Lead generation for online events: 7 tips to rock your event!
Are you planning your online event and want to know how to generate leads? Check out these tips to generate leads at your online event!
A central element in hosting successful meetings on digital platforms is understanding how lead generation works for online events.
There are proven strategies, tactics, and best practice tips to attract as many people as possible to your event and make them trust what it proposes.
Since the pandemic began, online events have emerged as a great way to connect with the public and forge genuine relationships.
In addition, online events serve as fundamental tools to boost business growth, tapping into different aspects of marketing, such as:
● Branding;
● Product releases;
● Lead generation and qualification.
One thing is sure: People buy not only because they need to, but because someone can convince them that they want it.
This premise also applies to online events, as organizers need to convince people that attending their event is necessary.
If you’re hosting virtual events, read on and learn about lead generation for online events!
Lead generation for online events: understand the importance of this format of meetings.
The fateful year of the Covid-19 pandemic brought a considerable need to adapt to digital platforms, especially for companies.
The home office became the way out for work activities to move forward, despite everything happening worldwide.
However, many businesses were not prepared for this scenario and had to bend over backward.
Although companies started hosting more business events in recent years, most saw a migration to the online environment only for the distant future.
But suddenly, digital gained another level of importance, as the once-imagined future has now become the so-called “new normal.”
Consequently, digital marketing has also gained relevance, and one of its components that has grown the most is online events.
These meetings are very similar to those organized in person but rely on digital tools to bring together people interested in what you have to offer.
Here are the main advantages of online events:
Wide reach
People are just a click away from your event in the digital space, unconstrained by geographic restrictions. In other words, there are no barriers for attendees to participate in your event.
In this way, a message highlighting the core benefits that your lead will gain by participating in the event is essential.
A good message is clear, easy to understand, and highlights the key benefits of your event. It is less about listing the event activities and more about outlining the intrinsic value they will generate.
Real-time interaction
Speakers and attendees can interact more easily at online events.
The format allows closer proximity, creating a stronger relationship between the two. The connection is essential for your potential client to buy your idea.
Post-Event Engagement
The online event remains accessible even after the event has ended. You can offer on-demand content, allowing people to watch it whenever they can.
In this way, engagement can continue to grow and bring good results.
According to data from a survey carried out by Linkedln in early 2021 with 200 organizers of B2B events in Brazil, this market proves to be much more advantageous than the face-to-face one in several aspects.
For example, 79% of respondents claimed that the ROI of the digital format was superior to the physical one, while 90% of them found opportunities that did not exist in the face-to-face model.
In brief, virtual events offer broader possibilities and are more cost-effective for organizers, which underlies the remarkable growth of the format.
The hybrid model ― events with online and in-person components ― is being considered by many as the industry’s future.
Therefore, it is worth betting on online events to promote your message to the public.
How to generate qualified leads for an online event
When planning a meeting, generating leads for an online event needs to be among your top priorities.
To bring in leads, you need to have a complete picture of your lead and create awareness for your event. Strategies need to be well-targeted and convincing in the virtual space, attracting the right people to buy into your idea.
Crucial tips to generate qualified leads and put your online event on track for success:
1 – Create a good landing page
Creating a professional landing page (LP) is vital to capture qualified leads for your event.
LPs are pages created with the specific purpose of converting visitors into leads.
Generally, they cover the essential event information (speakers, time, topics) and invite people to sign up for it.
In other words, the landing pages work like a standard publicity flyer, which gathers the primary information of the meeting, only in a much more modern way because it is digital.
As visitors enter the landing page and browse, they can confirm their participation in the event by leaving some data, such as name, telephone, and email.
In this way, it is possible to create email lists with people interested in your event. Then you can communicate with the members of the lists, sending relevant content related to the topics addressed at the meeting, warming up for the days of the event.
2 – Capture leads through blogs
Another great way to generate leads for online events is through blog content.
Professionals and companies have long used blogs to engage with the public. With SEO, link building, copywriting, and other techniques seek to attract, engage, and convert visitors.
According to CIENCE, blog content is among the biggest trends in content marketing.
And the best: all this can be done by using organic traffic, which means that it does not bring any cost from the search engine. So you can adapt the same lead generation strategy for online events. n addition to exploring topics directly related to your event in blog articles, leveraging unique strategies such as extracting emails from Google Maps can significantly enhance your outreach efforts. This method enables the identification and engagement of potential leads by tapping into detailed business information, ensuring your event’s message reaches a broader, yet targeted audience.
Subjects linked to the theme of your online event can be explored in the articles, adding value to visitors. You can then add a Call to Action (CTA) for your landing page at the end of the text.
3 – Invest in paid traffic
Organic traffic from blogs can help you capture leads with zero or low cost. On the other hand, paid traffic can quickly multiply your reach in an even more effective way.
Used in both search engines and social media, paid traffic is the tool by which famous ads are created.
Who hasn’t seen an unmissable offer in a YouTube video ad or those Facebook feed posts tagged with the name “sponsored,” right?
Well, these are just two ways to use paid traffic, and you can take advantage of them. You can also generate leads for online events, even expanding your message to other places around the world.
The tool works as follows: you Invest into the platform, and it delivers your message to people interested in the theme of your event. The aim is to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. One way to do that is by using a LinkedIn email finder to find potentially interested contacts that you can involve in your event list.
That way, people who see your ad will want to know about your proposal and be directed to your landing page.
However, this process needs to be strategic and done by professionals so that the investment is effective, generating qualified leads to your event.
4 – Partner with digital influencers
In addition to organic and paid traffic made on digital platforms, there is another tip that can rock your online event: influencers.
Influencers are everywhere on the internet, and thousands of people follow everything they produce or recommend because they trust them.
Thus, these references can fit perfectly into your strategy to generate leads, participate in some way in your online event ― making posts, creating videos, or being present at its realization.
The influencer becomes a lead magnet when they promote an event. Followers who trust them are likely to believe your brand, too, as well as your proposal.
But don’t worry. You don’t have to resort to the biggest influencers in your segment to apply this strategy.
Sometimes, influencers with fewer followers but a more specific niche have a more qualified audience since they have a closer connection.
In any case, the reach and credibility of your online event will increase through influencer marketing, generating more and more leads for the meeting.
An email finder is an invaluable tool that allows you to effectively and precisely connect with influencers via email.
5 – Encourage your employees to publicize the event
Producing content and using everything in your favor to present your proposal in the best way takes up a lot of time.
However, the most important supporters of your online event are by your side.
Employees can help you with their knowledge and experience, giving you the insight to improve your approach, publicize the event, and generate leads through their social networks.
You can create healthy competition between them, with rewards tied to the number of referrals made to encourage them.
The point is: your entire team is critical in generating leads for online events. Without a doubt, including it in your strategy will make all the difference.
6 – Take advantage of materials from face-to-face events
If you intend to host an online event, chances are you have already hosted an event using the face-to-face model. Take a look at the data you’ve compiled and re-use good ideas that might have worked in the past.
You can improve what was done before. For example, a social media post can be created by recycling presentations or synthesizing good content in PDFs.
Past experiences can be the starting point for new and even better creations.
So, who knows, maybe you can recover that strategy that made you generate a good number of contacts in the past?
Bonus tip: be sure to focus on the message
Well-developed lead generation planning for online events is crucial to the success of this meeting.
Although the format has established itself in the market and is still a trend for the next few years, online events only really work when the best strategies are used.
So, make a good plan, considering the tips we brought throughout this content, to generate qualified leads for the event days.
Also, don’t forget to focus on the main thing: the message. It needs to be compelling to attract, engage, and convert people in your industry. Focus on a persona and establish the most effective ways to make them trust you, understand their pain points and desires, and seek to solve them.
Remember that the central point of any marketing strategy is the quality of what will be said. If the message is not clear, objective, and convincing, not even good planning and a high capture of leads will be enough to generate expressive results.
Both message and delivery need to be well developed because they work like two wings of an airplane. If one of them is not working well, the aircraft will not take off.
In this sense, seeking help from experts can prove a great choice to plan and execute your online event to the highest possible standards.
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About the Author / Gabriel Marin
