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Do you attend a brand's virtual event to decide if you'll attend their live event/trade show?
How does attending a virtual event help you make your decision? What are you looking for?
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4 Answers
Honestly, I don't think attending virtual events can replace live trade shows because of the face-to-face interactions with your target audience or other professionals in your industry. However, attending virtual events in combination with the live ones will definitely reach a larger audience. What I look for in trade shows is whether my competitors will be there and what types of attendees will be at the show. Virtual events will give me some idea as to who will be at the live show.
What about Webiners?
I can't answer this based on personal experience (especially since I live and breathe virtual events ;-), but I can reference an example. And that's Cisco Live, the annual customer conference from Cisco.
Cisco Live found that users to their virtual extension (some of whom have never attended a Cisco Live conference in person) were likely to attend the physical event the following year.
To quote, ``surveying those signing up online showed that around 70 percent of them had an "intent or desire" to attend the live event.''
(Source: http://www.citmagazine.com/News/MostEmailed/1077229/Cisco-advocates-free-virt...)
So if you ask Cisco Live's virtual audience, they'll answer:
YES.
To add to Dennis' point, this is an area that requires more insight. We have heard anecdotal evidence, such as Cisco Live, regarding the power of virtual to give delegates a "taste" of the physical event in terms of content, speakers and other delegates.
In the Virtual Edge Institute case study of its annual summit, the study stated (http://www.virtualedgeinstitute.com/2011/05/multi-year-study-reveals-effectiv...
"For those who did attend virtually in 2010, VEI determined eighteen percent (18 percent) of virtual attendees attended in-person in 2011. In a separate poll of those attendees, 82 percent indicated that attending virtually was 'very helpful' in making the decision to attend the 2011 Summit and all respondents indicated attending virtually was 'helpful.'"
Overall, virtual serves many purposes: 1. extend reach to those who can't attend physically or who haven't been exposed to your event in the past; 2. provide delegates a taste of your event to drive physical attendance; 3. generate revenues; and much much more.
So maybe another way to ask the same question, is the goal of your brand's virtual event to extend awareneess or drive delegates to your physical event? Please provide strategies/tactics for achieving said objective.
Disclosure: I consulted with VEI regarding the PR/marketing for the Summit.
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