Top #10 Virtual Event Management Software features, Every Event Organizer Must Exploit
Archan Dholakia
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June 5, 2020
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The one big thing with technology is it offers us way more functionalities and use cases then we can imagine. This is obvious because developing a technology solution for anything takes time while user experience and demands evolve in much less time. And so, product managers after thorough research and anticipation develop a product that is future-ready and accommodates way more than a user might need today.
We are going to understand this for a Virtual Event Management Software/Platform and how to maximize its use.
Now, for example, take your smartphone, how many features does that device have, and how many of them are being used by you, the user? This is called the “Consumer product usability factor”. The degree to which a user exploits or uses the feature available in a product.
The consumer product usability factor mostly used for electronic products is now also being used for software products to educate product users to make the most of the ability of the product.
Alright! Now that the general knowledge part is over, let us circle around the event technology and how to maximize its usage to the optimum level.
The very changing landscape of event technology is also the same today; within less than 90 days we see some amazing Virtual Event Management software suits out there, we offer one too! But from the 50 odd events that we’ve done so far what we understand is that much emphasis needs to be made upon the maximum usage of each and every available feature in the virtual event ecosystem to take the most out of it.
One of the most overlooked features of a virtual event software is matchmaking. Event organizers can please both attendees and sponsors with this feature.
What matchmaking does is it reads the “Interest tags” section of every attendee and matches it with another attendee profile section that “Looking for” it? This way it helps facilitate 1-1 meetings and chats for networking between attendees with a higher degree of relevance.
Additionally, it reads all relevant and permissible profile details to process the matchmaking algorithm.
Moreover, for sponsors, it makes it easier to scout the relevant profiles that your sponsors are interested in meeting with. Be it for a sales pitch, a partnership deal, or finds its use case within “Virtual Job fairs” to help with talent acquisition.
This way event organizers can enhance the overall event experience and subsequently boost their event’s brand value.
Earlier this year when most parts of the world started observing lockdowns, nearly everyone was hosting one or the other webinar. Now after almost 60-70 days we see organizers complaining about the webinar fatigue that an attendee experiences.
To avoid this, event organizers have to work around introducing various ideas to gamify or to reward attendees and make them interact while they are on your virtual event attending session after session and meeting after meeting.
An online contest does a good contribution to this idea of having your attendees interested in the event, as well as, simulating a positive perception about your virtual event, but most importantly not let them experience what is now called a “Webinar Fatigue”.
Making the use of the reward psychology you can let attendees not only enjoy your event but also create a positive buzz about the event itself. This is a feature that organizers must not miss out on.
So why a virtual event and why not a webinar? When asked this question most organizers emphasize having parallel sessions to be the main reason for having virtual event management software and not a webinar.
But this is not how it should be, people come to an in-person event for three major reasons; to meet other people, network, and gain knowledge. The idea remains the same for event virtual events. In order to host a successful virtual event, organizers must make excessive use of the 1:1 meeting. After all, people are there at your event to meet and network.
So, the next time you go live with your virtual event make sure to check this feature out and use it to its optimum capacity. You ask how? Well, send your attendees emails with people who are most relevant to them and are worthy of having a 1:1 meet. Your attendees can then pre-book a meeting, while they meet you can keep track of how many meetings you virtual events hosted to show the worth of your ability to facilitate a great online event. More meetings mean more attendees for the future and more attendees mean an increase in sponsorship interest.
For most virtual event management software out there an exhibitor booth is something you get as part of your package, if not then depending on the requirements you have you can pay a few bucks and buy them.
Now, these exhibitor booths are whereas an organizer you’ll make a ton of money. Just the way you did with real booth space to let brands present their stall with products and services. If considering buying them out event organizers can straight away earn as much as 10x then it costs you to buy that feature. But since this virtual event ecosystem is new many event professionals missout on making the most of these exhibitor booths.
You can check more about them by requesting an expert consultation here.
Yes, you can make announcements during an online event should your virtual event platform support this feature (we do).
No, this doesn’t mean someone would actually shout out, in most virtual event software suits you get what is called an event feed. While you can post text, photos, video, and polls; announcements however are those highlighted feeds with specific structure as shown below.
Event organizers can use this to promote their sponsors, announce the next session, start pre-booking next event registrations, and much more.
What makes virtual events different from Webinar are its ability to host event sessions with multiple tracks.
What this does is it allows organizers the flexibility to pace their session well and make a proper distinction among them and make it work just like an in-person event.
Moreover, this makes it possible for organizers to set a proper event schedule, give each session the time it needs and utilize time optimally. Attendees can also get a hawk-eye view of events and can plan the ones they wish to attend in advance, boosting overall event experience.
One thing that not most event profs use is the statistics and data to the extent they must. Virtual event management software from an organizers’ perspective provides a backend dashboard that gives data dissected in all the necessary dimensions.
These data points not only reflect the success of yours and gives confidence to your sponsors with respect to all your future events, but it also allows organizers to understand and optimize their event experience for attendees reading these analytics data.
The pain of importing and exporting registered attendee data and subsequent errors done is just a crazy thought. Always look for a virtual event management software that has an integrated registration and ticketing solutions.
With integrated registration and ticketing solutions built-in, you can kick-start your registration right around the end of your event while the sentiments are still fresh in attendees’ minds. Certainly, a feature that organizers can exploit and must exploit.
Speaker lounge is a separate speaker login, where your speakers have the access and ability to moderate their own session and control things that are related to only their sessions. Training your regular speakers on how to manage their own sessions and handle the virtual event tool can provide some space to the event organizers, which they can use to focus on maintaining attendee experience in real-time.
So now, if you are an event organizer who is planning to offer a solution to your client, don’t worry we have experts who can help. Just click here for virtual event platform to get a free consultation about your next virtual event.
Passionate about Marketing & Branding, Archan is an avid Lover of Social Media Strategy, Especially, LinkedIn. A Technology Enthusiast Loves to Write about Event Tech solutions, Connect with me on LinkedIn
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