In the last two years, predominantly due to the pandemic, the adoption rate of new technology soared. Event technology played a pivotal role in helping event organizers to move forward, particularly through virtual & hybrid events. Event organizers, marketers, associations, and anyone who wanted to bring a community together, witnessed and quickly understood the potential of virtual events. What began as a quick switch towards virtual events in the early days soon shifted to a hybrid events domain. Today, at the dwindling end of the pandemic in 2021, virtual and hybrid events have proven their significance and their applicability more than ever.
With the ability to reach a wider audience, generate greater ROI, and deliver data-driven insights, hybrid events supersede their physical and virtual counterparts. A recent survey of 1,800 event professionals conducted on LinkedIn revealed that the majority of event organizers are planning to host a “digital twin” event, including both in-person as well as online components for remote audiences. As per the research, 42% of organizers will continue to host virtual events citing sustainability reasons, reducing the need for transportation, and one-time use of plastic and other consumables often found at live events.
Hybrid events provide an opportunity for event planners to capitalize on the need to connect by building stronger attendee communities. Well-planned and successfully executed hybrid events can deliver immersive and truly transformative experiences.
Here’s a rundown of 7 reasons why you need a hybrid event platform in 2023
1. Global Audience Reach and Connect
Hybrid events offer broader access to audiences globally by overcoming geographical barriers and logistical challenges. It includes global access to a highly qualified audience that determines the overall success of an event. As per research published by Metrigy, 50% of corporate event attendees consider hybrid events as an ideal platform, offering practical solutions to their current business challenges.
The hybrid model allows organizations to maintain connections with existing clients and target new business opportunities across the globe. With the right hybrid platform, organizers can eradicate the limitations for all those who wanted to attend an event but couldn’t. In the hybrid world, interaction and engagement is a result of both the in-person side as well as live attendees. Also, the virtual registrants’ ability to attend the event from any part of the world makes hybrid a lucrative event type.
2. Greater Access to a stellar line-up of Speakers
The quality of keynote speakers and thought-leaders represents the quality of any event. One key benefit of hybrid events is that they make it easier to bring together a stellar speaker line-up by allowing organizers to associate with industry experts that would otherwise have been beyond their reach with an in-person event. Acquiring world-class speakers and business leaders elevates the credibility and acceptability of the hybrid events amongst the attendees. This virtual component can be scaled to take in many more attendees than a physical venue alone ever could.
3. Enhanced Audience Engagement
Enhanced audience engagement is one of the key differentiating factors between in-person and hybrid events. The virtual element in the hybrid model creates opportunities that drive deeper audience engagement. Since your virtual audience is attending the event over their phone, desktop, or iPad, they are always connected. Hybrid event platforms like FLOOR offer advanced real-time analytics that allows organizers to measure the interaction levels at a hybrid event. You can use this to your advantage by hosting polls, live interactive quizzes, or even speed networking sessions. You can bring your in-person and online audience together to improve engagement levels with surveys, and interactive sessions, and get the buzz going!
4.Cost-Effective Solution for an Improved ROI
Hybrid events reduce the attendee headcount at an event that minimizes the overall event overheads including travel expenses for keynote speakers, equipment and accessories, etc. With enhanced access to a global audience and substantial onsite cost reduction, hybrid events offer a cost-effective solution as compared to mere physical events.
5. Data Analytics
Every event organizer knows the importance of attendees data analytics and collection for both organizations as well as sponsors. With a virtual event platform, you can not only see how many people participated in a session, but you can also see where the virtual attendee spent the bulk of their time between sessions, when they dropped out, or how they engaged with the sessions. Did they engage with sponsored materials? Your virtual event platform can give you access to the user behavior at the event. Knowing attendees interests and how they moved through the virtual space can help you improve future event strategy by including more of what people liked most during the event. This data can also be supplied to sponsors, speakers, and vendors to help them understand how to improve their products/services and audience interactions.
6. Sponsorship Opportunities
Hybrid events generate greater sponsor interest with more extensive audience reach and one-on-one communication. The hybrid phenomenon garners sponsor attention on a platform that aids in sponsoring live streams, apps, etc. Planners attract virtual sponsorships to increase audience participation, creating quality business opportunities while simultaneously earning significant revenue.
7. Sustainable Future
Hybrid events can significantly decrease travel emissions and food waste of an event. These events provide a great opportunity for attendees who are focused on reducing their personal carbon footprint, alongside businesses looking to both increase their sustainable practices and significantly decrease travel costs across the board for everyone involved. While hybrid events still have an environmental footprint that needs to be properly addressed, choosing them helps significantly decrease global energy usage.
Hybrid and virtual events are having a moment and will continue to dominate the events industry worldwide for the foreseeable future. Even when live experiences return to pre-pandemic levels, hybrid events will continue to play a pivotal role in the marketing and events mix. FLOOR is a comprehensive virtual and hybrid platform that allows users to connect with a global audience, drive engagement, create community and meet their specific business goals. With robust registration tools, custom branding options, data capture capabilities, and friendly customer support, FLOOR offers the best opportunities for both virtual and hybrid events. Contact us today to build your own FLOOR.
0 Comments