5 Ways to Boost the Value of Hybrid Events

Virtual events have exploded in the past few months, but now that the world is beginning to embrace in-person events once more, it can be difficult to see the value in continuing to host hybrid or virtual events. However, in a 2021 survey conducted by Statista, 40% of marketers worldwide predicted their events will be virtual in 2022, while 35% were predicted to be hybrid.

Clearly there’s incoming trends for hybrid events, and they can bring a large value to your organization as well. Not only do hybrid events provide flexibility in the planning process and scalability, but they can increase your organization’s value as well. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can boost the value of your hybrid events for a stronger ROI and memorable attendee experience.

Collaborate with Your Partners

First things first: your event needs attendees. Would you rather spend hours trying to find attendees for your event through the luck of an algorithm, or would you rather leverage your partner’s customer base to build your audience?

When you host an event with a partner, you can promote it to their audience. This not only gives you a leg up on finding a group of new potential leads, but also lets your partners promote new and exclusive content, deals, and discover more leads based on this event. The idea is to pick partners who will have audiences that are complementary, so that they too will gain interest in their product. Joint webinars and hybrid events can lead to a wider range of attendees and create key networking opportunities across the board.

Personalize the Experience

Another quick win is to personalize your event experience. This can relay to both the audience experience and the partner experience.

On the audience end, creating customized landing pages for each group of attendees with a specific message, weather alerts, or name callouts can go a long way in making them feel welcomed. Be sure to include a “why to attend” page or section on your event’s website to give a full rundown of the event and provide benefits that they can get excited about.

For partners, you can leverage your audience data to set up specific one on ones or breakout sessions for prospective attendees who may be more interested in their products. This not only saves time on both ends, but also only matches partners with participants who are likely to be strong leads for their products.

Use Breakout Sessions to Track and Qualify Leads

Similar to the point above, you’ll be gaining a lot of insights based on attendees interest into certain products. Once your event has finished, passing off a list of new leads to your sales team might not be enough. You need to ensure your leads are qualified and ready to be contacted by your sales team, and one easy way to do this is by creating breakout sessions based on where they are in the sales funnel.

Your records will indicate which attendees went to which breakout session, indicating where they are at in the sales funnel. From there, you can pass off this data to your sales team, who will know what information to provide to them based on their status.

Invest in High-Quality Networking

This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you invest in high quality networking, it makes your event that much more valuable. Obviously, you want high quality content to provide your audience with. But if you really want to optimize your ROI, you need to create next-level networking experiences that your attendees will resonate with. Examples of leveraging technology to boost networking include:

• Use an AI-powered matchmaking system to match attendees with similar interests
• Encourage breakout sessions with speakers/presenters
• Open your event site a few days beforehand to allow both remote and onsite attendees get a good scope on what sessions they want to attend and what they don’t

Repurpose Event Content

You’ve spent so much time producing content for your event. Why let it go to waste after just one day? The answer is to repurpose your content! There are many simple ways to use “all of the buffalo”:

• Take the recordings of your webinars and offer them as gated pieces of content to encourage those who weren’t able to attend to continue to engage with your content.
• Convert the audio of a recorded session into a podcast for attendees to listen on their own time.
• Use reviews and testimonials from event guests to highlight this event, and promote future ones.
• Write blogs, eBooks, and white papers from specific findings from your event or sessions that were featured.

The possibilities are endless, and doing this gives your marketing team lots to work with instead of having to create new content.

Find Value in Flexibility

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide how to bring value to your hybrid events. Hybrid events are flexible, leaving you with a world of possibilities to experiment with when promoting your organization. You’ll need an event management platform that can support your business in your event management and execution.

Stova’s hybrid event technology helps you to create and manage registration, event websites, marketing campaigns and more. You’ll gain strategic insights, and utilize integrated onsite hardware all from one provider and bring lasting value to every event. Schedule a demo with us today to see how our platform can boost your event’s ROI!