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Joerg Rathenberg

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VP Marketing, Unisfair

410 points

I run the marketing department at Unisfair, an exciting and fun place, where the vision of the first virtual engagement platform for business was created in 2000. I have been marketing software in the San Francisco Bay area for the ...

I run the marketing department at Unisfair, an exciting and fun place, where the vision of the first virtual engagement platform for business was created in 2000. I have been marketing software in the San Francisco Bay area for the past 15 years with a background in BI, Analytics and SaaS. Most recently I came from salesforce.com, where I started vertical industry marketing.

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March 2, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 4 other people answered this question

InterCall acquires Unisfair- How will this change the conferencing & virtual events industry?

Roger,
To answer your first question, InterCall and Unisfair share a vision to provide a complete suite of best in class services that allow customers to connect, engage and collaborate on the web, without having to switch back and forth between different applications. Integrating these ... more

Information Technology

Feb. 24, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 8 other people answered this question

Virtual Events Best Practices: What are your 3 tips for marketing a virtual event?

1. Involve the audience early on
Start creating buzz on social media, using a dedicated hashtag, asking questions, and soliciting input. Create a survey to allow you audience to influence the agenda of your event. E.g. we did a "Keynote Vote" on the topic of ... more

General Management

Event Marketing

Feb. 24, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

How can you make your trade show efforts more "green"?

I agree with Erica - adding a virtual component to your conference, trade show, or company meeting is the greenest thing you can do to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.
These days, hybrid events are rapidly becoming the standard way to ... more

Event Marketing

Feb. 23, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 5 other people answered this question

How do virtual event platforms integrate with Facebook or Twitter apps?

Erica,
I can speak for Unisfairs Virtual Engagement platform, which is integrated with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here are multiple areas where you can leverage this as an organizer:
1. On the microsite or landing page you have the ability for registrants to forwad the ... more

Information Technology

Feb. 17, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 1 other person answered this question

How effective are virtual events and webinars as a lead generation tool?

Patricia,
An always-on Virtual Engagement Platform is the best lead generation tool you can find. The advantage of a virtual environment, compared to other lead gen tools is that it provides you with a wide range of ways to interact, connect, educate and mature a ... more

Event Marketing

Marketing Automation

Feb. 14, 2011

Joerg Rathenberg and 1 other person answered this question

How much more cost effective is a virtual event over a live event? What are the cost diffferences ?

Patricia,
Building on Cece's answer, there have been a number of well published case studies - e.g. on the training side Medco went from $2,000+ to $62 per trainee, saving upwards of $1.5M. http://www.eventmarketer.com/article/healthy-choice
On the marketing side, it's all about cost per lead. This ... more

Event Marketing

Virtual Seminars

Dec. 6, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

How do virtual events reduce sales and marketing costs?

Virtual environments help sales and marketing produce more and better qualified leads and can reduce cost per lead by an order of magnitude.
The advantage of a virtual environment, compared to physical events (e.g. a trade show), is that every interaction of each attendee can ... more

Events and Trade Shows

Nov. 8, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

What are your top three tips for planning a successful virtual event?

Among many things that contribute to a successful virtual event, here are three simple factors that are critical to your success:
CREATE OUTSTANDING CONTENT
In the virtual world, where is is very easy for attendees to turn their attention to other activities, content, as well ... more

Information Technology

Event Marketing

Nov. 8, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 3 other people answered this question

Unisfair vs. ON24

Dennis,
I want to disclose upfront that I am working at Unisfair. Our platform is being used for the widest range of business applications from Lead generation to customer engagement, corporate training, recruiting and company meetings. You will find a number of great case studies ... more

Virtual Event Platform

Virtual Events Software

Virtual Events System

Nov. 8, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

What are the costs of virtual trade shows vs. live trade shows?

Chris,
Here is a link to a kit that contains a scenario-based ROI calculator that I developed recently. You can check and compare costs for trade shows, user conferences, training events and more.
There is a feedback button in the calculator, please us it to ... more

Events and Trade Shows

Live Trade Shows

Virtual Events Software

Nov. 5, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

Virtual Trade Show success: What is the ideal number of exhibitors at an event?

Sarah,
this totally depends on what type of event you are hosting. With todays technology you have few limitations. Our customers have held events with over 250 virtual exhibitor booths.
One such event was a virtual food show that was attended by restaurant chefs, gas ... more

Oct. 19, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

What tools can help me execute my virtual event strategy?

John,
Running the virtual events program at Unisfair, here are the tools that we use to execute events with a high level of attendee engagement:
- Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn help us connect with our audience before, during and after the event. Listing the dates ... more

Events and Trade Shows

Virtual Events Software

Oct. 1, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

On24 vs. UnisFair: What are the main differences?

Sam,
Let me say up front that I am with Unisfair, but I will try to give you some things to think about.
Unisfair is the company that in 2000 had the original vision of a virtual environment for business, where attendees can connect, learn ... more

Events and Trade Shows

Sept. 29, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 6 other people answered this question

What are some other virtual event providers aside from On24?

Hi Laura,
Cece's answer is right. Feel free to connect with me if you want to have an offline conversation.
Best
Joerg more

Events and Trade Shows

Sept. 27, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg answered this question

What is the difference between a virutal event platform and an online training platform?

Ralph,
Virtual event platforms can add a number of important capabilities to virtual training that more traditional LMS platforms or the ones you mentioned above don't include.
Virtual event platforms can make virtual training more exciting and engaging.
A number of our customers found that ... more

Events and Trade Shows

Virtual Event Platform

Sept. 27, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 4 other people answered this question

What is a "virtual event"?

Chad, I would slightly differ from the above characterization. Virtual events are more commonly defined as realistic looking locations on the internet where people get together to connect, learn and network around a specific topic. There is also a definition on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_event
As opposed ... more

Sept. 22, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 1 other person answered this question

Virtual Events: Best practices for determining the success of your virtual event?

Courtney, I run a very successful series of industry best practices events on our virtual engagement platform. Here are the metrics I use to determine the results of my program:
1. Number of Registrants - This measures the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns. I track ... more

Virtual Event Strategy

Sept. 21, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 11 other people answered this question

Who are the top vendors for a virtual events system?

OK, since all vendors are answering this question, I will chime in here too, although I hope to see some customers add their experience. Key is to think about what you are trying to achieve by running virtual events. Here are some ideas:
- Do ... more

Information Technology

Virtual Event Platform

Sept. 20, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 3 other people answered this question

How do you determine the ROI of a virtual events sytem?

Jenny, I have worked on a number of ROI initiatives around cost-justifying virtual and hybrid events. Here are some (but not all) of the criteria that should be considered, going into an ROI calculation:
1. Reach - How many additional attendees can you attract by ... more

Return on Investment

Virtual Event Platform

Virtual Event Strategy

Sept. 16, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 2 other people answered this question

Virtual trade show booths: What are best practices for creating virtual event booths?

One reason for the popularity of virtual events is the fact that attendees can explore on their own terms, without being bothered by aggressive sales pitches. To provide a good attendee experience, adequate booth staffing is critical. Not only do you need enough people to ... more

June 6, 2010

Joerg Rathenberg and 4 other people answered this question

Live vs.Virtual Trade Shows: pros and cons?

Virtual events are growing in popularity for a number of reasons:
1. Increased Reach - Organizers are able to draw in a lot more attendees, who would not consider flying in for a physical event, because of cost, convenience and other reasons.
2. Always-on engagement ... more

Trade Show Marketing

Virtual Trade Shows

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