Online Events? Virtual events? Online meetings? Digital events? Webinars?

Online events

Are you tired of all the events, you have meticulously planned and booked rooms for are being canceled or postponed due to Covid-19?

And are you, as a participant, annoyed, that the events you have been looking forward to attend are being canceled?

Or maybe, as a potential participant, you are annoyed that more events are not just being offered online right away, so you can safely participate?

There is no doubt that the current pandemic has made life more unpredictable and more difficult to navigate in. The ever-changing guidelines mean that holding events becomes unpredictable. But it does not have to be. It is possible to conduct, if not all, then most events online. Events such as trainings, meetings, seminars, product demonstrations, lectures, consultations, etc. can be conducted online without problems – for the benefit of both organizer and participant.

There are several companies that specialize in hosting online events, including GoToWebinar, Cvent, Eventbrite, WebEx and ON24. In addition, you can also use Teams, which can support up to 10,000 participants!

Benefits of online events

The biggest advantage of holding events online right now is that neither the organizer nor the participant exposes themselves to unnecessary risk of infection. But in fact, online events can also be a more flexible way of conducting events for both organizer and participant.

Participants do not have to allocate time for transport, which is also better for the environment, and the organizer does not have to provide location, name tags, refreshments, etc.

There are other benefits as well. For example, GoToWebinar allows you to record the event and subsequently send it to the participants, so that they can re-watch the event. Eventbrite has Eventbrite Payment Processing, which lets participants pay online. WebEx can run events with up to 3,000 participants, but if you need more, WebEx Webcasting support up to 100,000 participants.

Microsoft Teams also lets you record the event and share it with attendees later. In addition, Teams has among other live subtitles, chat, and a raise your hand function”.

Event management

All the above providers can be connected to marketing platforms and / or CRM solutions, so that you, as an organizer, get a complete system for event management.

At MicroPartner, we work with two marketing platforms: Mailchimp and Dynamics 365 Marketing, all of which include event management, albeit to varying degrees, and which can be integrated with Dynamics 365 CRM. The integration ensures that all event information, sign-ups / unsubscribes, and event participation are automatically included in CRM. As a result, you can very easily keep track of which people are signing up, and which are participating, and much more.

With the integration to CRM, you also allow other departments in your organization access to information about the participants. This means, for example, that Sales can process participant information and select the best leads, while Finance can access information about participants’ payments.

From invitation to holding online events

With the event management tools, you can build a beautiful invitation using a landing page and insert web form that the participants can use to register for the event. You can send out your invitation via email with a link to your landing page.

You can also use digital advertising or social media to reach a wider audience. You can follow invitation recipients and sign ups – all in real time.

You can set up various actions via automation, which must be done based on the participants’ behavior. For example, you can set up a confirmation email, so that the participant knows that the registration and / or payment has been processed.

Reminders can also be sent to opt-in or opt-out from the event and much more. You can reuse participant lists for upcoming events, just as you can send out questionnaires to the participants afterwards, so you can get feedback and thus allow you to adjust your events in the future.

There are almost endless possibilities to work in a structured and creative way!