Virtual Exhibition Platform

  The current landscape of events is shrouded with uncertainty for many marketers and event organizers. Event restrictions are changing all the time, so organizers need to take that into account. However, amid the uncertainty, a few things remain the same. Take analytics and event data for example. When measured and tracked properly, virtual event metrics are always the most reliable way of determining whether your event was a success or not.  This principle remains true for virtual events as well as in-person events. However, it’s easier to keep track of virtual event metrics and KPIs. The reason for this is that many virtual event platforms provide you with the tools to track data accurately and allow you to view it in a neat and organized manner after the event. Before you go on to virtual event metrics, you have to define the right goals for your event. 

Define The Right Goals

It’s not the data itself that matters. You want to start off by defining your objectives, and the metrics provide tools to measure the success of your attempts. You need to set goals in order to form a proper virtual event strategy.  An important thing to remember is that your goals need to be measurable as well. Choose SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) goals. For example, if you’re holding a job fair, you need to figure out how many resumes you aim to receive, how many prospective candidates you filter out, etc. Your strategy might cover what you want to achieve from your speaker sessions, virtual exhibit booths etc. It also covers how you are going to keep the attention of your attendees. Is your objective to maximize profit, generate leads, or market your products/services to the world? Answer these questions before you jump in. 

Virtual Event Metrics To Measure Event Performance

Once you’ve set the goals you have a crystal clear idea of what you want to achieve. This will help you define the virtual event KPIs that you will keep a track of. Here are some for you to consider: 

1. Number of Registrations

The number of registrations for an event is always an obvious piece of data to keep in mind. This virtual event metric is a great way to measure event performance.  For example, if you conduct events regularly you can track these numbers and compare them with each passing event. This helps in setting a benchmark that you would like to aim for. The number of registrations also helps in understanding audience preferences. You’ll figure out which topics/event themes attracted more people, and you can judge how effective your marketing strategies were.  It is also crucial to figure out the numerical difference between the people who registered versus the people who actually checked in for the event. This gives a clearer picture of how many people actually attended the event out of the ones who registered. It also goes on to show how well you were able to market your event and convince registrants to actually attend. You can charge for admission upon registration, send a follow-up email campaign that builds curiosity or even offer prizes to the first 50 logged in. Go a step further and add in a leaderboard that incentivizes each action taken in the virtual event.  

2. Engagement of Attendees

Having high attendee engagement is a surefire way to measure the performance and success of your event. Ideally, you want a large percentage of your audience to spend the maximum amount of time they can at your event. Attendee engagement leads to more exposure and allows you to generate a better virtual event ROI.  An easy way to figure out engagement directly is to observe the activity revolving around certain segments. Webinar attendance, questions asked in a discussion session, participation in polls, surveys, games, trivia and tournaments are good ways to keep attendees hooked and consequently track engagement. Add in fun activities to your virtual event such as photo booths and spin the wheel games, so attendees can have some fun as well.  Checking attendee engagement can be challenging on some platforms, so be sure to discuss this with the virtual event platform you are going with. This is another metric that comes in handy if you hold regular events. You can figure out which strategies work the best when it comes to increasing participation time.

3. Website Visits

This is a highly valuable virtual event KPI that comes into play after the event is done and dusted. You can analyze your website traffic post the event as this indicates how impactful your virtual event really was. Track via UTMs to see exactly how much of the traffic came from within the event, so there is no room for assumptions and estimates.  If that happens to be the case, this means that attendees are interested in finding more information about your brand or organization through the website. This is why it is best to create an event-specific web page so these people have a sense of direction. Include relevant content to that web page so attendees derive value with these site visits. This will result in viewers spending more time on the website. The same idea applies to landing pages. If you are getting good numbers, this means that your marketing efforts are paying off. If not, you will likely want to tweak your social media posts, e-mail marketing strategies and maybe even blog posts. 

4. Returning Attendees

This is another virtual event metric that depends entirely on event engagement and in a way, affects the event performance. If you have a large number of repeating participants in your audience, then that means your event resonates with them. Gathering the attendee list will provide you with further insight into what type of audience members are returning. Furthermore, you can figure out what percentage of people are returning visitors, and what percentage of them are complete newcomers. Combine this information with surveys and feedback after the event to be more prepared for the future. Regular participants may signal brand loyal or potential brand advocates, who will spread the word about your business and event on social media. This, in turn, brings in more organic followers and visitors.

5. Event Survey and Feedback

Asking for feedback via survey forms is always an excellent way of communicating with attendees and gaining valuable insight from their perspectives. It is important to get some feedback after the event, and the way you do this does not need to be all that complex. You want to ask simple questions that can help you figure out what worked for different people. Have a look at a few questions as an example below:

• Was the event too long or too short in your opinion?
• Would you recommend the event to a friend, family member, or colleague?
• What are the chances of you attending an event by the same organization?
• What are some areas we could improve on?
• Which segment/speaker/presentation stood out to you the most?
• Which device do you use to attend online events? 

These are just a few generic examples. Of course, you’ll want to fine-tune these so that they feel more personal to your event. Doing so means that you are also more likely to get real insight out of the replies. Not only will you be able to improve your next event, but your attendees will also feel valued. 

6. App Visits

As you have probably guessed, this virtual event metric works similarly to website visits. You can figure out the performance of your event via app downloads for the event itself, apps/services advertised on the event page, and the number of downloads/visits for these apps. A lot of virtual event platforms offer the ability to create event-specific apps. These apps can come in handy to figure out what services and features your audience is interested in the most. 

7. Virtual Event Conversion Rates

The main purpose behind most virtual events is to get people to engage with your brand. Conversions and lead generation can be the most crucial KPIs if generating interest is a major event objective, which it likely is. Remember, getting qualified leads is an entirely different thing than just generating leads. Identify the type of leads you are getting, and what the trigger points for these different leads are. You can use this data to figure out what strategies to implement in the future. It’s also another great way to see how the event performs. 

8. Questions and Live Polls

Conducting live polls and Q&A sessions is one of the best ways to keep engagement high during your virtual event. The response to live polls can provide you with valuable insights on engagement between the audience. You can also conduct live polls specific to the event itself, in order to get direct feedback from participants. The same idea applies to Q&A sessions. Try to implement as many Q&A sessions as you can during each segment, keynote, or presentation. Even a quick one helps out a lot. If your audience is eager to ask questions, this means that they are interested in the products/services being offered. Once the event is over, this will also help you understand what worked and what didn’t during the event.

9. Response to Speakers

As we’ve talked about it throughout the article, you’re now hopefully aware of the importance of engagement during a virtual event. Speaker feedback is one of the vital virtual event success metrics. This data will tell you which speaker was able to hold the attention of the audience for a longer period of time. This comes down to the presentation and the talent of the speaker. After the event, view the footage of every speaker, and see which one of these speakers managed to engage the audience the most. Learn from their style, and implement it in future events. You can also conduct a quick survey after the event or after presentations to see which speakers or which sessions the audience enjoyed more. You can also always share this feedback with the speakers themselves. This allows them to make room for improvements. Also, be sure to get some feedback from the speakers as well. Moreover, if attendees were responding well to Q&A sessions and live polls during some speaker sessions, that might also indicate the audiences’ interests. 

10. Social Media Metrics

If you know a thing or two about marketing, then you are likely posting relevant information on most of your social media channels. Analytics can easily be monitored on most of these social media posts. Check your follower count, have a look at how many people use the event hashtag, how many people are reposting, tagging, and liking the posts, etc. You’ll also want to sort through the comments or have someone do that for you to learn what people are saying about the event. This sentiment analysis will provide further insights into how your event is perceived.  We’re also going to throw online search results and traffic into the mix here. An increase in search numbers after the event means that you left quite an impression on your attendees. This might also result in an increase in online traffic and on your social media accounts.

11. Chat Engagement

This should be an obvious one in our world of live streaming. Whether the event is in-person or virtual, creating networking opportunities is important for any event. Tracking chat is a good metric to measure the activity and engagement levels between the audience. You can quickly observe the number of people active in a chat window, how many one-to-one chats are being initiated, and more.  If you are seeing a lot of activity in chat, then that’s a good thing. People are conversing about the event, and this means that they will have more reason to be engaged for longer. Have a chat moderator on hand, so attendees can participate in meaningful, directed conversations. 

12. On-Demand Content Views

After the event, you’ll want to keep an eye on how many people are viewing the on-demand content. If people keep coming back a few days after the event, then that is a definite good sign. Post-event content can include videos, blog posts, event session recordings, presentations, etc. On-demand content also tends to get shared on social media channels. You’ll want to implement a message or hashtag that gets added automatically every time a visitor wants to share content from the website. This gets the word out and allows you to generate a good deal of traffic online. 

13. Revenue Generated

By far, this is the most significant and easy way to measure what virtual event objectives you were able to achieve. Apart from engagement, events serve as marketing campaigns to potential leads as well. It is important to generate sales and earn a profit from the event.  You can assess the general income by calculating the number of tickets sold, sponsorships, etc. A lot of virtual event platforms will even help you in this regard. Management services might help you to calculate revenue. They can even provide you with some advice on how to create more revenue for future events. 

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, the purpose of all of these virtual event metrics, data, KPIs, and so on, is to provide you with actionable insight. All of this data has no meaning unless you put it to good use. Yes, these metrics determine the success of your event. However, you want to learn how to improve overall, not just stress on one particular metric. Furthermore, a lot of these virtual event metrics depend on the type of event and are subject to change depending on the purpose of the event. For example, finding prospective candidates might be more important than engagement at a certain career fair for some organizations. Whatever the case may be, make sure to turn all of this data that you gather into real-world actions you can work on. Only then will you start noticing an improvement in future virtual events.

  In 2020, Apple went live with their first virtual event ever. The 2020 WorldWide Developers Conference faced the COVID-19 challenge head-on and offered a unique virtual experience that had its attendees glued to their screens for two hours straight. How did Apple manage this feat?  The conference had 20 different speakers that announced new features of the product lines from the technology giant. The location changed to a different spot on the campus each time a new speaker came on to switch things up a bit. No one spoke for more than 10 minutes.  Despite being pre-shot and virtual, the event was a huge success. This begs the question: how did Apple realize all the nuances of entertaining a remote audience? The answer is: with meticulous research and a carefully crafted virtual event strategy. 

What’s a virtual event planner?

Like for a physical event, a virtual event planner is a detailed document that covers tasks to do along with their high-level details. These details can be task owners, important deadlines, or any further deliverables.  Such a planner is typically created before an event starts so all the moving parts can come together before you get on with all the hard work of the event setup. It acts as an event checklist so you can make sure you strike off everything in a timely manner. Let’s take a look at some of the sections it covers and how you can create one for your next event.

1. Define your event goals

Before you begin with the event planning, you need to understand why you’re hosting one in the first place. Clear event goals are the first step to enabling event success as they help hosts:

• Steer the event messaging towards the right target audience
• Plan activities that push them down the right conversion funnel
• Improve brand awareness 

Along with this, you’ll have to carve out other details such as event name, live dates, and target audience. 

2. Budget for the event 

Costs rise up pretty quickly when you don’t start off with a budget for your event. At the end of it all, you won’t even know what hit you. A starting budget keeps you grounded from the very beginning and is a crucial part of an event checklist. It saves you from burying yourself in budgeting nightmares.  Virtual event costs can vary greatly, most of it coming directly from your virtual event platform. Most of these start from around $10,000 and go upwards as you stack features or use more add-ons. 65% of all virtual event hosts spend between $500 to $1500 per attendee, so it’s common for a host to spend around $20,000 for a small company event for 20 people.  To find the right solution for your budget, compare virtual event platforms before you pull the trigger on a solution. Virtual event platforms vary greatly in the features that they offer for the price they charge.  An early comparison will make sure your event has everything it needs without emptying your pockets. 

3. Finalize event partners

Next up, get your event partners in order. A well-designed event planner needs to document all speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, and representatives. You probably won’t be meeting them before the event so coordinating in advance is absolutely critical.  Here’s a quick list of the things you’ll need to track in your event checklist:

• Partner name
• Partner contact information (number and email address)
• Deliverables such as speaking notes, marketing collateral
• Deadlines

4. Put together the agenda

With your partners on board, start chalking up an agenda for the event. You want to do this before you set up your virtual event so you’ll know exactly what activities you’ll be hosting.  Your event agenda needs to have the activity information for each line item. This includes the activity title, name and credentials of the speaker (if any), and starting date and time for the session. An agenda will also help figure out the time and place for your sessions. Do you want any concurrent speaker sessions? When will the keynote speaker be on? All these questions are best answered before you start working on the event layout so you know exactly what you want your virtual event platform to do for you.  Here are the types of activities you’ll typically want to add to your agenda:

• Welcome address
• Plenary sessions
• Breakout sessions/workshops
• Keynote sessions
• Games such as trivia and scavenger hunts
• The exhibition 

5. Set up the virtual event platform

Now that most of the event details have been taken care of, it’s time to set up the actual event.  There’s a lot that goes into a virtual event’s setup. You’ve got to design the visuals, set up webinars, brand the platform, and much much more. This is why you need to track as many tasks as you need with an event checklist and cross them out as you go.  Here’s a quick list of items you can include in your virtual event planner while setting up the platform:

1. First, get in touch with the project manager to discuss your needs and expectations for the event. 
2. Next, get your landing page up along with event details and a registration form. Until and unless this happens, there will be no way to market the event and get registrations.
3. Integrate any additional apps with the software. 
4. Set up all the activities (including sessions and games) in the virtual event platform. 
5. Coordinate with exhibitors on their booth setups. Make sure you have everything you need from them.
6. Create all relevant marketing collateral including banners, logos, videos, documents. Finalize the event layout with your project manager.
7. Test the software, sessions, and equipment before the event. 

6. Market your event

Once you have the landing page set up, it’s time to invite people! Virtual events are only as successful as their marketing strategies so you need to track every channel along with its deliverable in your virtual event planner.  Start with selecting the marketing channels for your event. Then, assign owners, set deadlines, and track deliverables. Here’s what you’ll need for your virtual event planner:

• A content marketing plan including any blogs, articles, PR posts for the event. 
• A social media marketing plan for all your channels along with copy and graphics. 
• An email marketing plan with the entire drip campaign planned out. 
• Optional: A paid marketing plan with budgets and launch dates.

7. Analyze event performance

A hundred people registered for your event but only 10 attended the keynote session. What went wrong? Tracking event performance helps accomplish four goals:

• Understand your target audience and their interests
• Flag areas of improvement
• Measure ROI and event success
• Improve future events

These make it essential to monitor audience engagement throughout the event and after it as well. For your virtual event planner, track all your relevant metrics along with your desired goal and the actual result. This will help you decide what worked and what didn’t, making it easier to plan for the future.  

Conclusion

That sums it up! While event planning can be a long and laborious task, timely planning gears you up for a stress-free event. An event checklist will be a life-saver. Make sure to create a comprehensive virtual event planner before you start putting together the event. We don’t want you chasing speakers while pulling at your hair.  

When you’re planning a virtual event, it's not enough to set up some presentations and exhibit booths and expect it to run as is. You need exciting virtual event features to make it as engaging and successful as possible.  Virtual event features are more than just 'fun' and 'games'. Though they do also make virtual events more fun, and improve the attendee experience, they can also be used as tools to help you hit your event goals. Let's dive into how you can make that happen for your organization.

What is a Virtual Event?

A virtual event is where people and exhibitors meet in a digital environment, rather than a physical one. Over the past year or so, the pandemic caused physical events to become a rarity. Social distancing and lockdown restrictions resulted in canceled events. However, before COVID-19, virtual events were picking up momentum. With the pandemic, they became the next best alternative.  But what is a virtual event platform? How do you host them? Which virtual event features should you use? Hold on, hold on. We are here to answer all these questions. 

Why Do You Need a Virtual Event Platform?

A virtual event platform is a tool where you organize and host your virtual event. Think of it as an online venue for your event. There are numerous such platforms out there, each one with its own set of benefits and drawbacks. However, many of them simply give you the technology to host a virtual event, with no other guidance or support.  What you need is a platform that helps you every step of the way, and is easy to use for your entire team. Otherwise, you’ll be left offering a subpar event experience, with lots of loose ends.  Opt for a platform that is completely equipped with a wide selection of virtual event features, and 24/7 customer support. This way, you will have many facilities to choose from, and you will be able to tailor your event to your needs much more effectively.  These features, along with all the support vFairs offers, will let you host the best possible event to reap some excellent results. After all, you don’t want to spend huge amounts of money on some other platform which leads to a dull event with no leads or revenue for your company. 

What are Virtual Event Features & Why are They Important?

Virtual event features are the ingredients to make your event successful. They consist of a wide variety of tools and mechanisms at various stages of the event at your disposal. Then, you can incorporate these throughout your event, from the planning to the post-event analysis stage, to get the results you desire.  These virtual event features are quite important and can make or break your event. After all, if your audience or sponsors feel that your event is dull and not likely to be interactive, you won’t get the footfall or results you want.  You need these features to create a dynamic and exciting virtual event, which will gather the largest audience possible. You want that while still being able to manage everything in a highly organized manner.  vFairs caters to these requirements holistically, as it offers a huge list of virtual event features, but you don’t need to have any sort of technical expertise to use them. 

The 12 Types of Virtual Event Features

While there are countless virtual and hybrid event features out there, you can divide them roughly into various types. Even when you break them down this way, you can see that you have an immense list of options to carry you from the basic planning stages right to the post-event statistical analysis. Here are the types you can easily explore on vFairs. 

1. Virtual Environment

When you plan your event, you need to make sure the virtual environment is appealing enough to gather as many people as possible. You can do this if you offer a dynamic environment, complete with the right sort of designs to capture audience attention.  A virtual environment also makes it easier for users to join and get more value out of the event. This helps improve engagement and increase registrations. Virtual environment features let anyone who’s not tech savvy understand how to navigate your event, and where to go for assistance. These features include: 

• 3D animated designs 
• Customized venues
• Immersive rooms 
• Branded booths 
• Animated avatars
• A live help/information desk 

These make the whole event experience much more immersive and life-like, and are game-changers in the industry. 

2. Virtual Exhibit Halls

Your virtual exhibit hall needs to be easily navigable and must offer an interactive and fun experience. Ensure that the booths are as engaging and well-run as possible. After all, your aim is to keep your attendees fixed on the booths for as long as possible.  Of course, the goal is to help them derive maximum value as well. An easy-to-use exhibit hall and exhibit setup process will also attract more potential exhibitors, helping hosts better monetize their events. These custom exhibit halls include:

• Branded exhibit booths for exhibitor marketing
• The ability to host limitless documents & resources
• Self-select avatars for an interactive experience 
• Live chat features for two-way communication
• Meeting schedulers/appointment booking for future meetings & interviews

3. Webinars

You’ll have a large list of webinars to showcase at your virtual events, so you need to offer an interesting and memorable experience. Many people have webinar fatigue at this point of their remote working lives, so you need to spice things up.  Add a few features to your auditorium for an excellent webinar experience. You can incorporate:

• Realistic 3D designs for visualization
• Multiple presentation options for variety 
• Multilingual sessions for a global audience 
• Personalized webinar agendas for visitor plans 
• Q&A sessions for visitor queries 
• Video platform integrations for a smooth experience
• Polls, trivia, & quizzes for gamification

4. Chat & Networking

You can help your attendees and exhibitors develop and nurture their industry relationships with a plethora of networking features. The aim of these virtual event features is to add value for your audience, and promote connections. You can incorporate:

• Embedded live chat for instant communication
• Meeting schedulers for group chats
• Private chats for individual discussions 
• Breakout rooms to accommodate grouped discussions
• Profile search capabilities for better matchmaking 
• Chat moderation to keep discussions directed and valuable
• Conversation context for late joiners to refer to
• Chat transcripts to refer to later 

5. Integrations

One of the best parts about vFairs is how adaptable it is. You can integrate a large number of apps into your virtual event, so that you and your stakeholders enjoy maximum  benefits. This is because these integrations offer a highly enhanced event experience for you, your visitors, the exhibitors and even your sponsors. Here’s a list of all the apps and programs you can integrate into your event for more convenience and functionality.

CRM & Sales Automation

Push resumes, registration and other profile data to CRMs to effectively manage the information you’ve gathered at the registration phase. You can integrate with any CRM or customer database, including:

• HubSpot
• Marketo
• Oracle Eloqua
• Salesforce
• Zapier*

*Zapier can share information to and from any other CRMs of contact databases you use.

Conferencing & Video Streaming

Most virtual conferences involve some sort of video interaction. You need various video call hosting and streaming integrations to get the best video experience possible. You can choose whichever platform you want:  

• Zoom
• Vimeo
• WebEx
• YouTube
• ReStream

Q&A + Polling

You can let your visitors ask all the questions they want with Q&A features. In addition, you can host various polls to get an idea of their opinions with:

• Embedded webinar chat (i.e. Zoom chat)
• Slido
• Kahoot! 

Captions & Translations

When you have a global audience, it is imperative to talk to them in their own language. Offer a personalized experience reaching the maximum number of people through our integrations that simply translate and offer captioning. A few of these at vFairs are: 

• Interprefy
• KUDO
• SyncWords
• Worldly
• spf.io

Social Media

Make your events more interactive and social with social media integrations. These let you boost your social media presence. In addition, you get to highlight your audience as well. For instance, with a unified social media feed your audience can see who is posting about your event at the time with walls.io. 

Payment 

Offer payment integrations for event tickets and access and easily capture payments at the time of registration itself with: 

• PayPal 
• Stripe

All of these integrations have their own functions and add to your virtual events in their own specialized ways. They serve the event before, during and after the event, making your experience effortless. 

6. Event Sponsorships

In many cases, you’ll have to entice sponsors to come on board your virtual event. In return, these sponsors will want to get the maximum exposure, fill their pipeline, and generate leads. You can cater to these requirements with features like:

• Customizable exhibit booth designs
• Brand visibility on the landing page & throughout the virtual venue
• Gamification for especially sponsored games
• Special sponsored webinars to highlight sponsors
• Live statistics for the sponsors’ reference & complete post-event reports. 

Present these features as a pitch to potential sponsors for optimal results. This will help you get the sponsorships you want, and you can even offer tiered sponsorship packages which offer varied levels of exposure based on the package sponsors opt for. This will help you generate more revenue for your event.  

7. Event Builder

You can have a hassle-free event experience with a tool like vFairs. This is because you’ll get access to various event-building features which simplify the whole process considerably. From setting up to planning and execution, you won’t have much to worry about.  Throw in exciting features such as email marketing and customized landing pages and you’ve struck gold. These are also the foundation of your event, so you should focus on this stage with the maximum amount of planning and strategizing in mind.  

8. Virtual Event Marketing

Event marketing plays a major role in making your virtual event succeed. Make it a point to  focus on it from the initial stages. You can promote your event and increase registrations with features like:

• Custom domains for dedicated websites
• Branded landing pages for visibility
• Cross-platform marketing for wider audience targeting
• Trigger setups for marketing automation
• Email pre-scheduling for convenience 

These features showcase your event and brand, compelling visitors to see what it’s all about. This way, you can target a large number of people, and get the highest digital footfall possible. 

9. Event Gamification

Of course, you don’t want your event to be the same run-of-the-mill series of dry webinars and stiff networking. Instead, you can use event gamification to add some excitement. This will increase traffic in the key spaces of your events, and help your audience stay engaged. These include:

• Virtual leaderboards to encourage interaction
• Trivia games to promote competition
• Scavenger hunts for visitor engagement
• Live polls to gather audience opinion
• Photo booth & photo contest for interactivity

10. Customer Support

You don’t want to be left high and dry when you’re hosting an event. Therefore, use the numerous well-rated customer support features vFairs has to offer. These help you become excellent hosts and run your event without any hurdles. This is possible with facilities such as:

• Easy onboarding for smooth setup
• Pre-event, live-event & post-event support for consistent service
• 24/7 services for prompt response 

vFairs’ customer support is set up to help you every step of the way. Dedicated staff members will be there for any query you have at any stage of the event. This enables you to host your event smoothly, with nothing to worry about. 

11. Event Reporting

You can go through some highly detailed metrics and statistics in your event report. These cover various aspects of your virtual event. You can evaluate your success, as well as gauge audience behavior and reorient future marketing practices. These stats can also help you determine your ROI, so explore them as thoroughly as you can. Track attendee journeys in order to understand where they found most value and get a sense of which areas of the events were more successful.   You can easily do this with excellent features such as: 

• Real-time metrics dashboards for immediate data reference 
• Individual user journeys to gauge audience behavior
• Exhibitor statistics to determine their success 
• Post-event reports for later reference
• Data migration options for cross-platform usage 

You can look at all of this data to measure your event’s success, and also plan future events. Use these metrics when devising future marketing strategies, with a deeper insight into your audience than before. In addition, you can even share this data with other companies for a price to earn some extra income. 

12. Accessibility Features

Just as in physical events, you need to make sure your virtual events are as inclusive and accessible as possible. Attending these may be hard for people who are visually impaired or cannot hear properly.  In addition, you may find that not all your attendees have English as their native language, especially if you’re going international with your events. You should accommodate all these people by incorporating as many accessibility features as possible. These include color contrast, screen readers, text size adjustment, video translations, live webinar translations, and live captions.  So, once you know you have all these options, you can choose the best ones for your event, and incorporate them accordingly. Most of the time, you won’t need all of them, and can do quite well with a curated selection of top-notch features. 

What Virtual Event Features Should You Choose?

There is no set list of virtual event features that you must use. You need to carefully evaluate your requirements and see what suits you and your audience. However, make sure the whole experience is as convenient and accessible as possible.  In addition, it is always recommended to include networking features in all types of events. This will encourage conversation, promote industry networking, and also help you become the go-to organization for major industry conversations. There are a few other must-haves that we recommend. Let’s take a look.  

Data-Centric Features

Include features that allow you to capture the data you want. Also, opt for features that make data analysis easy. This will not only give you hard stats to base any claims on but will also help you improve future events. 

Virtual Atmosphere

Of course, the virtual environment, exhibit halls, event builder, and webinars will form essential parts of your event. Therefore, you must use as many of these features as possible to create a complete experience for you and your attendees. 

Support Features

You also need consistent customer support before, during and after your event. Therefore, you need to go for a platform that offers personnel dedicated to answering all your concerns and queries. Furthermore, if anything goes wrong, you don’t want to halt your event to get it fixed. Instead, support staff available 24/7 should immediately address the problem right there. 

Marketing Features

Last, but definitely not least, virtual event marketing features are a necessity if you want your event to gather the maximum number of visitors. After all, if no one really knows about your event, how will they even register for it? Market rigorously and leave no stone unturned, or any avenue unexplored.  You now know very well. The virtual event features mentioned above are quite essential for any great event. You would be wise to avail all of these facilities. 

What Specialized Features Are There?

You’ll be glad to know that there are a number of specialized features that offer a more holistic and customized experience to your attendees. Therefore, they work well with unique events which go beyond basic virtual conferences. A few of these specialized ones include:

Job Board

If you have a virtual career fair or job fair, then consider including a job board. This will let your exhibitors find the right prospects for the roles they have open. A job board lists all the available vacant positions and helps prospects find the roles that best fit them. This ultimately speeds up the hiring process for employers.  So, companies and prospects won’t have to go through a lot of effort to get in touch with each other. Instead, all the information will be right there for them to find each other and discuss hiring possibilities. 

Poster Hall

If your industry is more research-oriented, then you must include a poster hall. This will let teams share their posters and accompanying presentations, and engage with the audience in Q&A sessions. While their presentations might be pre-recorded but they can answer attendee questions live.  These benefit industry professionals who want to present any data, findings from research, graphics etc. So, this poster hall will be a separate place in your event, and your audience can access it from the dynamic lobby or the navigation bar at the top. 

Shopping Cart

If you want to process your product orders right at your event, then you don’t need to think too much. Instead, you can just include a shopping cart complete with multiple payment options and shipping details.  You can let people add products to their cart, and they are eventually taken to the e-commerce website of the host where they can finally make their purchase. Then, this boosts the revenue generated at the event itself.  This is especially useful if you are hosting a virtual trade show, which is all about driving sales.  

Auto-Match Profiles

What would you say if your event could serve as the perfect matchmaker for industry networking? You’ll be quite proud, obviously, and gain a solid reputation for excellent events if you manage to do this. The auto-match profile feature lets you achieve this easily, as it shows audiences and exhibitors recommended people to interact with.  You can fill in your user profile or your registration form with the relevant details. Then, the platform will use these details to match you with similar audience members and exhibitors for a more valuable experience. 

Exclusive Access

Would you like to create an air of exclusivity at your event? This works especially well when you have a ticketed event with various tiers on offer. You can offer special webinars, discussions and private lounges to your high-tier registrants, so they have exclusive spaces for various talks and activities.  This sort of restricted access adds hype to your event, and encourages people to register for higher ticket tiers. So, if you want to monetize your event, this is a great way forward. 

How Can You Customize These Virtual Event Features?

You can choose what virtual event features you want and can customize them according to your needs if you get in touch with your virtual event platform’s representatives.  When you host an event with vFairs, you’ll be able to talk to a well-versed representative, who will walk you through all these features, and adjust them for your event, wherever possible.  They will guide you according to your event needs and objectives. Just make sure to communicate with your sales rep and you will be in good hands.  

How Can You Leverage These Features Post-Event?

While many of these features are for the pre-event and during event stages, you can also leverage them well after it’s over. When it comes to data collection, you can use the information you gather to improve future events and also gauge audience behavior.  In addition, your virtual event marketing features will gel well with your regular marketing strategies and you can cross-pollinate your marketing lists and audiences. This means that you not only gain from these features at your virtual event but can also get immense benefits from it much later. 

Conclusion

To sum up, incorporate as many of these virtual event features as you’d like into your events. In the end, it is about creating the best experience for your attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.  A quick round-up of vFairs virtual event features: 

• Offer appealing designs and an excellent user experience by creating a life-like virtual environment. 
• Create customized and branded booths in the virtual exhibit halls. 
• Offer an interactive experience with dynamic webinars in the virtual auditorium. 
• Make interactions more versatile with various chat and networking facilities. 
• Support attendee experience by integrating with apps. 
• Help sponsors get maximum exposure with event sponsorship features. 
• Easily set up and customize your event with the event builder. 
• Drive registrations with virtual event marketing features.
• Enjoy a host of specialized features that serve your particular event. 
• Get the audience hooked with event gamification. 
• Make sure things run smoothly with customer support features.
• Get invaluable insights with post-event event reports. 
• Accommodate all your visitors with accessibility features.