The global pandemic has led to the popularity of virtual events, giving rise to various virtual event platforms that facilitate hosting online events. However, planning your event is the first step to its success, promoting it is as important as effective planning and requires a great marketing strategy. This article tells you about some of the most effective virtual event promotion ideas to help make your virtual event a success.
How to promote a virtual event
Given below are some virtual event promotion strategies to increase the number of attendees of your virtual event and make it a grand success.
Identify your Audience
Before trying to promote your event, identify your target audience. This will help you focus your marketing and promotion strategies on the potential attendees resulting in more participants.
Create a dedicated event page
Creating an event page is one of the best virtual event promotion ideas for your virtual event. Start with creating a dedicated social media page for your event on every popular platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Make sure you post high-quality images and videos on your social media pages and are consistent. You can also take the help of a virtual event planner to make your job easy.
Create eye-catching graphics
Use eye-catching graphics and infographics to post on your social media pages on various platforms. Make sure you post a unique image and infographic every time to keep the potential attendees interested. You can also use memes to promote your event and add the event registration link in the caption. You can ask the speakers of your event to record short videos asking people to join the event.
Make use of keywords
You must already be aware of the importance of ranking on Google and the power of keywords. Include the most relevant and searched keywords in the promotional content you post. This will help your content trend on social media platforms resulting in better outreach. You can use keyword research tools to find out the most searched keywords.
Email marketing can be your savior
Although you may think emails have become outdated, email marketing is still the best virtual promotion strategy. You can ask your website visitors to subscribe to your email list to curate a list of potential attendees and their email addresses. Send out regular newsletters to share updates and other information about the event. You can also add live imagery and social share buttons to your newsletter. Make sure your subject line is very catchy and unique to induce the receiver to open your email. You can also conduct A/B testing to identify the best subject line.
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the best virtual promotion ideas as it can help you reach out to large audiences in less time. Make sure you find the right influencers depending on the nature of your virtual event. You can either get into a paid collaboration with them or provide non-monetary offers like onboarding them as guest speakers/performers.
Ask your sponsors to get the word out
Don’t be hesitant and ask your virtual event sponsors to get the word out among their followers. Ask them to share short videos, updates, and notifications about the event. You can also ask them to like and share the posts of your event page on their social media pages to drive traffic directly onto the event page and website. Make sure they use the event hashtags to get it trending.
Tell your audience ‘what to expect?’
Show a sneak peek or a trailer of the event to your target audience through videos, images, and graphics. This will help increase the excitement for your virtual event and induce people to register for the event. Make sure you don’t throw all your cards at once. Try creating a preview of the virtual event to pique the interest of your target audience.
Create a countdown for your event
Create a countdown for your event and post it on the event page across social media platforms. This helps create a sense of urgency in the minds of people inducing them to act quickly. This online event promotion idea can help convert the end-of-the-funnel attendees on the verge of making their final decision.
Leverage the power of social media
Make extensive use of social media platforms to promote your virtual event as 100% of your audience is highly active on social media. Create textual, graphical, pictographic, and video content to post on your social media platforms. Make sure you create dedicated event pages and make event-related posts through them.
Include testimonials
Add video testimonials, comments, posts, or quotes from your previous attendees. This will help establish trust in the minds of people and give them an idea about what they can expect from the virtual event. Make testimonials an integral part of your email newsletters, social media posts, and registration page. You can also ask past attendees to promote the event with their network and introduce a giveaway for each new registration.
Give freebies before the event
You can give freebies to your early registrants, encouraging more and more people to register for the virtual event and providing them with a discount or free subscription to e-books or others related to your product. You can also give your registrants a bag full of goodies and ask them to share the photos and videos on social media using the hashtag to promote your virtual event.
Leverage copywriting
Writing blogs on your website to pique excitement for your virtual event is a great way to promote your event. You can also post guest blogs on third-party websites to promote your event. Make sure your copy is powerful and has the ability to convert people into attendees.
Consistency is the key
Stay consistent throughout the event life cycle. Make sure you start promoting the event at least 1-2 months before the actual event and post regularly to keep the audience interested and engaged.
Final words
However, there are no boundaries to creativity when it comes to promoting your online event, the points mentioned above can help you kick-start developing your virtual event strategy.
