Virtual Open Day Platform

If you miss the hubbub of a university open day, with prospective students milling around, then you’re not alone! Since the pandemic, university admissions are now a lacklustre process without the interactive element of before. A virtual open house is an ideal way to revive this engagement, and attract more admission applications to your institution from students from all over the world.

What is a Virtual Open House?

A virtual open house is an online event that introduces your university to a global audience. Virtual open houses are an efficient and economic alternative to physical open days, with extensive reach as well. You just have to bring your audience into your virtual space, and get those applications rolling in!  Previously, in-person university open houses were the norm. People would come to your college and visit the campus. This is pretty straightforward, but requires ample planning from your side, and travel costs for your incoming visitors. 

Reasons to Host a Virtual Open House

Why should you hold a virtual open day instead of a physical one? Even though the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions have eased off, people are still quite cautious. This means that not everybody will be willing or able to make the trip to your college open days. So, a virtual event is a better option for you. Apart from that, here are a few other excellent reasons why you should consider a virtual or hybrid open day event instead of a physical one. 

1. Go Global

A virtual open house can help you reach a global audience without much effort. Prospective students from all the world can give your university a chance as they’ll be able to see what it’s all about. They just have to log in to your event, and go over what you have to offer. 

2. Showcase Your Programs

You can’t showcase all your programs in the short time a conventional open house can give you. But you can include all your prime programs in one place if you have an online open house. Give each of your programs a webinar and an exhibit hall booth to truly present these programs in an appealing manner. 

3. Host Campus Tours

You’ve probably seen those online museum tours which are now a major trend. These basically walk you through the museum, with recorded explainers or a live guide taking you through a true-to-life render of the real thing. Who says you can’t do the same with your college? If you want to showcase your campus and its aesthetics, then you should host virtual campus tours. After all, many students may be on the fence between two colleges and an attractive campus may tip the scales in your favor. Invite the parents as well, so that the scales tip in your favor. 

4. Connect with Prospective Students

Prospective students and their parents may have a lot they want to ask you. Many of these questions are probably outside the ambit of your usual marketing materials, so you’ll need to answer them comprehensively. Therefore, a virtual open house will let you connect with potential students, and do what you can to attract them to your institution via chat networking features and live Q&A sessions.  

5. Track Event Success

While raw footfall at physical events is a measure of event success, virtual events make things much more accurate. When you have a virtual open day, you’ll be able to track event attendance, engagement, student activity, booth visits, and chat interactions, among other metrics. This way, you can calculate your event’s success, and see how many students you actually got from that particular event.

How to Host a Virtual Open Day

  Now that you know the benefits of hosting a virtual open day, you can now move on to executing the actual event. The first thing you need to do is determine a budget and set a clear set of goals. However, make sure you create this budget and plan in a practical way. Do not aim for lofty, unachievable goals, and stick to a solid plan. Therefore, here are a few tips you should follow when you want to host your virtual open house. 

1. Create a Plan

This is the very first step you can’t move on without. You need to create a plan which covers your event goals, budget, and method of execution. Make sure you include a reasonable timeline in this plan, so that you can make the appropriate arrangements.  In this plan, include the schedule, scope, marketing method, and expected results in a clear and concise manner. This way, you and your vendors will be on the same page, with no confusion getting in the way. Share this plan with all the organizers involved, so that they stick to it for the best results.  

2. Choose a Platform

Now, you can choose the right virtual open day hosting platform for your requirements. To shortlist the right vendor for you, see what budget they fall into, and what services they are offering. If a vendor only helps you with the technology, but doesn’t offer technical support, you may be in for a world of pain. Therefore, pick a platform which comes complete with customer support and has a solid reputation in the market. 

3. Send Invites

Next, determine who you want to invite to your open house. With a virtual event, you can expand your scope without too much extra cost, so make your guest lists accordingly. Once you’re done, send out invitations to your prospective attendees all over the world. Include high schools as well, so that you can get a wider audience. Furthermore, you’ll get to capture the interest of potential students while they’re making their college decisions. Your guest lists should also include parents, especially if most of your programs involve self-financing. Parents play a major role in college decisions, so it is a good idea to target them with specialized campaigns  You can either send these through email or share them on social media, or both. This will help you get the most people, especially if you want to make your event open to the public. Make sure you include a registration form and link in this invite, so that you can track audience attendance and behavior accurately. Statistics show that 76% of marketers believe email marketing is the best way to drive virtual event registration, so focus on that aspect.  

4. Market Effectively

Your marketing efforts can make or break your virtual open house. Therefore, you need to have a solid campaign in place, and utilize a variety of platforms. Cover all the bases, whether they are conventional emails or social media posts, and keep track of how many people sign up from these sources. This marketing is a key part of getting the word out, and will directly lead to more people registering for your event. So, make sure you invest time and money into these efforts, so that you can get the best results possible. 

5. Analyze the Results

Once your open day is done, take a look at audience behavior. You can do this if you analyze the data you gathered at the event. Streamline your future events, and get rid of any aspects that did not work out. Not just that, you can also use this data to plan your general marketing campaigns in the future. Use the right tools to analyze this data, and you’ll reap the benefits.

Virtual Open House Platform Features

Shortlisting the right virtual open house hosting platform is a major consideration. you need to make the choice carefully to be able to host a success event. The best way to choose what works is to see what features each platform offers. One platform may have one outstanding feature, but very few other appealing ones. You may also find a solution which has a laundry list of features, but not that one must-have factor you asked for. So, you need to think about what features are important for you, and which platform offers these features. Here are a few which are central to a convenient virtual event hosting experience.  

1. Virtual Environments

A stagnant environment will just bore your prospective students. You need to appeal to them using dynamic environments which allow them to have an immersive experience. If a platform only has plain, uncustomizable backgrounds, that’s not really the right option for you. Instead, choose something more dynamic and interactive. An engaging virtual environment keeps the audience interested, and does not let their attention wander. In addition, people tend to absorb information more easily if they get it in a multi-sensory way, with sight and sound working together. 

2. Marketing Emails

If your virtual event platform does not have a marketing email tool, then you may want to reconsider. You should find something which has its own marketing email workflow or integrates with a platform which offers these services, such as HubSpot. These emails will let you reach your audience with personalized messages making them more inclined towards you. In addition, your email lists and guest lists can contribute to each other, helping you populate both without putting in too much individual effort on each. You should choose a virtual open day hosting platform with the ability to incorporate your marketing email lists.   

3. Attendee Interaction

There should be ample opportunities for attendees to interact with each other. Your event will then generate sector-wide conversations and have more activity.  You should include chat and networking features in your college open days. These will allow visitors to discuss their views with each other and also help each other appreciate their event experience. Furthermore, these features should not just be PR-friendly test cases. Instead, you need to work with an intuitive virtual event platform with interactive features.   

4. Data Sharing

Make sure your event hosting tool has an element of resource and information sharing. In addition, this sharing should not require a number of difficult steps. Your visitors should be able to access all the resources and information they need from the corresponding booths easily. So, use something like the vFairs virtual briefcase to make all the difference. Include program details, campus life, accommodation details and fee specifications so that both prospective students and their parents get the information they need. 

5. Reporting

Make sure that whatever platform you use, it has a set of user-friendly reporting mechanisms. These will help get you all the live data and analytics of your virtual open house in real-time and after the event. Furthermore, reporting features will keep track of registrations, audience attendance, and the success of your event. 

6. Customer Support

This is the big one. Even if a tech company gives you the software to create their own virtual open day, you wouldn’t exactly jump at the opportunity. This is because this sort of software is notoriously difficult to use, and has its own set of problems. If your virtual event platform of choice has reliable customer support, then you know you’ll be having a more streamlined event. vFairs offers this level of customer support, from the inception of an event to its post-event statistics.  Therefore, these features are all central for the optimal virtual open house hosting experience. These improve your attendees’ experience, and help you gain more admission applications over time.   

Tips to Find the Best Virtual Open Day Platforms

Now that you know what it takes to host a virtual open house, you need to shop for the right platform for your virtual open day. Here are some tips on shortlisting the best solutions for you.

1. Check the Features List

Take a look at what features each platform offers. See whether the platform you want has the right combination of features for your needs. Some may offer less, while others may offer way more than you need.  Ideally, you should go for an option which lets you build your events, like vFairs. This way, you can get anything you want without having extra items to deal with or having to spend more money for features you won’t really use. 

2. Read Online Reviews

Check each platform’s G2, Capterra, and other review websites to see what other clients have said. These are usually the best resources to consult if you want to take a look at the overall feedback. These review sites give you a clear and comprehensive overview of each platform, so you can get the complete picture, with pros and cons included. 

3. Consider Your Budget

Your budget will be a primary concern for you. You should demarcate it well in advance, and then make the next decisions accordingly. Your budget will go a long way in helping you finalize which platform you’ll go for. 

4. Confirm Technical Support Presence

If a platform is only offering you the technology for your event, but then leaves you high and dry, then it’s of no use. You need to make sure that you get the technical and managerial support you need to run the platform efficiently. 38% of marketers say that they run into technical issues with virtual events. Therefore, there should be a support team in place to answer any queries and be there if anything goes wrong at the event. 

Virtual Open Day Ideas

Once you’ve chosen your online open house platform, then you can work on a couple of ideas which will attract prospective students and their parents. These should cover student life, financial aid details, tuition fee packages, and accommodation options.  

1. Guided Campus Tours

Conventional open house events usually have a guided campus tour as part of their offerings. You can adapt this for the virtual platform by having a video walkthrough, with detailed narration in place. If you can spring the budget, then you can even have one of those 3D live walkthroughs many museums now have for a memorable user experience.  

2. Meet & Greet

Student-faculty interaction can help you convince more people to show interest in your university. After all, an international student might be ambivalent about your institute, but once they talk to the professors in their department of interest, that may seal the deal.  Make sure you arrange a few meet and greets for this purpose. Luckily, vFairs’ exhibitors’ booths are the perfect tool for this, and you can give each department its own booth for more traction. 

3. Sample Classes

A great way to simulate the complete student experience is by having attendees see how a typical class goes at your institution. Host webinars and sample classes in the event auditorium to offer that experience.  These sample classes are a great way to turn prospective students into seriously interested ones, and also convince their parents about your institute’s academic merit. 

4. Alumni Testimonials

Word of mouth can really help cement your institution’s reputation in the community. Have a few of your successful alumni send in testimonial videos and showcase these at your virtual open day.  These testimonials will serve as proof for prospective students and parents that your institution can help them succeed as well.  So, all of these ideas will serve you well at your virtual or hybrid open day. Add on to this list according to your preferences and requirements, and you’ll have the best event you could ask for. 

Virtual Open Day Examples for Inspiration

vFairs has a range of successful open day examples you can look to for inspiration. The feedback for these events was quite positive, with many clients stating they’d be willing to run virtual open house events with vFairs again.  Have a look at their experience.

1. Bard college
2. Royal Holloway, University of London
3. Masdar Institute of Science & Technology

If you'd like to learn more about events you can host as a university, check out our Complete Guide to Virtual Events for Universities.

Open days are a great way to promote your university, show prospective students your campus and allow them to experience it first hand. Students can get a glimpse of life on campus, and universities can connect with students. In any case, an open day is bound to offer more to your target audience than a prospectus does. A virtual open day is still an open day, just in a ‘virtual venue’.  Virtual events are a huge part of the future. Marketers cannot deny their benefits. They allow you to reach a global audience and help you analyze the event and its success with empirical data. They even eliminate travel requirements and added expenses. For this reason, 71% of marketers expect virtual events to continue beyond 2020.  As people are warming up to the idea of virtual, we are here to help you maximize the benefits you get out of your virtual open day.   Chances are that you are already planning your virtual open days for this year.  But are you struggling with where to start planning?  We know important it is for you to set the right impression, and to connect with your prospective students effectively. This is why we have prepared a planning sheet to get you started and to guide you in creating a strategy for your virtual open day.  Without further ado, let’s go! 

Strategy for Virtual Open Day

Define Your Event Plan

Create a plan for your event, starting from the basics. Set objectives, outline goals and target your audiences. Defining a clear plan for your event will help you stay on course, without letting you deviate from your end goals. Consider the following when you start to define your event plan: 

• Goals: what you hope to achieve, setting objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your event
• Target audience: define who you are talking to, who are the decision-makers and target groups you want to reach

• Virtual events platform: research virtual event platform providers to see which one suits your needs and can translate your requirements to a virtual event
• Event strategy: identify sponsors, sponsorship packages, ticketing processes, exhibit halls 

Pro tip: Before you move on with your planning process, chart out your milestones. This will help you keep track of your goals, tasks and deadlines. As a result, helping you deliver your virtual open day in an allotted time frame.  Hereon, creating your strategy gets easy as you know your goals, target audience and where you are hosting your virtual open day.   The next question however is, where is your target audience landing. The answer is simple. Your landing page. 

Design An Attractive Landing Page

This is where all your marketing efforts lead. This is where your target audience comes to for all information regarding your virtual open day. From event dates, schedules, to agenda, everything is displayed right here. Your event landing page should also create excitement -- visitors should be itching to attend. Offer sneak peeks into the event and highlight the speakers attending.  Additionally, ensure a registration form is ready to effectively gather consumer data. Create registration forms that are quick to complete and easy on the eyes. Integrate with tools that allow you to collect consumer data. For instance, integrating with customer relationship management (CRM) software could help you collect basic information such as names, numbers and addresses, etc. This information could be valuable in future promotional activities.  With vFairs, setting up your landing page is effortless with constant support from the project team, who ensure the process is seamless from the get-go!  And finally, go live with your landing page!  Pro tip: create trackable event landing pages. This allows you to collect data on which methods of event promotion are working best and which method has the highest ROI.  Now that you have successfully attracted visitors to your event. Let’s talk about how to keep them there. Keeping them engaged, helping them interact with fellow attendees, exhibitors and hosts significantly determine how successful your event is.  Be sure to include the following features that will boost the engagement levels of your event.

Develop Informative Content

You need content to keep your attendees effectively engaged. Spark their interest with interactive documents and videos. Content offers tangible value to your attendees.  Hence, consider the following when designing your content strategy: 

• Welcome video: welcomes attendees, outlines agenda, guides attendees through the event and sets the stage for the rest of the virtual open day 
• About us: add basic information about your schools, departments, programs, life in the city, life on campus. Add short videos on success stories of alumni.
• Campus tour: tour video taking students around the campus covering accommodations, cafeteria, sports grounds and auditoriums for a visual representation 
• Local area guide: where to buy everyday essentials, local tourist and entertainment spots, bus/train stations, getting to and from campus
• Visa information: visa processes, checklists and timelines 

Whether you choose videos or documents, either way, your content should help students make their decision and the otherwise intimidating process effortless. Students should be able to download this material to reference later on. 

Engaging Exhibitor Booths

Your exhibitor booths are also a hub of information. Attracting students to the booths and making sure they stay and get the required information is essential. Information booths based on financial aid, visa processes, student body, and career services can be set up to let your students have relevant information on each of these. Clearly laying them out will help your audience easily navigate through. Adding in some of these key features will keep attendees engaged:

• Chat: include a ‘chat’ button, assign chat room attendants who will enable effective communication and add a schedule of students managing the chat rooms 
• Speaker notes: answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) from the previous open days 
• Downloadable documents and videos: add checklists, instructions, key documents and videos presenting valuable information 

Pro tip: Add information booths about various departments, universities, societies and activities that take place in your university. This is a chance to adequately highlight all that your university has to offer. 

Speaker Sessions

Hosting speaker sessions that the audience can learn from and relate to can also be a great addition to your virtual open days. Invite successful alumni to talk about their journey in the university and beyond it. Some prominent faculty members or career counselors can talk about choosing careers, a degree program, and even deciding on which courses to take. You can plan for:

• live sessions, where speakers can host a dialogue with their audience
• semi-live sessions, where a pre-recorded video is played but speakers are available via a chat function, or
• pre-recorded presentations and webinars, where the audience can watch the presentation on their own time. 

Don't forget to create session schedules, so your attendees know when each session is taking place. Set the sessions up within your virtual event platform and add reminders within the platform for the speaker sessions, so attendees can be pinged whenever a particular session is about to begin. 

Networking

Prospective students and their parents are coming to the virtual open day to know more about the university, the faculty, and life in general there. So make sure they are able to get that from the horse's mouth. Create a networking platform where they can talk to current students, faculty members and department heads to learn more about your university.  Pro tip: to engage with some target students, book 1:1 meetings or group chat sessions to talk to them about their requirements, and highlight what your university has to offer in return. These students coming in from high school can be selected based on their GPAs, extracurricular activities, or program preferences. 

Create An Accessible Virtual Space

Your virtual open day platform should be a welcoming space for all. Enabling people of disability and different languages to comfortably participate can go a long way for you. Thus, make sure your event caters to the blind and deaf community by making your event accessible. From navigation to color contrast, large font size to page narrations and captioned webinars, these small additions can allow everyone to feel welcome.  Moreover, people may attend your virtual open day from another country and feel comfortable with different languages. Enable these people to participate by integrating features such as KUDO. This feature allows you to conduct multilingual webinars and Q&A sessions. Kudo will also help you cater to the deaf community as it allows translations in sign language.  And finally, how can you make all this effort without creating some noise? 

Marketing marketing marketing… and some more marketing

After you put together a landing page and created a beautifully interactive platform for your virtual open day, let the world know! Spread the word far and wide. Use your social media channels and your website to market your virtual open day. Get your students and faculty members to spread the word. Bring onboard alumni who are prominent figures and have a following. People who are coming to your event as speakers or people who are sponsors can all be leveraged to do your bidding for you.  Marketing is the culmination of all your blood, sweat, and tears of bringing this event to life so leave no stone unturned.  And finally, let's talk about the event. What to do before, during and after the virtual open day. 

The Final Stretch

Finally, you have set up your virtual open day platform. You must also have your game plan ready for a few hours before the event, your strategy for the event, and post-event.  

Pre-event Day

• run through the virtual event with your project manager
• check if all features are in place and running smoothly  
• run tests with all speakers through the presentation platform
• campaign rigorously on social media
• send out an email reminder for the event
• use a powerful Call-To-Action button compelling people to participate
• create your own call center number that you can add to your landing page to offer support

Event Day

• make sure students and parents can easily navigate through the virtual venue 
• monitor the event closely, in case of any technical issues, immediately report to your project manager
• manage the information desk
• monitor reports regarding attendance and footfall in hotspots. 
• monitor which of the pre-registered people have not joined in and send them an email reminder

Post-event Day

• thank registrants who attended
• send out thank you emails to parents and students who attended the virtual open day
• send emails to people who did not attend; add in a few helpful documents about your university, information about schools, departments, etc. to help them
• get insights from your project manager on how the virtual open day went, improvements that can be made next time, and technical issues that could be avoided 
• get a hold of event statistics and analytics

Final Thoughts

The idea of a virtual open day is not just to meet prospective students but also to promote the life and experiences that await them at your university. Your end goal should be to help them in their decision-making and guide them through this process. So make sure you are empowering them with the relevant knowledge to make this nerve-wracking decision for themselves.  Check out IE Business School and Royal Holloway on their successful virtual open days.  You can download your free planning kit to help you host the most memorable virtual open day.   

Educational institutions are rethinking their modus operandi as the world is opening up. They need to attract students globally and they need to get the word out that they are fully functional, flexible and have adapted to the new environment. In come admissions events that not only attract the right pool of candidates but also present a positive image to the world.  Hosting a Virtual Open Day is the best way of going about this. For the undergraduate admissions office, such admissions events are the backbone. Let’s see why there’s a huge need for these events today. 

What Are Virtual Open Days?

Before we dive into any further details, let us dial things back a bit. If you’re wondering what a virtual open day actually is, here’s a quick rundown. Virtual open days are just like regular open house events, the only difference being that they take place online rather than in a physical capacity.  You can invite students to these virtual open days where they can access curated content like virtual tours, webinars, discussion panels, Q&A sessions, on-demand videos, and much more. This allows you to turn your uninterested attendees into actual prospective students. They also provide networking opportunities to students with the various chat tools they offer.  These online admissions events, such as virtual open days allow you to be flexible and versatile. You can host any number of students and parents without being restricted to a physical space. You can even model the virtual event so that it replicates the real-life setting of your university. This creates a wholesome welcoming environment for prospective students. 

Why Should Undergraduate Admissions Offices Consider Virtual Open Days? 

As a member of an institution’s admission office, or as an event planner for the office, why should you care for virtual open days? We will tell you why. 

1. A Wider Reach

By now, most of us are aware of the benefits that a virtual event can bring to an organization. Global reach is one of the biggest benefits of hosting virtual open days. An online event is by far the best way to attract a diverse audience from across the globe. In a time where we want to be all-inclusive, hosting virtual events is a great way to do so. It removes barriers and limitations that some attendees might face. A large number of people want to attend certain events but can not do so due to certain reasons, e.g. travel restrictions, inability to afford costs of travel/accommodation, time constraints, etc. Fortunately, these limitations are alleviated with the help of virtual events. As long as the attendee has access to an internet connection, they can be a part of the event and feel included. Going digital also makes the event more accessible to people with disabilities. That is a clear win-win situation for everyone involved. 

2. Accurate Analytics, Metrics, and Reporting

One of the most effective services a virtual event platform offers is analytics and reporting. In a physical environment, it can be hard to keep track of all the data. You can figure out how many people attended, but it’s difficult to see how long they remain at any session, what activities they participate in, etc. You can try to do all of that, but it is going to require a lot of effort, resources and money. In a virtual event, you get real-time metrics, attendance and behavior data, and a properly compiled post-event report. You can track the number of booth visitors, the number of document downloads and even the exact number of people who attended the keynote session. All this and much more.

3. A Cost-Effective Approach

Hosting an open day or open house event on your campus can be quite expensive. Usual costs include setup, resources, incidentals, staff, and maybe even catering. While virtual open days can still be expensive, they save you on all the logistical and administrative costs. An online event also gets rid of the fluff, so you can just focus on and present the things that matter.

4. Higher Engagement

While you may have a lot of people attending a physical open day, how many of them are engaging and asking questions? This is something that just comes with the territory. A handful of people feel shy when asking questions, or the situation could become awkward for them as well.  You also need to consider the fact that it is not feasible to answer the majority of questions that are directed at the staff.  These issues are somewhat alleviated thanks to virtual open days. People don’t feel as uncomfortable when asking questions from behind a screen. You also get the chance to address more queries than you would at a physical event.

5. Host a Virtual Tour 

While prospective students might not get to see the campus in person, you can always add detailed tour videos that not just show them every nook and corner of the campus but also the nearby areas. You can even ask your students to record a video of them going around campus so students attending remotely can see it from the viewpoint of a peer. This always helps them get comfortable with the setting. 

6. Showcase Programs

You need to help prospective students make the right decision. This includes deciding which program to go for. Include course materials, downloadable resources, brochures and other informative content that tells students what each degree, each program has to offer. Help them make an informed decision, and guide them through the process which can seem intimidating to them. 

How Does It Benefit Students?

We just talked about all the benefits that the admissions office can grab a hold of above. However, these admissions events offer great value to prospective students. 

1. Explore Campus Life From Home

Virtual open days have a lot to offer. You don’t need to limit your event to just simple course talks. Students can observe university life via campus, find out more about finances, become aware of the clubs, and even get familiar with the Student’s Union. All of this from the comfort of their homes. There’s no need to schedule an exhaustive travel plan to attend a physical open day event. The right virtual event platform can easily make this happen through their customizable 3D spaces, corridors, booths, etc., and bring the campus life to the potential students at home. All they need is a laptop or smartphone with internet access to participate.

2. Less Work For Students

As we mentioned above, students can take part in virtual open days from the comfort of their own homes. As most students apply for several different universities, it is likely that they are going to be attending a lot of open day events, as well. That involves a lot of time and money. Make it easy for them and meet them where they are. If they can’t come to you, you can go to them.  Students can also take a break or leave the session entirely if they are busy or occupied. Then they can always come back when they are ready. This means that your viewers can watch the sessions long after the event is over. They never need to worry about missing important points from any speaker. Students also get access to event collateral such as guides, documents, registration forms, etc. This is an added cherry on top. 

3. Communicate With Lecturers And Course Leads

Getting together with the course leads, department heads and instructors also offers a world of insights. Most virtual open days will allow prospective students to communicate with each other, the lecturers, tutors, and course lead. This can be done either via live chat or through Q&A sessions. Students will be able to find out what the syllabus looks like and be able to ask specific questions. This way, students will also get a feel of what the teaching culture is like at the institution. Allowing them to figure out whether they want to take up the course, will it help them in their career, etc. It also helps students to learn about the modules of the different subjects they will be learning. This will help in understanding the process and what style to adopt while learning. 

4. Make A Conscious Decision

Holding open day events is important. It allows your students to get a feel of what life is like on campus, and if the experience is right for them or they should look elsewhere. Doing research on universities and attending open day events is important for students so they don’t feel a culture shock when they are thrust into that new environment. Attending a virtual open day event will also allow students to learn about the experience the university has to offer. They might learn a few things that they never even considered before. Not many people would say no to that, especially when it is presented in such a convenient and time-efficient manner.

Virtual Open Day Tips And Tricks

If you’re planning to host a successful virtual open day, here are some tips and tricks for you. 

• Decide on the type of event it is going to be. Will a single stream webinar be enough, or is it going to be an event with multiple sessions and/or tracks? 
• Zero in on a virtual event platform that can provide you with all of the features you are looking for.
• Design the program around them so they feel engaged. Make sure you have presenters and speakers that are engaging enough to hold the audience’s attention for a certain amount of time. 
• Promote the event properly on all of your social channels as well.
• In the end, remember to follow up with your audience as well and get some constructive feedback.

For a more thorough guide go through our virtual open day planning kit.

Final Thoughts

• You can scale your virtual open day or any other admissions events, invite prospective students from across the globe without worrying about additional costs. 
• Take students on a campus tour and a tour of the neighborhood to get them comfortable with the area they will be living in. 
• Showcase your programs, provide them with downloadable resources and content in addition to on-demand sessions so they can come back whenever it is convenient. 
• Track attendee journeys and get actionable insights on where your prospective students and parents found most value. 

A Word From Our Customers 

Don’t just take our word for it, have a look at a few client success stories. Check out how Newcastle University’s open day attendance increased by 47% after going with vFairs. We are helping universities cut costs, boost enrollment numbers, and deliver a convenient and intuitive completely online experience.  Helen Clubbs, Marketing Manager at Newcastle University talks about her experience at vFairs: “The virtual event allowed greater flexibility. They hosted one postgraduate virtual open day in the morning for the Asian market and one in the afternoon for the North American market. They were able to reach two different time zones because of the flexibility this platform grants”.  Get started with planning your admissions events and use vFairs Virtual Open Day Planning Kit for a smooth and stress-free ride!