9 Tips for creative entrepreneurs to plan & execute successful virtual events

Virtual events, when done right, can help creative entrepreneurs accomplish so much more than in-person events ever could; you can reach more people and you can create a huge impact with a small budget. 

Virtual events are also easier to execute than in-person meetings and seminars. There are so many benefits to hosting virtual events that it’s surprising how few creatives and content creators use them in their marketing strategies. 

Read on for tips on out how to plan and execute your own successful virtual event.

Set a clear goal

Before you get started, make sure your event has a clear goal. If you’re not clear on what you want your virtual event to accomplish, it can be difficult to measure its success. 

Write down three specific outcomes you hope to achieve with your event—for example, more attendees at in-person events, more signups for emails, or an increase in traffic on your website, or maybe you want to sell something during the event. 

Then ask yourself if your event is likely to bring about these outcomes. If not, consider revising it until you’re satisfied. 

Know your audience

No matter how well organized or sophisticated your virtual event is, it’s useless if you don’t get anyone to attend. 

First and foremost, you need to make sure that you know who is going to be attending—their interests, their needs, their goals—and tailor your topic accordingly. People are busy. There’s only so much time in any given day; people won’t schedule time on their calendar for something they have no interest in or aren’t looking forward to.

Think about why people would attend—do they have any interest in what you’re selling? Are they all connected online already? Can you incentivize them by setting up a competition or offering valuable swag?

Prepare Speakers & Keynotes

Here’s a big relief for you: You don’t have to be the main speaker for your event. Sometimes it’s so much better to find someone else who you know will execute on the goal of the seminar. 

Yes, it can be costly to hire speakers, but sometimes you can do a revenue share from the event, barter services, or find other creative ways of helping each other grow. 

Make sure you get solid speakers who can not only speak on relevant topics, but also do so in an interesting way. Your virtual event won’t be successful unless attendees find it valuable, which means your speaker line-up needs to be rock solid. 

Then think about how each speaker might present their information: As a pre-recorded video? Live on the day? Will their talk focus on practical advice from their own experience or new research? Be sure you know what each speaker will bring to the table—and that they understand what’s expected of them well ahead of time.

Prepare all other materials in advance

Prepare all of your event materials in advance. Remember, your virtual attendees are not afforded any physical interaction with you or your other event participants. They will not receive handouts or other physical materials that they can look over at their leisure; they need to be able to access all information easily and quickly. 

Provide links in a Zoom chat and send an email with links after the seminar. If you’re providing visuals like slides or videos (or even just sharing links), be sure that they are easy for people to read and understand. Simplify things as much as possible. Offer a highlights summary, if possible.

Promote the event & send reminders

Social media is an essential part of any event, but especially for virtual events. If you’re hosting your webinar or conference online, be sure to market it heavily using the channels where you reach your target audience. Use different formats, images, text, and short promotional videos (15 seconds is perfect) to get as much attention as possible. 

Remind your guests via emails sent with links to your social media accounts before and after the event. And if your event has multiple dates or times, allow attendees to sign up for reminders via email so they don’t miss it. This way you can expect higher attendance rates than an ordinary meeting where people have no idea what they’re signing up for.

And on the day of the event, you can also set up an email reminder, or two; Sometimes last minute reminders drive a significant number of attendees to show up.

Run a test

If you want to be sure people will show up for your virtual event, it’s smart to test demand first. Maybe try out your teaser content on another channel like Facebook or LinkedIn by sharing an excerpt of an upcoming webinar. If people are excited about what they see, register for that webinar on your landing page so you can gauge how many people are really interested in attending. This way, you can make sure there’s a good-sized audience before you spend money producing videos or other content that might not appeal to all of them. You also don’t want attendees to feel like they paid for something no one wants (there’s some risk there) and they end up wasting their time.

Have a support team

No one should attempt to plan, run, and execute a virtual event by themselves. It’s much more effective to have a support team in place with at least one team member taking on each key role. Each member of your team should be well versed in their specific area of responsibility and also work together as an effective team. Here are some areas where you may want help:

PR/Marketing tasks:
This includes managing social media accounts, writing press releases and arranging for interviews (if applicable). You’ll need someone who can write engaging content for posts across multiple channels, share those posts consistently throughout your social media platforms and track analytics so that you know what’s working best. 

Speaker liaison:
This person keeps the speakers informed about the event and makes sure they know what’s expected of them.

‘Room management’ during the event:
Managing the virtual waiting room, letting people in, monitoring timeliness, managing speakers.

Tech Support:
There will be people who will email during the event saying they can’t get on or are facing some other issues. You will need someone to monitor all comms channels during the event to make sure that messages are dealt with promptly.

Money issues:
Have someone to deal with payments, refunds and questions about money.

Keep people engaged during the meeting

As with any type of event, it’s important that your virtual meeting attendees feel engaged. This means you want to make sure that people are actively participating in your webinar or online presentation by asking questions and offering feedback throughout. If possible, give attendees multiple ways to ask questions or provide feedback including chat window responses and social media pages. 

Post-event followup

Getting feedback from your virtual attendees is an important part of any conference or webinar. Make sure you get their contact information before you begin and send out follow-up emails asking for feedback about their experience. You want to find out what worked for them, what didn’t work, and whether they learned anything that will help them. Also make sure you let them know how they can keep up with announcements about future events through a mailing list if you offer this.