Let’s talk about how to promote your virtual event. So, you already talked to the best virtual event production company. And things seem to be on the right track! You now have partners that can help you turn your in-person experience into a virtual one. The tools and support are there, and success is visible at the end of the tunnel. But how do you go about promoting it? How can you make sure your materials are enticing enough to make people want to show up?
Well, we talked to our friends over at Design Pickle and they have some ideas! Because they are the world’s number one unlimited graphic design service, they know better than anyone else how to promote your virtual event successfully. So if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut when it comes to promotion, don’t worry! Just keep reading and learn all the amazing ways you can use graphics to create a holistic promotional experience. Brought to you by Endless Events and Design Pickle!
The first thing on your list should be pre-event promotion. As we mentioned in our virtual attendee engagement blog, convincing people to attend will be extra challenging. Because with a virtual event, you’re competing with a lot of things you otherwise wouldn’t during an in-person experience. And a good way to generate buzz around the event is to put together a brilliant promotion strategy that pre-dates the event itself! Here are the graphics you’ll want to consider and that Design Pickle will take care of in no time:
Your landing page should be designed with the single focus of being a call-to-action. If you wish to increase the conversion rate of your virtual event, this particular page deserves attention. Because at the end of the day, as the name suggests, this is where your potential audience will land and, eventually, convert.
The landing page should include the unique selling proposition for your virtual event, images and/or videos, the benefits associated with attending your virtual event, and your call to action. Having the right team of designers by your side will ensure the landing page is attractive and irresistible to potential prospects!
There’s no point in explaining all the pros of embedding a social media strategy in your virtual event promotion. It’s where a big chunk of your potential audience is, everybody and their dog has Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and so on. Refrain from putting all of your eggs in a single basket and develop a holistic social media strategy that includes graphics that can be shared in several different channels and increase visibility and engagement.
The goal here is to include the necessary information without overloading the audience at an initial glance. And with clean and appealing graphics, generating interest becomes a lot easier!
Your email marketing strategy should go hand in hand with the social media strategy. What you’ll want to do here is find the sweet spot between promoting your virtual event enough and not clogging people’s inboxes. No one wants three dozen emails about your event sitting in their inbox! But you don’t want to risk under-promoting either, so find the right balance.
Create a series of emails to invite the appropriate audience, and use the header graphic to give the overview in a visually appealing way. A good set of graphics goes a long way deciding which emails are worth reading!
Who says that promoting your virtual event should fall on your shoulders only? Use the tools you have at your disposal to generate more buzz! Why not ask your speakers and even the attendees to help you out? This is why having a generic graphic will come in handy – if any of them want to share your virtual event on their respective channel, you can simply hand this graphic over to them. It’s free publicity!
On the same note, consider also having promo graphics for event partners to share via their own channels. This could be slightly more customized than the generic explainer graphic – nothing that Design Pickle can’t do.
Paid ads are a great way to drive traffic to your landing page and convert your potential audience. Inbound marketing alone might not be enough to promote your virtual event, so consider going the extra mile. Search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn offer this feature, so there’s plenty of choice!
The big day is finally here! Your virtual event is about to take place, and thanks to your production company and design partners, you have everything you need. And the most important graphics that the latter helped you create include:
This will depend on the format of your virtual event. But considering that live streaming is very popular right now, this would be a great tool for consistency. Think about the frame as what would be part of the decoration for your in-person event. Visuals are extremely important in a virtual event because they will go a long way in keeping audiences engaged.
Plus, it’s been scientifically proven that human beings respond to patterns and prefer them to chaos. Creating a frame that will follow through the entire live-stream will not only help you stay consistent, it will also offer your audience a sense of ease. Bonus points for being able to customize the frame to represent your brand and organization!
Don’t let your social media channels die after the pre-event phase! Harness all the promotional capabilities that these channels offer during the event as well to keep the hype alive and let people who are not attending know what’s going on.
You can announce the upcoming speakers, as well as encourage social sharing and engagement during sessions. This will also go a long way for people who didn’t attend to want to check out the recorded version afterward.
Virtual backgrounds go hand in hand with the frame for live stream. Remember the decoration analogy? Well, the same applies to the backgrounds! You can use these for all the speakers to, again, create consistency, and make it seem more like an in-person event. especially if your speakers are streaming from separate locations, backgrounds go a long way!
We simply can’t overstate the importance of incredible content at your virtual event. The chances of your audience walking out of a virtual event are exponentially higher than at an in-person event. And there are many things you can do to keep your attendees engaged – quizzes, polls, chat rooms, and so on.
But the best thing you can do is have a charismatic speaker that presents mind-blowing content. As we saw with the virtual backgrounds, visual engagement is paramount. Creating slides that appeal to the human eye and change ever so often but remain consistently on-brand is a fantastic engagement strategy!
You’re done with your virtual event! And what a great experience it was. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to call it quits on the virtual event promotion front. On the contrary – the hype mus continue! You want to keep engaging with your attendees and with your social media audience, regardless of whether or not they were at the event.
Not only is this a fantastic way to collect feedback, but it will also go a long way in nurturing your audience and keeping the spirit alive for upcoming virtual experiences you might be planning. Consider adding these graphics:
A variety of graphics is good here. You can create some to thank the people who attended the event, and others to recap the best moments of the event and specific moments that you thought were very successful. This can also be a good opportunity to ask your attendees for their feedback and extract valuable information.
There are plenty of things you can do after the event to generate awesome content and – you guessed it – keep the hype alive! You can generate interest for the next event and maximize exposure by creating several posts. Discuss things like “what we learned”, “highlights of virtual event X”, or anything that you find relevant.
Create downloadable booklets/guides based on information shared within the event, so all attendees have something concrete to take away and potentially share. Content offers are a great promotional tool!
Similar to what you did with the emails, you can utilize social graphics to thank the attendees or recap some of the highlights. Remember that social media channels thrive on good visuals!
A specific area where virtual events have the upper hand is in their evergreen nature. Virtual events can be recorded and made available on other platforms, meaning that people can access it at any time they want – even if they missed the chance to attend the actual thing! If you go this route, consider utilizing bumpers to insert hosts’ brand’s logo and sponsors.
And that’s a wrap on this week’s lesson on how to promote your virtual event. Don’t let this important part of your strategy slip away in the midst of all the planning craze. Head on to Design Pickle and let them do the magic for you. Remember, with virtual events, visuals are more important than ever – and graphics are a solid investment!
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