3 Post Event Follow-up Activities to Engage Your Virtual Attendees

With the jury still out on hosting physical meetups, most event professionals are organising their yearly event offerings by including more virtual elements to it. But even as these types of events gain greater traction in 2021, questions persist around the value they offer for networking, leads and revenue.

Virtual events are a potent means of driving higher ROI, given their wider audience reach and cost-effectiveness. However, their success depends on your engagement with remote attendees, especially when the event comes to its conclusion.

Once the log-out button is clicked, your virtual audience will be subject to a world of distractions, their interest in the event they just sat through fading as the next one as they schedule their attendance at another. It becomes imperative for organisers to have a solid post-event plan that keeps the connection going and creates a steady stream of potential leads.

Here are some recommended post-event engagement activities:

#1 Send follow-up emails

Emails are the oldest – and one of the most effective – tricks in the marketing playbook for post-event engagement with your event audience. Create a well-crafted email that summarises the biggest talking points and takeaways of different sessions and panels. Encourage them to engage further by:

• Offering a downloadable eBook or on-demand webinar
• Directing them to a content hub, where they can find related videos, presentation decks and other materials
• Offering incentives for next year’s invite

Pro-tip: Don’t forget to send emails to attendees who were not able to attend. Provide them the dates for the next event or share interesting content to make them interact further.

#2 Use engagement scores to qualify and nurture leads

Attendees can be assigned an ‘engagement score’ based on their interactions and actions during and around the event – from registration to post-event survey. Some of these engagement metrics can be based around the number of sessions attended, meeting requests sent and time spent at different virtual booths.The higher the engagement score for an attendee, the greater the chance to convert them into a lead. 

Based on this score, you can:

• Pitch them a live demo and offer an extended free trial of your product
• Schedule a consultation call to assess their needs in detail
• Share relevant, helpful content to support their needs  

Pro-tip: Make sure you have a dedicated mobile event app to boost engagement.

#3 Increase online engagement with your community

When you build an online community around your event and keep it engaged, you get a ready-made group of potential attendees once the time comes to start selling tickets. And you may even be able to recruit loyal brand advocates to help extend your reach.Here are some tips to build an engaged community and increase post-event conversations:

• Get industry leaders to participate regularly and hold focused discussions before, during and after the event
• Share content that interests and engages your audience. Build a content hub with eBooks, white papers, how-to guides, product videos and blog posts, and encourage participants to leave their feedback and share it in their network
• Organise contests and giveaways to keep interest levels and enthusiasm high 

Pro-tip: Build the community forum into your website, mobile app or on LinkedIn – whichever is easy to use, more accessible and fosters increased engagement. 

Conclusion

Remember – you can create a rich, enhanced experience for attendees by adding more bells and whistles to your virtual event. However, you also need to stay in sight of your goals and convert these attendees into potential leads – a task easily achievable in the form of a small nudge through these post-engagement activities.