CATCH THOSE LEADS WITH ONLINE EVENTS: YES, THEY'RE HERE FOR GOOD

Imagine the beautifully set up venues with plush chairs and a grand stage, where businesses like yours would frequent as speakers and attendees.

Those days are far behind us now.

These beautiful, extravagant events were the biggest lead generation sources that helped companies grow their business. With the global pandemic, COVID19 spreading all across the world, businesses are forced to cancel or postpone in-person events. Yes, the world is locked down. But if you think that should stop you from running your business, you have already lost your battle.

How do you create B2B leads, when social distancing is ensuring that it will take a while for us to conduct (or participate in) offline meetings?

The internet has revolutionized the world with unmatching powers and capabilities. And, the latest industry to benefit from the internet is events.

A huge number of businesses, companies, institutes, and governments are turning towards online events to reap the best of their convenience. Now comes the surprising statistics. According to Market Research Media, the virtual event market will grow to $18 billion by 2023. Obviously, online events are on the rise and are going to conquer the online space. So, how do businesses generate leads from those online events? Let's see.

‍

1. IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE AND COME UP WITH A TARGETED MESSAGE

You must create a vision to attract the audience and industry experts to your online events.  Active participation from both sponsors and attendees is crucial in creating lead generations.

You start with setting a vision, which will help you identify the potential number of attendees. This is very crucial in approaching speakers. Now, you must attract industry experts to speak, which will attract a large number of potential leads and help you maintain a lasting connection with them. This will help you and your brand get associated with industry expertise - a long term return of investment (ROI) that goes beyond the online event.

‍

2. CREATE A GOOD LANDING PAGE

A good landing page is very crucial in lead generation. Your landing page must have easy registration so that you can encourage your audience to sign up easily. Establishing low barriers for entry will help you gain a large number of audience.

In addition to that, you can offer them free or low-cost admission. This will result in more people joining the event from all over the place as well as more engagement/downloading of your content, which will generate more leads.

‍

3. CREATE TARGETED SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS THAT LEAVE AN IMPRESSION

A social media campaign is highly important today in order for any venture to be successful. In a world where people invest a large chunk of their time online, social media marketing plays the utmost importance. You must include LinkedIn Inmails, Google Ads, and the other usual social media platforms in this campaign so that your online event will reach far and wide, and might even generate more leads than you expected.

‍

4. ALWAYS THANK YOUR ATTENDEES

There is this one thing that you can do that will not only inspire people to work with you again but also let you stay in their mind space even after the event. Say thank you once the online event is over. This is something many event organizers forget. There are various easy ways for you to show appreciation and gratitude an email, a phone call, or even a small gift can do wonders. It doesn't have to be huge at all.

5. CREATE A FOOL-PROOF FOLLOW-UP STRATEGY

One of the critical steps in your lead generation strategy is to have a concrete post-event plan to nurture your event leads. Work with your marketing team to make sure they know the potential value of your event attendees. Always remember that a solid follow-up is the best way to deliver a successful ROI from your event.

Here are some of the important statistics to pinpoint:

• Number of attendees
• Number of interactions
• Number of applications dropped
• Volume and value of transactions performed
• Content views and download volume
  

Make sure to check with your registration provider. Your sales team can reach out to qualified leads without delay using the real-time insight into who's attending your event.

‍

6. REPURPOSE ANY CONTENT YOU HAVE INTO EBOOKS, ARTICLES OR VIDEOS

Once the event ends, repurpose any content you have into ebooks, articles, or videos and drip feed your audience to keep up the engagement. This will not only help you maintain a connection with your attendees post-event but also a long term ROI for your business.

‍

FINALLY

The opportunity for lead-generation and lead-nurturing are endless with online events. Online events like webinars, podcasts, and conferences can bring in B2B leads perhaps even more efficiently than offline events. The chances of turning your attendees into valuable assets stand high if you present the message you wish to portray clearly and match the message to your event and audience.

Verbinden has the right infrastructure to host the perfect online event for you. Contact us today and take your business to new heights!