Virtual Engagement - The New Business Paradigm

The days of the traditional trade shows are numbered. Virtual event technologies are changing the playing field for marketing, but also for training and recruiting organizations. No longer do you have to leave your office to join your peers for the new product launch of your favorite equipment vendor. Nor do you have to spend time waiting in line at the airport or worry about travel and entertainment costs. Yet, you still get to chat with your friends about the new gadget being announced. They will be right there with you, even though they may physically be located on the other side of the ocean.

Virtual events have come a long way since the last 10 years, when the first virtual environments started to gain traction. Innovative companies of all sizes are quickly adopting this technology to save budget, reach larger audiences and stay connected with their customers around the globe. Today, everything from customer events, conferences, corporate training, job fairs and much more, take place in virtual environments on the internet.

Virtual Business Centers

Most companies make their virtual environments look like real-world conference or training centers. The new capabilities of virtual platforms are amazing, offering high definition video and realistic graphics that make you feel almost as if you were in a real building. Without software to install, attendees can jump right in, using nothing but their web browsers. Smooth transitions from room to room, conference halls that dim the lights as sessions start, and intuitive navigation are all state of the (virtual) art. And some companies are pushing the envelope with sceneries that seem to come right out of Star Wars, or with corporate meetings in palapa huts on the beach. This increases the fun factor and leads to a positive brand experience.

Social Networking

Virtual environments offer unmatched networking opportunities for attendees. Not only can you find out which of your friends and colleagues are attending an event with you, but you can also seek out and network with other attendees based on their interests, preferences and behavior. Try to do that at a physical trade show.

Live chat translation is a feature that allows attendees from different cultures and geographic areas to interact directly, eliminating language barriers. Tight integration with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn allows participants to reach out to their communities and influence the dynamics of a virtual conference in real-time. This can add a viral component to your virtual events, contributing additional excitement and drawing in more attendees.

Sales-Ready Leads

For organizers and sponsors this new technology offers incredible benefits. Not only do you reach a wider audience at a much lower cost, but companies who have executed successful virtual events are rapidly discovering another aspect: a steady stream of highly qualified leads. Physical trade show leads often contain little more than business card data and the overwhelming majority of information never makes it to your sales team, simply because it is very hard to capture.

How can you track if someone takes a datasheet from your trade show booth? How do you record the question a visitor is asking at a physical conference session? At a virtual conference, every activity, every chat every poll question is recorded and associated with the individual attendee. You will know where they went, how long they stayed, what they saw and whom they met with. All of this information augments the quality of your CRM data, so that your sales and services team can continue the conversation, rather than having to start the qualification process from the beginning.

Sales organizations have taken note of leads with this level of detail. An event marketing manager recently recalled that sales people were queuing up in front of her office, asking her to release more leads from her first virtual event - something she had never experienced with any of her previous marketing initiatives.

Virtual Classrooms

More and more companies are finding that virtual environments are effective in raising the skill level of the entire corporation at a fraction of the cost of physical training. Trainer-led or self-guided education sessions can fit into any employee’s schedule, causing minimal disruption and productivity loss. They make it easy, fun and convenient for all your employees to learn and collaborate. A virtual learning center provides rich data to track anything from individual progress to the overall corporate skill level. It can help you build a confident and better educated workforce.

Customer Engagement - Anytime Anywhere

Recently, IBM launched its new Virtual Event Center, a virtual campus with a host of different venues, locations and activities. With beautiful halls, detailed booths, intuitive navigation and outstanding content the attendee experience is breathtaking. Remarkably, an attendee who enters one event through the Welcome Center can navigate to another event in a different venue, with a completely different theme, run by a different division. His profile will allow him to navigate anywhere the organizer will allow him to go. His activity information is recorded across venues and events. The environment is available to IBM’s prospects and customers year-round. It permits attendees to explore, engage and interact with company employees, partners and other attendees anytime they please. On-demand event sessions are available around the clock. Booths are staffed with live persons to provide information and connect with participants.

As episodic virtual events are evolving into always-on virtual engagement platforms, they facilitate a continuous conversation between your audience and your brand. And because of that, virtual engagement is on its way to becoming an indispensible component of every company’s marketing mix.