• Tips and tricks on creating meaningful content for your target audience while presenting a powerful and profitable event.
  • Live events have proven to work best, due to their interactive nature. Attendees are able to immerse themselves in conversations in a way that is lost when events are pre-recorded.
  • The impact that you leave for your audience now, will determine the success you have for potential future events.

During a time where virtual events jumped 290%, companies found themselves needing to quickly learn new ways to connect with their target audience, network with other professionals, hold meetings, and host events.

All of a sudden, the world as we knew it was gone and marketing leaders from around the world had to learn how to embrace and leverage the art of hosting digital events.

According to recent LinkedIn studies, it appears that the digital event trend is here to stay for the long haul, as 79% of the professionals surveyed within the United States, stated that they are likely to continue to organize virtual events long-term.

Some of these benefits include:

  • Higher attendance rate
  • Potential for a global audience
  • Better chance of securing a high-quality speaker, since they won’t need to block out a huge chunk of time in their busy calendar
  • Pocket friendly for both the organizer and the participants

What was once thought of as ineffective, has now become our norm in the professional world, but how can you make the most of this new normal?

The purpose of this article is to give tips and tricks on creating meaningful content for your target audience while presenting a powerful and profitable event utilizing the many resources that LinkedIn offers to its users.

So why should you use LinkedIn to spearhead your event management? Simply put, because the platform produces remarkable results globally and marketers gravitate towards it.

More than 6 million members attended LinkedIn virtual events in 2020 alone.

What does this mean for you? Well, each new event creates new leads and is the beginning of new conversations. Each person that attends an event that you host, is essentially raising their hand, saying, “Yes! I am interested in learning more. What do you have to offer and what can you do for me”?

For example, through the creation of a LinkedIn promotion event, a Fiduciary client had 120 parties state that they were interested in attending, 40 of those turned into viable prospects, and 5 became top prospects. By offering a LinkedIn event, our client was able to grow their clientele and start some pretty phenomenal conversations amongst their targeted network.

If you’re not already making LinkedIn a strategic priority, then you’re missing out, but the good news is that there is still plenty of time to hop on board and make LinkedIn work for you.

 A key piece to any good business model is: Improved business relationships lead to business growth. 

Nearly half of the studied LinkedIn businesses indicated that their marketing creativity when connecting and engaging with current and prospective customers suffered most, due to pandemic-related budget cuts, so what can you do to prevent future marketing stall-outs?

To begin, utilizing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integration strategies can help “businesses build a relationship with their customers that, in turn, creates loyalty and customer retention”. CRM grew out of a need to address the challenges that companies face due to the buyer’s journey increasing in complexity with every avenue that is available for them to research products. By using a CRM system, you will be able to follow up with leads and move them through the sales cycle more efficiently, while also using the provided data to create the high quality and engaging content that your audience wants to hear and see more of.

Luckily, this is an area that LinkedIn excels in. They are constantly using their research to improve the user experience in order to meet their mission to: “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” By utilizing Sales Navigator, LinkedIn makes Sales Navigator users and their CRM integration, a powerful tool to use so that professionals can increase their productivity. This is a wonderful tool that our Linkability team uses in order to enhance networking efforts on behalf of our clients while building sustainable results through LinkedIn and LinkedIn events.

Now, with the explosion of virtual events, what can you do to make sure that you stand out amongst your competitors on LinkedIn? How do you create an experience that leaves a positive impact on your audience? Remember, the impact that you leave for your audience now, will determine the success you have for potential future events. You want your audience to go in feeling excited to learn and leave feeling like your event was time well spent.

The popularity of video content has been on the rise, but we can’t forget the reason that we went to events in person to begin with; to meet and exchange information with other professionals within our industry.

Live events have proven to work best, due to their interactive nature. Attendees are able to immerse themselves in conversations in a way that is lost when events are pre-recorded, so it is highly recommended that you host a live event, and then if you choose, you can later offer a recording for those that attended (or didn’t) so that they can revisit as they wish. 

Below we list our tips and tricks to creating a successful virtual event:

When entering the planning phase, you first need to ask yourself, who is your target audience? What value do you bring to them and what makes you stand out? It is important to stay true to your brand, but also consider the content your audience would prefer to learn or hear about. What will resonate with them the most based on current events or recent data? Personalize their experience through both the content you share and through the way you share that content. This is your time (or your team’s time) to shine.

Here are a few creative virtual event ideas to consider: 

1. Educational Workshop: You will keep your audience engaged through an interactive experience in which your audience is focused on learning something new and interesting. If possible, allow your audience to experiment and try out what they’re learning. You could do this by sending a list of items that the attendees should prepare or you could even send out a “goodie bag” yourself.

2. Q & A with an Influencer Within Your Industry: If you can secure a well-known influencer or industry thought leader, you will instantly pique the interest of your audience.

3. Host a Virtual Conference: Bring in multiple presenters and speakers, so that there is something for everyone. This can help to keep the engagement going in your virtual event. It also helps to limit the time between sessions, which is ideal for a virtual event.

4. Offer a Virtual Panel Discussion with Leading Experts: Choose a hot discussion topic for a group of industry experts to discuss and debate on. Allow your audience to ask the panel questions and have a moderator available to keep the conversation flowing in a productive manner.

Once you narrow down your target audience, choose your content and decide on your event execution, begin interacting with confirmed guests and potential guests by sending out reminder emails, paid ads, an introductory video, or LinkedIn feed posts. (Without bombarding them of course. You don’t want to come off spam-like).

The top 3 ways to spread the word for a professional event is through email, social media, and word of mouth.

For example, you can send out an email or create a video introducing a few key speakers or reveal something exciting that your audience can look forward to. If you create a social media feed post, you can create a poll asking your audience what they would most like to learn, a topic they would like to hear more about or maybe even a guest speaker that they would like included in the line-up. Adding catchy images or a fun video to your content will instantly boost your event and intrigue viewers. LinkedIn automatically generates a unique URL when you create an event, so be sure to share this URL.

LinkedIn event organizers have the ability to recommend posts and notify those that are registered up to 2x per week, which is a unique feature that only LinkedIn offers.

Keeping a structured agenda will help keep things running seamlessly, ensuring maximum engagement and fewer people leaving early on. We suggest keeping each session to a timeline of 30-40 minutes. Before closing out of a session, allow for a Q&A time. This keeps the audience engaged until the very end. (Be sure to announce at the very beginning that you will be answering questions at the end. This will help keep things running smoothly and it is a mental reminder for your audience to write down any questions they may have).

At the end of your event, it’s important to ask for feedback through a follow up poll. You can then take this information to tailor future events. Would the next best step be to offer further information or maybe a product demo? Be sure to have a solid, streamlined, and well communicated plan in place for your audience, so that they are able to reconnect with you and you can reconnect with them once the event has concluded.

When reconnecting with your audience, we suggest sending out a recording of the event they just attended. By doing this, you extend your reach, enhancing your brand recognition and it also allows your audience to go back and catch whatever they feel they may have missed or forgotten. In addition to the recording, you will want to offer your audience an opportunity to take the next step, which could be scheduling a phone call or zoom meeting to further discuss what value you will bring to their business or you can link them back to a landing page that provides further information.

Linkability is committed to getting our clients seen and putting them on the track towards success. By using LinkedIn’s platform to advertise, share content, and host live events, you open yourself up to a whole new world of possibilities. If you’re looking to gain tangible influence, gain long-lasting relationships, and to create events and webinars that promote what you have to offer, contact us today. Seeing others succeed is our passion and we can’t wait to see where we can take you.

 

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Linkability provides consulting, services, and products that help individuals and organizations, with big goals, develop powerful networks, and position themselves as the leader of their respective niche on LinkedIn and beyond!