We know virtual events (and webcasts) are critical components of a successful business strategy.
While hosting a virtual event is a popular marketing tactic for acquiring customers, they’re NOT only for this specific audience – far from it. They’re also perfect for employees and investors.
Below, we’ve identified three examples of how organizations have made the switch to digital event experiences, each with a different use case. Keep reading to learn more.
Sales Kickoffs
For this first example, we’re a bit biased.
Here at Notified, we were already planning a virtual sales kickoff before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why a virtual SKO, you ask? Because it allowed for a global experience, increased audience engagement and did not take our team away from selling in the first month of the year.
This was the first time we’d held a virtual SKO. But we recognized the ability of virtual events to create an equally special experience for our sales force.
We worked hard to create an engaging experience for our sales team during our virtual SKO, letting our team experience our own technology. By doing so, we were able to empower and prepare our team for the busy year ahead.
“When it comes to virtual SKOs, you must be sure you’re taking steps to actively engage your teams,” said Ben Chodor, President of Notified. “You must provide them with opportunities to interact within the platform and one another through gamification, competition, and a bit of fun. For us, we came up with decades-themed costumes, but there are so many ways you can create an entertaining atmosphere for your internal audiences.”
Virtual Conferences
Switching to external audiences, we’d now like to talk about the success of Red Hat’s virtual summit.
Each year, Red Hat hosts an annual conference for thousands of IT professionals. Red Hat Summit is known as the premier open source technology event in the industry.
In 2020, the conference was scheduled to be held in San Francisco. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Red Hat decided to rebuild its annual summit and take its global conference online.
Red Hat partnered with Notified to create a virtual summit and tap into their passionate community of developers, creating an engaging and memorable experience.
Despite the conference’s move to a virtual setting, attendance was not inhibited. In fact, it was bolstered. Red Hat Summit 2020 was its biggest annual conference yet, with more than 82,000 registrations.
For the summit content, Red Hat featured over 300 sessions with guest speakers from around the world, using a mix of live and pre-recorded video. This included keynote presentations, product announcements and educational programs for its Red Hat community.
“In our first purely online Red Hat Summit, we not only successfully transitioned our in-person experience to virtual, but also we reached a far greater audience than we ever could at the physical event. As a result, we see great value including a virtual component to every in-person event strategy moving forward,” said Emmett Helmes, Global Online Events Lead at Red Hat.
Virtual Investor Days
Let’s talk about another type of audience.
Going virtual does not mean sacrificing a high impact, interactive online experience for investors, analysts and the media.
In 2020, Bed Bath & Beyond invited financial analysts and institutional investors to join them for their virtual investor day on October 28th. The event was hosted by President and CEO Mark Tritton and other members of the company’s leadership team.
Notified was proud to help bring this virtual event life.
For Bed Bath & Beyond, it was the first investor day of its kind, and served as a key moment to unveil the details of a strategy to unlock growth and drive significant shareholder value.
The company also provided a three-year financial roadmap for delivering strong and sustainable shareholder return.
But it wasn’t just Bed Bath & Beyond hosting a virtual investor day – almost all public companies transitioned to virtual. And many experienced increased attendance.
With that in mind, investor relations teams are now more confident in participating in virtual roadshows as well as investor and analyst days.
Virtual events are considerably more efficient than in-person events by saving travel time, cost and carbon emissions. Many IR teams are relishing the fact that their CEOs and CFOs can participate in more investor events than ever before.
Expect to see more of this from IR teams in the year ahead.
Need Help Planning Future Events?
Whether you’re hosting virtual or hybrid events to reach customers, employees, investors, or partners, Notified is here to help bring your vision to life.
We host events on behalf of tens of thousands of global customers while providing dedicated support and a focus on data.
Get in touch and learn how we can help bring your next sales kickoff, conference or investor day to life in an engaging online experience.