I’ve been doing B2B marketing for 10 years now and I can honestly say that virtual conferences are the most effective strategie I’ve ever implemented. They generate a ton of leads and establish thought leadership for brands which makes the conversion rates really high. I’ve always used VConference for my conferences because I like the robust functionality and the price point.
If you’re reading this post you probably have a virtual conference in the works. If you’ve not planned out your virtual conference yet, read this definitive guide now and then come back and read this post. For a virtual conference to be successful, a marriage between great speakers and a strong promotion strategy is going to bring in the results you want to see from your virtual event.
A Great Landing Page is Crucial
Your landing page is where you’re going to funnel possible event attendees so it needs to be professional and informative. Here is what you should include:
- The name of your event (for example I used to host these for GroupHigh and I called them The Outreach Marketing Virtual Summit)
- A tagline or brief description that explains what your conference will be about
- A logo for your event and if you don’t have design skills you can connect with a designer on Fiverr
- The date and time that your conference will stream
- Showcase your featured speakers with their headshots
- A form for people to sign up
- Social share buttons so attendees can share your event on their channels
Market Your Event at the Right Time
Most virtual conferences last all day so you want to start promoting it early so that your attendees can block the day of your event off on their calendars. A good rule of thumb is to have the landing page up 4 weeks before your event so that you can start marketing.
Organic Strategies
You don’t have to have a huge marketing budget to promote your virtual conference. There are a lot of organic strategies that you can implement to create buzz and gain signups. Here are a few to get your wheels turning:
- Share on your social channels and tap into hashtags
- Email your list of email contacts and invite them to the event and ask them to share the event on their own social channels
- Add a section on your homepage that features your virtual conference with a signup button
- Have your speakers share your event on their own social channels and in emails or newsletters that they send out
- Identify like-minded blogs and write guest posts that link back to your event page
- Have all of the people in your company link to the conference in their email signature
Paid Strategies
A blend of organic and paid strategies is going to amplify your virtual conference a ton. So the more promotion you can do, the better. Because remember, the leads generated from your conference are going to become potential consumers so the more attendees the more money your brand will make when you convert your new leads.
Here are the paid strategies that I’ve had success with:
- LinkedIn ads (you’ll need to have a designer create informative and visually appealing imagery)
- Purchase email blasts–76% of marketers say that email is the single most effective way to drive attendees
- Secure online newsletter placements
- Issue a press release
- Leverage Google ads
Final Thoughts
Virtual conferences generate a ton of qualified leads. So, promotion is crucial because virtual conferences take a lot of work and you don’t want that hard work to go to waste. You don’t need a huge budget to promote your conference because there are plenty of organic ways to spread the word about your event. However, you should definitely reserve some budget for paid strategies to really amplify your event.
Virtual conferences establish thought leadership and I think that is why the leads generated and then converted is so high in conferences I’ve hosted. So, be sure to implement an email nurturing program to keep all of your leads engaged.
Have you hosted a virtual conference before and have strategies to share? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Kristen Matthews.
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