference experience. There was a Scavenger Hunt incorporated with clues hidden in the VMUG virtual environment. Attendees that were able to locate all 10 clues were entered in a draw to win impressive prizes. A Leaderboard was also used to award points to guests based on activity and sponsored prizes were given away as a great way to keep the audience excited and active throughout the duration of the event.  

4) Promoting and highlighting key business partners

VMware vendors had booths in the event’s Exhibit Hall that were fully customized to reflect branding, alongside selected businesses also benefiting from their logos displayed prominently in the event Lobby. The booths were staffed with company representatives to ensure open communication via audio, text and video chat capabilities that vFairs offers. Video content and documents could be accessed by visitors; digital marketing collateral available for viewing/downloading made this conference very eco-friendly and boosted affordability for exhibitors to reach out to existing and potential customers without financial constraints.  

The Results Recap

The June VMUG Virtual Conference was a smashing success buzzing with visitors, keynote speaker sessions, and attendees taking full advantage of the outstanding networking opportunities. With exhibitors booths such as CISCO, Cohesity, Dell EMC, VMware HOL, VMUG, VMware Inc and Tegile attracting most traffic, the host was very happy to be able to deliver a conference that was effortless to attend, and facilitated excellent content sharing including webinar sessions available 24/7 for visitor access. Incorporation of incentives such as sponsored prizes and a scavenger hunt made the event all the more exciting to attend, meanwhile the general chat area took audience engagement took the next level as added proof of the virtual event strategy paying off in leaps and bounds.

• Logged In Users: 1500+
• Total Booth Visits: 6000+
• Most Visited Booth: VMUG with 750+ visits
• Total Video Plays: 2600+
• Total Document Downloads: 13000+

About vFairs

At vFairs.com, we strive to build a top-class online event platform that will help event organizers make memorable connections with their target audience. We’re obsessed with taking out the hassle normally associated with physical events and leaving organizers and exhibitors to focus on what’s most important: engagement with the audience. Get in touch with an expert to learn more about vFairs here.