As businesses are moving towards more innovative means to maximize their profits, they are opting for affordable and advanced solutions like online events. Events such as Online Tradeshows, have been gaining exponential popularity in the recent years and continue to become bigger by boosting leads and increasing sales for thousands of organizations in several industries. Natalie Carter, Director of Marketing at Jake’s Finer Foods, chose to host an Online Food Show with vFairs. With an exemplary outcome of the company’s first online tradeshow, she said, “The event is easy to navigate and has some fantastic features to really drive engagement and excitement with both manufacturers and operators. This format brings today’s latest technology to our industry, and convenience to our customers. The ability to view product collateral and live chat with vendors is extremely valuable and helps drive sales. We look forward to a successful show and changing the concept of the no-show food show.” Jake’s Finer Foods joined hands with vFairs to successfully achieve higher registration volume by planning and executing an upscale branding strategy in the form of personalized booths for exhibitors, as well as rich textual and video content for customers. Hence, ensuring enough surface space for engagement. 
Click now to learn more about Jake Finer Foods’ Virtual Event. Jake’s Finer Foods (JFF) strengthened their position as a progressive broadline distributor by hosting the first of its kind Virtual Food Show that successfully targeted hard to reach audience to achieve higher registration volume, extraordinary branding, insightful communications, and a unique win-win situation for both the exhibitors and customers Alongside a successful Food Show, it’s been possible and exciting to create virtual environments for tradeshows such as Auto Shows, Boat Shows, and practically any category that wishes to exhibit their offerings. So, what’s all the hype about and how can YOU benefit from it this year, is the question! It’s simple – here’s how you can rule the world of maximized profit by hosting your next online tradeshow:
1. Take the First Step – Make a Strategy
Aligning your business goals and objectives is significantly the most important step in planning your event. This will give your event a purpose and allow you to set benchmarks.
2. Try It Yourself First
You need to be aware of the technology that you’re committing to. Talk to your solution provider about the various features that they’re offering and discuss how each feature will highlight your products and benefit your end goal. Ask them to provide a demo to assess the complete interface as well as the user experience that will be provided to the attendees and exhibitors. 
3. Devise a Marketing Plan
Once you’re done with the groundwork, you’re now ready to determine how you will be attracting potential attendees and exhibitors to get started. Follow a separate approach to engage both participating figures: 
(i) Educate the Attendees:
It’s hard to ignore the fact that this might be a fairly new concept for our audience and so, our marketing plan will include an awareness phase to begin with. This could include a teaser video, explaining how an Online Tradeshow works. Phase II will then consist of sources such as email, company website and social media to create hype and invite the audience to the event.
(ii) Educate your Exhibitors
Exhibitors need to know how an online tradeshow will benefit them. Help them understand how they can improve interaction and engagement with customers using tools such as live chat and webinars. They can also regulate the content that they’re providing for consumption in real time and allow customers to save it for later. While exhibitors will be provided with remarkable options to brand themselves at the event, they will also be able to make on-the-spot sales using eCommerce features. All of this and much more, depending on their needs, can result in maximizing their leads. Lastly, exhibitors have access to quantitative reports consisting of the number of participants, the number of booth visitors and the sources that had driven the audience to the event.
4. Create an Event Schedule
Whether you’re targeting a local or an international audience, most trade shows go on for a day or two. You have to ensure that your schedule is designed in a way that sessions are available, and trade is open on times that are friendly to different time zones. Share this schedule to make sure interested attendees and exhibitors are online and available for sessions and chats at to benefit from the opportunity. 
5. Gamify Your Online Event
Scavenger hunts and different contests can drive audience engagement and encourage the them to take certain actions that you or the exhibitor would like them to take. Example, offer incentives like lucky draws for finding items on different pages with the intention to show them around and capture their attention. 
6. Monitor and derive data
Assess the behavior of visitors – their journey, queries, conversations, and provide the data to a sales representative to understand their needs. Moreover, get a detailed report from your solution provider at the end of your event to evaluate the performance of the event and measure your ROI.
7. Keep the event active for as long as you want
You can deactivate the live features of your event and still have it open for visitors. Exhibitors can receive notifications of visits, questions, and purchases while you can promote the event constantly using emails and social media. For more tips and information on setting up your next online tradeshow, book a demo right away!
ABOUT VFAIRS
vFairs is the highest-rated online event platform in the marketplace. At vFairs.com, we strive to build top-class online events that help 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.
