Virtual Trade Show Platform

One of the many benefits of hosting virtual events is the availability of advanced event insights. It helps you measure ROI, and provides data you can use to define target audiences and enrich your marketing strategy. As such, a virtual trade show is an excellent way to not only target your specific audiences, but learn more about them through event insights.  vFairs has always offered reporting features through our virtual event dashboard. However with our recent update, we now offer real-time event insights right from the vFairs platform -- no manual data export needed. Not only can hosts view event metrics, exhibitors can view their own booth metrics in real-time too. If this all seems exciting yet confusing, we’re here to help. Here are some of the most useful event insights you can measure at your next virtual trade show.

Event Insights for Hosts

Attendance rates. Measure how many people registered vs. how many people actually attended. Tracking attendance rates helps you understand how you can better optimize communications once people have registered. Low attendance rates may either mean your pre-event communications aren’t enticing enough or frequent enough to keep the event on their radar. If you find your attendance rates are low during the event, you can also send a reminder email to those who haven’t yet logged in, and ask them to join you.  Individual user journeys. Identify any user, and track their entire user journey as they were logged in to the event. This helps you paint a picture of what people were most interested in, how long they spent in each area. It will also help you get a deeper understanding of the ways in which your audience consumes content. Webinar attendance. View real-time data about how many people are at a specific webinar. This now only helps you understand what type of content was most popular. If you’re hosting an important or mandatory presentation and you aren’t seeing the attendance you want, send a reminder message to attendees in the event chat!  Content downloads. Track what content is most popular, and whether certain content is more popular during certain times. For example, you may find in your event insights that there’s a spike in downloads for a specific document following a seminar. This can signal that you should tie the two together in your post-event communications. You may also find new ways to combine the information from the seminar and the document in future communications. 

Event Insights for Exhibitors

Traffic trends. Track the when booth traffic spikes.Understand whether you’re getting a lot of traffic between webinars or at certain times of the day, and how booth activity correlates with other aspects of the virtual events. Additionally, as you begin to identify patterns, you can start planning how many virtual representatives you might need to assist with your booth at certain times. Chat metrics. View how many people have joined and engaged with your booth chatroom. Additionally, you can review how many people started 1:1 chats and how many requested meetings with representatives. Not only does this help you plan how many attendees you should make available at your booth, it also helps show how engaged booth visitors were with you.  Content engagement. Track what content performs the best through content views and downloads. After putting hours of work into booth content, you want to understand what people are most interested in about you. Are more people clicking through to your company’s ‘About’ page, or viewing your company overview video? Knowing this information helps you understand what types of content your audience is more interested in consuming, even if they offer the same information. This is an extremely valuable way to plan out your marketing content and to understand what to feature at your next virtual event. 

Takeaways

There are a myriad of ways to use your event metrics in the ongoing quest to better understand your target audience. Our real-time dashboard not only lets you optimize the event experience on the event day, it also gives you valuable insights into your audience and how they’d like to be communicated with.     

Imagine a world where you could sit back and generate qualified leads. No more tiresome run-arounds to set up the perfect virtual trade show and no more disappointing results. As technology is becoming easier to use, businesses use innovative methods to maximize their ROI. They now get to keep more money in their pockets! One such key development is the rise of virtual events, transforming the entire landscape of qualified lead generation. In fact, trends show that virtual and hybrid events will only get bigger from here. To understand what makes virtual trade shows popular, let’s have a closer look at their features and tools.  So, here's everything you need to know about hosting through your own virtual trade show platform.

What is a Virtual Trade Show?

This is an online version of an event where goods and services are exhibited, for a particular industry. Various companies and organizations display their products and services, provide information on them, and can even make sales.  This is a great space to network and meet new wholesale sellers and buyers and thus create new leads. It is also a great space to tap into new global markets. Reduced cost, maximized reach, excellent engagement and powerful lead generation and ordering tools. These make this type of event a valuable opportunity for organizers, exhibitors, and attendees all across the globe.

How do Virtual Trade Shows Work? 

Virtual trade shows are effective ways for businesses to interact with their direct customer base as exhibitors. Most virtual trade shows will cover all the same basics of an in-person trade show. Most often you will see a virtual exhibition room with various companies setting up their virtual booths. These booths can have a number of booth reps available for networking and answering booth visitors’ queries. Virtual booths also offer document hosting so that you can provide the most valuable resources such as presentations, brochures, videos, etc., to attendees. Virtual trade shows are most often transactional and can also offer e-commerce platform capabilities. This way, you can make sure that you don’t lose any leads generated through your virtual booth and can close the deal within the same booth. This guide will cover how to make the most out of your virtual booth, market your virtual trade show to a global audience, and also suggest some best practices to make your trade show successful.

What Are The Benefits of Virtual Trade Shows?

Virtual trade shows can help exhibitors showcase and sell their products or services to a much larger audience and are happening all around the world. However, they can still be a new concept for many. If you are still on the fence about virtual trade shows, here are some of the key benefits you can consider.

1. Greater Global Reach

The online nature of your trade show can help you qualify leads from across the world. Keeping your event on-demand enables you to gain access to more people in different time zones. As long as your audience has a device, they have access to a truly exceptional event experience.

2. Lower Costs, More ROI

With lower expenditures than a physical event your event is going to have a definite higher ROI. With a greater global reach, ticketing options and more sponsorship opportunities, a virtual trade show is better bang for your buck.

3. Environmentally Conscious

On average, around 600,000 tons of waste are produced at trade shows every year. This increases the carbon footprint contributing to climatic change. Virtual trade shows eliminate the use of paper and other harmful materials. Turn your business green by hosting a virtual trade show. vFairs has a Green & Global campaign to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable virtual events. Virtual events can be one of the best ways for attendees and exhibitors to reduce their carbon footprints as they can go completely paperless and still share information and resources.

4. Increased Accessibility

Virtual trade shows are a great opportunity for people who are differently-abled. Unlike physical fairs, these events provide several options to assist individuals with impairments and other disabilities, allowing them to benefit as much from the event, as any other visitor. These accessibility features are quite useful and can include features like translations, transcriptions, color contrasts, subtitles, etc.

What Are the Features of a Virtual Trade Show

When browsing virtual trade show platforms, there are some key features you should definitely be looking for.

1. Stunning 3D Designs to Wow Audiences

Present your audience with an unforgettable experience from the second they walk into your virtual event. Build a phenomenal 3D environment, starting with a rich, visually compelling landing page. Then, move on to a highly customizable interface for your exhibitors and attendees. Have your attendees enter a virtual lobby and explore the various booths in the exhibit hall.  Do this with immersive environments and a diverse set of custom avatars. In short, offer a fully personalized virtual trade show platform to create a lasting impression.

2. Have Cross-Device Functionality

With event accessibility through a mobile app, you can have your participants tune in from anywhere on any device. This helps you to maximize attendee participation. This could be in the event they do not have access to their laptops, are commuting, stuck in traffic or any such scenario. The feature at vFairs now provides timed scavenger hunts that keep attendees thoroughly engaged at your event. The mobile app is also great for elevating an in-person trade show!

3. Custom Designs and Layouts for Branded Booths

[caption id="attachment_28344" align="aligncenter" width="558"] Design your booth and make it your own by choosing the branding colors, avatars, and booth layout.[/caption] Let’s admit it – setting up booths and chasing vendors to prepare marketing material are a hassle. Virtual trade fairs are the perfect alternative. They let you and your exhibitors make their brand presence known throughout the event. Your exhibitors can also customize their booths, and upload downloadable resources for the audience.

4. Live Chat Tools for Networking

To fulfill the goal of a successful event, you need to ensure maximum interaction between visitors and exhibitors. Live chat tools help provide attendees information and assistance. This makes it easier to turn leads into sales.  Furthermore, you can improve your conversion rates by addressing FAQs in group chat rooms or reserved chat slots. This way, you can target multiple online prospects at once. Look for engagement tools such as a real-time chat platform to educate and engage prospects at your event.  A 1:1 text, audio & video chat can enable you to eliminate the hassle of long queues around booths. This way, your audience can keep the conversation going in chat rooms.

5. Event Announcements to Keep Attendees Informed

Use pop-up announcements to keep your audience informed at all times. You can enable mobile notifications on your mobile event app as well. Like any other event, you will need to keep your audience posted with live updates during the event. A virtual trade show allows you to grab the attention of your attendees using pop-up notifications. 

6. Live Webinars to Engage Audiences

So, you've got a global audience in one place at a single time. Next, you want to invite industry specialists and keynote speakers. They will provide your audience with significant value on one stage. When you use a virtual platform, you don't have to worry about the availability of your speakers or different time zones. Live webinars can be used to engage large crowds at one time. Then, on-demand recordings can help amplify that exposure. Moreover, include a Q&A session at the end of each webinar. This can maximize the engagement at your event and nurture your leads.

7. E-Commerce Platform to Convert Leads to  Sales

Virtual trade shows let exhibitors showcase their products and services to the world. They basically help convert global prospects into sales. Embed an online shop at your event. Attendees can add products into their shopping cart as they explore the event.  This way, you can eliminate purchasing delays, maximize conversions, and make transactions in real-time. You can use payment portal integrations to make the whole process easier for your audience and vendors. “Lead capture and management may be two of the most important features for any virtual trade show. You don’t want all your hard work to go to waste so make sure to look for a virtual platform that offers e-commerce capabilities. Don’t waste a second and make on-spot sales!” said Carlos Herrera, Sales Manager at vFairs.

8. Gamification to Increase Time Spent

  Every host wants to boost engagement and increase the time attendees spend at their event and event gamification features are a great way to achieve that. Host exciting contests and games such as scavenger hunts, trivia, and more. You can include a virtual leaderboard where attendees can track their scores. The attendee with the most points can win a gift hamper, gift card or anything you want! You can also use the leaderboard to direct your audience to certain areas of the event. They will gain scores for partaking in certain actions such as visiting a booth or logging in at a particular time. This can bring more eyeballs to key sponsors or important event information.

9. Detailed Reports to Measure Event Success

In this era, you will lag behind if you don’t have access to real-time data. Unlike physical trade shows, online trade shows provide you with detailed reports at the end of your event. This allows you to measure your ROI for future strategies. In addition, if your exhibitors want, they can closely monitor and regulate certain booths. You can offer this facility on request. Then, they will have access to real-time reports to improve the output they aim for.

10. Keep the Event Active For As Long As You Want

You can keep your event up and running even after its live features have been deactivated. Unlike a physical event, a virtual platform makes this possible. Exhibitors can receive notifications of booth visits, queries, and purchases. Meanwhile, organizers can continue to promote the event using emails and social media in order to continue its activity. Furthermore, they can make webinars and other content available on-demand for maximum exposure.

“One of the biggest reasons behind the success of virtual trade shows is the constant availability of information even after live days are over! You can keep the platform live for however long you want, and that’s something in-person events can’t give you.” said Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs.

How Do You Set Up a Successful Virtual Trade Show?

Virtual trade shows have all the above-mentioned benefits, but you can only get the most out of them if you know how to set one up. From choosing the right virtual event platform to finding the right target audience, sponsors, and exhibitors - it can be quite a task. Here are some easy steps to follow to make your virtual trade sho`w a resounding success.

1: Focus on Your Goal

A virtual trade show can have any number of features as mentioned above. However, you don’t necessarily need them all. It is important to make sure that you first understand what you are trying to achieve from the virtual trade show. Some event organizers only want to create a platform where they can showcase their services and products to a wider audience. Whereas others might have a more transactional approach with an aim to collect leads and convert them to sales. So, by focusing on your requirements, it can be easier to narrow down what features will be most important for your virtual trade show to have. 

2: Create Meaningful Content

Content distribution is one of the most important steps for any virtual trade show. Attendees at your event want to gather information about the services or products being displayed. So, the next natural step to focus on is to create content that will add value to the attendees’ experience. Virtual trade shows can host a bunch of different types of content in booths, exhibit halls, auditoriums, and networking lounges. Welcome videos, platform tutorials, brochures, webinars, and other useful documents will need most of your attention. You can create content that you can reuse on multiple mediums such as social media. The main aim should be to provide more value to your attendees and let the exhibitors share their resources in the best possible ways.

3: Find Industry Experts for Guest Speaker Sessions

Industry experts as keynote speakers or panel discussions can be a great way to attract more attendees at your virtual trade show. Virtual event platforms can allow you to host interactive guest speaker sessions with live Q&As as well. You can add speaker bios and provide networking opportunities for speakers and attendees to improve their overall experience.  It can also be a great way to improve the content at your virtual event. You can ask the guest speakers to send a presentation or handouts your way that you can upload to the event platform. It is a convenient and effective way to provide more value to the attendees.

4: Market Your Event

Once you have all the speakers, event platform features, and attendee experience aligned, you need to start marketing your event. One of the first things you will need is a customized landing page for your event. You can provide event information and gather registrations for the event through the landing page. Virtual event marketing tools like email marketing, push notifications, paid ad campaigns, etc can make a lot of difference in increasing attendee count at the event. You can find more useful tips and best practices for virtual event marketing here.

Your Virtual Trade Show Planning Checklist

1. Do Your Research for Virtual Event Platforms 

Before you begin, ask your solution provider for a demo and test the technology yourself. Ensure that the platform is user-friendly for everyone across the globe, and not just techies. Try out multiple platforms if you aren't satisfied. A platform that a friend raved about might not necessarily work for you.

2. Understand Your Security Needs

The security options available for your event are vital to its success. Ask your virtual event provider about the security features that they employ. This is essential for attendee, sponsor, and host security.

3. Strategize Execution

Identify your objectives, set clear goals for the team, and align expected results. Then, you can move in the planned direction. This also helps monitor and regulate the event as it takes place.

4. Devise a Marketing Plan

Create a holistic marketing strategy that targets multiple channels. The next section will walk you through a detailed marketing manual.

5. Prepare Quality Content for Your Attendees

Virtual trade shows let you host multiple types of content on your platform - whether it's a document, presentation, or video. Make the most of this and get in touch with your team and sponsors. Then, brainstorm session ideas and content. In addition, collect sales collateral, marketing videos, and any other useful PDFs to showcase at the event.

6. Create an Event Schedule

Most trade shows go on for a few days. Therefore, your attendees need to have a schedule that shows the complete agenda. Furthermore, this schedule should also state the timings for when trade is open. Make sure your approach accommodates different time zones. Share the schedule on your landing page to make sure interested attendees and exhibitors are online when they want.

7. Monitor the Event with Data Analytics

One of the key selling points for a virtual event is that you can monitor and evaluate your performance. Unlike a physical trade show, this can allow you to both quantify and justify end results.

5 Top Virtual Trade Show Ideas

A virtual trade show can be created for any kind of industry. Here is a comprehensive list of these kinds of fairs.

Virtual Car Show

YallaMotor, a leading Middle Eastern automotive portal, went big with their recent virtual car show. Due to their diverse audience, this online platform was accessible in Arabic and English. This made it easy to target a larger audience, engage with them via live chat tools, and convert prospects into sales in real-time.

Virtual Property Show

Hosting a virtual property show can help you to target a global audience. Take, for example, OGC who hosted a virtual property fair promoting overseas properties to North American buyers.  Not only were they able to showcase homes in desirable locations such as France and Spain, they could also connect with real estate agents and lawyers who could better inform them about the buying process and laws in the countries they were looking to buy in.

Virtual Technology Show

No matter the size of your business, the tangible and intangible benefits of hosting a virtual tech show play a significant role.  You cannot yield successful outputs, but also rake in networking, advertising, and direct sales benefits.  In today's business environment, tech industrialists are switching to virtual alternatives. Then, they showcase their powerful technologies on a larger scale using the best resources. This helps them surpass high costs and allows them to create a virtual landscape to engage with a wider audience.

Virtual Food Show

Leading distributors & manufacturers like Nestle, Jake’s Finer Foods, and Centennial have recently conducted successful virtual food shows, boosting their profits, and adding value to the entire food industry. Jake’s Finer Foods (JFF), in particular, strengthened its position as a progressive broad-line distributor by hosting the first of its kind virtual food show. It successfully achieved higher registration volume, extraordinary branding, and insightful communications. This helped create a win-win situation for both the exhibitors and customers.

Other Virtual Trade Shows

Whether it’s a technology show, a travel show, they come packed with benefits for a global audience. Virtual events offer highly flexible options. They make it easier for organizers in any industry to showcase their products and services to a wider audience without spending an arm and a leg on a physical event.

Virtual Trade Show Booths: Key Features

Virtual trade show booths will probably be the most important element of your event. Exhibitors, sponsors, event hosts, and attendees will spend the most of their time in the virtual exhibit hall during a trade show. Therefore, you should know everything there is to know about setting up virtual booths and how to make the most out of them. Here is what a virtual booth can do for you as an exhibitor.

1: Document Hosting

Virtual trade show booths can host documents, brochures, presentations, and can also redirect attendees to external website links. You can upload unlimited resources to your virtual booth and booth visitors can also be welcomed with a short video. Attendees can view and download these resources for later. 

2: Networking Options

Virtual booths often have networking capabilities such as audio, text, and video chat capabilities. Booth visitors can set up meeting slots with booth reps and talk to them through one of the networking options available. vFairs also has some novel updates to the chat feature that allows  a chat queueing option for booth reps. It can help manage even the busiest booths’ traffic.

3: Design and Avatar Customizations 

Virtual booths usually have advanced levels of customization options available for exhibitors. You can design the booth to make it your own, add custom colors, logos, and other forms of company branding. You can also add inclusive avatars such as ethnic populations and physically challenged individuals as your booth reps. 

4: E-Commerce Capabilities

Virtual exhibit booths can also have e-commerce features built into them to help exhibitors close deals immediately. You can showcase all your products and services and list their rates in the booth. Attendees can add products to the cart and place orders that you can follow-up later to close the deals. 

How to Set Up a Virtual Trade Show Booth 

Virtual trade show booths are fairly simple to set up. Most virtual event companies will set virtual exhibitors up with an online form. The main purpose of this form is to gather as much information about the booth as they can. It can include options for booth layouts, different choices for avatars, booth colors, etc. Booth exhibitors can also upload company logos, pictures, and other documents to be hosted in the virtual booth in the same form. Once you have sent out all the information to the event host, the next steps will be automated for you. You may receive an email notification with the virtual event exhibitor login credentials that you can use to sign in. It is quite simply filling up a form and then logging in on the day of the event. The more accurate information you provide event hosts, the easier it can be to set up.

Virtual Trade Show Booth Ideas & Tips

Virtual trade shows booths might be easy to set up but you have to put in some work to make them stand out. Here are some important tips and ideas to set up a successful virtual booth that can convert leads to sales.

1: Branding 

Your company’s virtual exhibit booth and its brand should be the embodiment of your physical brand. That’s why you need to focus on branding it the right way. You can use all the customization options available to you and add company logos wherever possible. Using customizable and inclusive avatars can also help you stand out. 

2: Clear Audio & Video Quality

Virtual trade show booths and their performance will primarily depend upon how well your booth reps can communicate with attendees virtually. Clear audio and video quality can ensure that all communication is convenient, clear, and effective. 

3: Prepare Multi-Use Marketing Collateral

Virtual exhibit booths and trade shows will need promotion on multiple fronts and through various mediums. You should prepare marketing collateral like brochures and posters that you can post on the event landing page, the company website, and even on social media. Marketing drip email campaigns can also be very helpful to engage your audiences.      

The Complete Marketing Manual for Organizers

So, you want to host a virtual trade show. But how do you make sure people attend it? Great marketing is at the heart of a great trade show. Let's see how to nail your marketing campaigns. First, we'll take a look at marketing collateral for attendees and then, for exhibitors.

Marketing For Attendees

You want more leads at the top of the funnel so a greater amount ends up converting into sales. For this purpose, we'll explore the following marketing channels:

1. A landing page that features the event on your website.
2. Email marketing to reach out to your email list.
3. A sticky bar to advertise the event across your website.
4. Social media to create buzz.

Landing pages

To market your event, you’ll first need a landing page. This will provide you with an online space to do three important things:

1. Provide prospects with details about your trade show.
2. Feature the event registration form.
3. Provide a gateway to log in to the event.

To improve its visibility and engagement, you should:

• Include important event details such as event dates, duration, and time.
• Publish an agenda and speaker information.
• Optimize your page for search engines.
• Mention your popular exhibitors and speakers.
• Feature influencers on your page to make your elevator pitch more attractive.
• Keep the copy concise and engaging to encourage perspectives to consume more of it. 

To optimize your registration form for higher registration numbers:

• Add a registration link along with a login link, ideally above the fold.
• Ask for information that you absolutely need, such as email and first name to ensure quick and easy sign-ups.
• Make sure that the field labels are straightforward and intuitive. It’s important to make the form as easy as possible to fill out.

Email Marketing

Next, it’s time to leverage your existing email list. Create a vibrant event invitation in your email builder to send out to your list. There, ask them to register for the event. This list will be a quick and easy way to market to already interested prospects. But what should the emails look like? You want your recipients to be hooked in from the get-go. So, you need crisp and engaging subject lines, informative copy, and relevant visuals. In addition, you can add exhibitor logos and include pictures of your speakers. Here are some other details to remember:

• Write a short and exciting subject line to announce the event. No more than 7 words!
• Personalize your email with targeted language.
• Include key information such as the show’s time and date.
• Add a link to your landing page or directly to the registration form.
• Create an eye-catching call-to-action.
• Make sure your email is compatible with most devices (that doesn’t mean just mobile!).

Follow this simple schedule to send out your emails and subsequent reminders:

• First email: Three weeks before the event.
• Second email: One week before the event.
• Third email: A day before the event.
• Fourth email: 15 minutes before the event. Our tests at vFairs have shown that reminder emails sent 10-15 minutes before the event perform better than reminders sent an hour before the event.

Promote On Your Website

Another way to get more eyes on your event is by placing a sticky bar across your website. This will let other visitors know about your event. Plus, it will be on the top of your website on every page. So, every visitor to your website gets to see it. But these sticky bars are subtle and offer limited space to companies. We recommend only adding two elements to it:

1. A message to tell readers about the dates of your virtual trade show.
2. A CTA that asks them to register for the event. The link will take the user to the main event landing page.

While there are other types of modules, a sticky bar will offer the least amount of interruption along with decent visibility for all your visitors.

Target Social Media

With social media consumption consistently on the rise, be sure to leverage this channel. Here’s a little checklist you can use:

1. Announce your virtual trade show at least a month in advance. You’ll need to send reminders later.
2. Build anticipation by sharing event details after every few days. Do exhibitor reveals, share speaker bios, or talk about themes that’ll be discussed at the event.
3. Post content in the relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups.
4. Add the link to the event landing page in your social media bios. Also, include it in every social media post that you publish on your channels.
5. Use UTM links for all your posts. Then, measure the performance of each channel, and keep optimizing your efforts.
6. Reply to comments, interact with your viewers, and crack a joke if you can! This will make prospects like your brand and look forward to being in your company.

Marketing for Exhibitors

You most likely have a list of contacts already in your emails and extended network. Tap into those and send all the information you can about your event. They need to learn how going online can benefit them more than a traditional event. Here is a list of benefits that you can share with your exhibitors:

• Enhance interaction and boost engagement with customers using live chat tools and webinars.
• Provide attendees with the option to download content in the form of documents, presentations and videos. Monitor your booth and regulate available content in real-time.
• Customize booths without the hassle of vendors and printers.
• Use an online shop to make on-spot sales.
• Evaluate booth performance with detailed reports. These consist of data such as the number of participants, booth visits & sources driving the audience to the event

Virtual Trade Show Analytics

Virtual trade shows are data-driven. You can greatly benefit from the comprehensive reports they offer. However, you’ll need to know what to track. This will help you understand your audience and optimize future events. Let's see what you can do with these event reports.

1. Optimize Event Registrations

To get more people to come to your event, optimize your registrations first. Closely track the performance of your marketing efforts. Then, track your conversions from your Google Analytics account or your virtual event platform dashboard. Next, identify the channels that are bringing in the most conversions and optimize accordingly. Moreover, you’d want to see how well your landing page is performing in terms of conversions. How far down the page is the form? Do you need to change the positioning of the form? Does above the fold work better than below the fold? How many form fields get you the best conversions? Running A/B tests with these options in mind is a great way to optimize your landing page and registration forms. If you start your marketing efforts early, you’ll also have more time to optimize them for the best results.

2. Understand Your Demographic

You should know your target audience well. This way, you can tailor their event experience for them. To do this, ask your attendees questions such as the following:

• What are your areas of interest?
• Which exhibitors are you most interested in speaking to?
• What are you hoping to achieve from this trade show?

Data from these questions will help you offer a more personalized experience to each of your attendees. However, long forms are only a hurdle to registration. Save these questions for after your prospects have entered your event funnel. Here are the options we recommend:

• After sign-up, send an optional follow-up email that asks recipients what they'd like to see.
• After entry, ask questions from the event page so you can customize the experience.
• Use a virtual event platform that lets attendees update their profiles from within the event. That way, it's less work for the organizer, and attendees have control over the information others see at the event.

3. Learning Audience Preferences

Once the event goes live, it’s time to learn what aspects of your trade show are fan favorites. Track attendee journeys during the event. Then, learn about the booths they visit, the representatives they talk to, the speaker sessions that get the most attention, and so on. Remember to only use a virtual event platform that collects this data for you. This kind of platform will help you get in-depth attendee insights that you can use to optimize future events. Furthermore, the reporting module will provide data such as:

• Views for each booth
• Time spent at each booth
• Time spent on each page
• The average time users were online
• Registrations vs. attendance
• Number of resource downloads
• CTR for exhibitor websites

Each of these data points will tell you what aspect of your event was a success. In addition, it will show what kind of content performed the best at your trade show.

4. Post-Event Analytics

Another way to get more data out of your virtual trade show is to send an event follow-up survey. Such a survey will ask attendees how their experience with the event was and include questions such as the following:

• What was your goal of attending the event?
• What are some areas we can improve for you?
• How would you rate the following on a scale of one to five: sessions, networking, exhibitors, duration of the event, and so on.

Email this survey to all your attendees and analyze the data you collect.

Cost Comparison - Physical vs. Virtual Trade Show

Without a doubt, pricing plays a crucial role in deciding which option to opt for. So, if you're here, you're probably looking for a cost-effective solution that gives you more value in return for your money. Let's break it down so you can see for yourself.

• Venue Rental - Based on its capacity, rental costs are a given expense. However, with virtual trade shows, you don't have to book a physical space to accommodate attendees.

• Setup & Equipment - Stage, booths, information desk, lobby, and the list goes on. At a physical event, building a respectable show is one of the biggest challenges for every organizer. That's where virtual trade shows make their winning run once again.

• Hospitality - You can't be a host without providing your guests with refreshments and other miscellaneous items. Virtual trade shows free you of all your hospitality duties.

• Staffing - It can be quite taxing on your staff to manage a physical trade show. With virtual trade shows, the team providing you with the service takes care of all the legwork. With constant assistance, your event is managed by a team of professionals remotely.

• Travel & Stay - For any key speaker that travels to your event, you are usually bound to incorporate travel and stay into your cost. Fortunately, you can now invite speakers from across the globe without paying for their travel to ensure their presence at your event.

While physical trade shows have been popular for a number of trade show organizers in the past, the high costs and very limited reach have compelled most of them to switch to virtual alternatives. After all, the smartest business owners are the ones that optimize their strategies and use cost-effective means to generate huge profits.

Are Virtual Trade Shows Worth It?

Virtual trade shows can help you reach a larger audience and expand your reach to a global level. You can also open it up to an international target audience and businesses. Moreover, resources from a virtual event can be kept available on-demand for an extended period of time. It offers immersive networking opportunities with novel features like Spatial Networking, Roundtables, and Smart Matchmaking.   Hence, there are multiple benefits of virtual trade shows that might put them at par or even above in-person trade shows. Saving costs by going virtual shouldn’t mean that you have to compromise on the quality of the event or the networking opportunities that your event will provide. Therefore, depending upon your use case and how you implement the available features, virtual trade shows can be totally worth it.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Conclusion

Trade shows are a great way of allowing businesses of all sizes to promote their brand and showcase their offerings to a diverse group of individuals. They provide you with an enormous opportunity to generate qualified leads and skyrocket your sales. But none of this is really profitable if it has to come at the cost of extensive resources and work. Hence, virtual trade shows are now redefining the way businesses can maximize their profits and keep the environment healthy. And guess what? The opportunities are just beginning to blossom as your business is now growing beyond borders.

While virtual trade shows, among other types of virtual events, have seen a surge in popularity recently -- due in most part to the COVID-19 pandemic -- they have actually been around for a lot longer. Mostly, companies have found success incorporating them in their marketing strategies, but there have been scenarios where the results were not all too great. So, are virtual trade shows worth it? The focus of this article is to make sure you understand whether or not trade shows are worth your efforts by looking at what they’re essentially used for, their benefits, and their drawbacks.

The Idea Behind Virtual Trade Shows

The idea behind virtual trade shows is that the hosts, attendees, and exhibitors, all get to partake in the event as they would in a normal, physical trade show by emulating all its aspects over the internet. This is done through 3D virtual auditoriums, exhibition halls, customized booths for companies, and more. But how does it actually compare with the real deal? While the emulation is there, does it really capture that experience? The answer is… well, it’s a mixed bag. Some people find that virtual trade show platforms are definitely the future, as they allow for a lot of convenience and ease, reduce costs, and even help the environment by allowing for reduction of paperwork as well as carbon footprint caused by traveling. However, the detractors point that they don’t provide enough audience engagement, and the experience doesn’t stand up to the expected standards. Let’s do an in-depth analysis...

Benefits of a Virtual Trade Show

Inclusivity and Reach

The first, and almost obvious, benefit you can get is inclusivity and reach. With virtual trade shows, it’s possible for almost anyone to attend as long as they have an internet connection. This gives you the opportunity to reach out to more people than you normally would. Companies that are interested in exhibiting at your event would also find it attractive. To support this point, here’s what a G2 reviewer had to say: “The upside of using vFairs is the extended reach that allows for meetings to increase participation.” 

Diversity

Participants at a virtual trade show are able to interact with people from different backgrounds. It allows for diversity in networking that wouldn’t be possible in an in-person setting. Companies can also expand and reach a diverse audience, learn more, and find collaborators in places they wouldn’t have thought of before.

Cost-effective

Next, it’s cost-effective. All costs related to the physical space are drastically reduced, from the traveling costs of the participants to costs pertaining to venue and booth arrangements. Cleaning, booth design, accommodations, printing… all costs are either inapplicable or at least cut down significantly. 

Eco-friendly

It’s also eco-friendly. In fact, this is one of the reasons people are moving towards virtual events. Because the participants aren’t required to travel, it can cut down significantly on greenhouse gas emissions, which helps limit climate change as each individual’s carbon footprint is reduced. Since it’s all online, there won’t be much paperwork involved either, hence cutting down on the use of paper.

Event Analytics

One of the most sought-after features of a virtual trade show is the event analytics. You can understand audience behavior, preferences, and interaction much better than you could with a live show. Because there will be a record of almost every action performed by every participant, you can ask a number of questions and get answers from the data collected. For example, “which booth had attracted the most audience?”, “how long did people stay in the event for?”, and more.

Shortcomings of a Virtual Trade Show

One of the main reservations against virtual trade shows will always be brought up: the experience. Some still fear that virtual trade shows may not capture the experience of a physical trade show. However, the general perspective towards this is changing with time and the ever-advancing features of virtual event platforms. You might also want to keep in mind that not all of your participants will have stable internet connections and that they can always break, interrupting live chat. You might want to mention this in your emails so the participants are already prepared.  Time zone constraints may be problematic, so don’t be alarmed if a number of people are unable to attend the event. For that, it’s always a great idea to have recorded sessions uploaded on the event website. Lastly, the attendees may not be skilled when it comes to using virtual events tools. Great virtual event platforms will be built around user experience. So attendees, no matter how tech savvy, should be able to easily navigate the platform. This should be kept in mind.

How to Make the Most Of Your Trade Show

To make your event worth it, you will need to a) promote it extensively, and b) make it as engaging as possible. Virtual trade shows can be marketed and promoted similar to their live counterparts. But since the target audience usually comes from a diverse locality, the focus is online marketing. But again, the principles followed are the same. First and foremost, you will need a list of people. You can gain a following through different means such as blogging and email marketing. A solid online reputation and credibility are also essential for maximum ROI. Once you have got the leads (list of people), you can send them invitation emails for your event. Next, you will need a landing page so your invitees can easily register. The landing page will serve as the first impression for your event, so special focus needs to be given to the design and copy. The next steps usually involve reminder emails to keep the invitees engaged to ensure they don’t forget to attend the event.  To improve engagement, you can make sure the chat features work on the platform being used, and that the interaction is as seamless as possible between all types of environments. You could also look into gamification for your trade shows, it can significantly improve and encourage attendee engagement. 

Are Virtual Trade Shows Worth It?: Takeaways

We’ve looked at what exactly virtual events and trade shows essentially are along with their benefits and drawbacks. In most ways, they’re going to be beneficial as long as all participants attend with an open mind.