How to determine between online or in-person for your BtoB events?
One-off physical events that mark the occasion
Physical events can represent a significant expense in the organizer’s marketing budget. They entail some unavoidable costs such as venue rental and preparation, logistical services, catering, reception facilities, equipment rental, etc.
These events also imply a considerable amount of commitment from your participants and partners as they’ll use their precious time in travelling to meet you.
In-person events should therefore be designed as highlights of your event strategy. This means providing premium content in meetings that are targeted, prepared, and unmissable.
Your attendees must be provided with a unique experience where the content is exceptional, and where professional meetings are facilitated and enhanced by both the physical proximity and the stimulating atmosphere.
Digital events that make attendance easier for participants
100% digital events last longer and are an opportunity to keep your audience engaged over time. This allows a completely different approach, that is complementary to face-to-face events.
Once you’ve designed and created your online event and packed it up with video content (whether it’s live sessions broadcast on the day of the event, or pre-recorded sessions) it’ll be a piece of cake keeping your event going for several weeks, or even months.
You can decide to leave content and networking open at all times so attendees can access them on-demand, or to make them available only at specific times, like a private sale.
Unlike a physical event where participants have to follow a linear agenda (the plenary at 10am, networking time at 11am, parallel workshops at 11:30am in which your participants will have to choose from), the digital event leaves greater freedom to them. They can zoom in on certain content at their convenience, depending on their interests and needs.
Finally, the ‘no-show’ rate, which is so dreaded on phyiscal events has no impact on a digital event.
The key to success: an event marketing strategy that combines in-person and online events
Combining these two complementary approaches in your event marketing strategy will allow you to maintain a permanent digital connection with your audiences, in addition to key meeting points during your in-person events.
To achieve this goal, it’s necessary to choose a technological platform that has all the functional power to combine the best of both approaches. This will then allow you to orchestrate your entire online and offline strategy in a coherent and impactful way.
