4 Mistakes that Successful Virtual Events Avoid
From creating an engaging agenda – that doesn’t leave your audience hitting the snooze button – to troubleshooting technology glitches, there’s no room for error with your virtual event. Here are 4 common mistakes to avoid when planning your next virtual event.
1. Waiting until the last hour to plan your event
This goes without saying. Trying to plan anything on the fly is a recipe for disaster. Although one of the benefits of a virtual event, versus a face-to-face event, is its quick turnaround, your attendance can be affected if attendees aren’t given ample time to plan their personal schedules accordingly. Don’t procrastinate. Set a date in advance so that everyone has the option to participate.
2. Wasting your attendees time without considering what information matters most to them
If you want a highly productive and engaging event, you need to consider the information that is of most interest and value to your audience. Get their input. A simple solution is to survey your attendees prior to or during registration. This not only gives your presenters feedback on topics that are most important to your participants but it also offers detailed insights that help you prioritize your agenda for a shorter meeting, which is generally recommended for a virtual event.
3. Creating a boring agenda with an equally unengaging PowerPoint presentation to match
When you know what your participants are most interested in learning, your audience engagement will increase and you’ll have a rock-solid agenda to match. Couple this with a well-designed presentation and you have the makings of a successful virtual event right out of the gate.
Present your talking points so that your audience will listen. Keep your Powerpoint slides simple. Less equals more – more visuals, more bullet points, and less text. By simplifying the information on your slides, you’ll boost interaction and knowledge retention. Use these suggestions as a guide:
1) The 20-20 Rule – 20 slides with each lasting exactly 20 seconds per slide.
2) Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule – no more than 10 slides, with a total presentation of 20 minutes, using 30 point font.
For more great presentation tips, check out here, here, and here.
4. Failing to hire an event planner when you lack the internal resources to deploy a successful virtual event
A lot of detailed, experienced planning and technology know-how goes into creating a masterful virtual event. Its success can teeter on the verge of brilliance or the brink of despair.
By hiring a virtual event planning company, like Miller Tanner Associates, the burden falls on the planners’ expertise and not yours. We are able to extensively support all of your virtual event planning needs. Here are just a few ways you benefit by hiring a planner:
- Since not everyone has access to a virtual event platform, and even if they do, your team might not have the time to concentrate on testing and set up. Our team of virtual event planners can walk you through the platform by setting up the meeting, scheduling a rehearsal for the presenters so you are comfortable with presenting virtually and deploying a successful virtual event.
- Our suite of virtual platforms not only allows for attendee engagement during the virtual event but also tracks who attended and when they left, what questions were asked via text during the event as well as responses to any polling questions asked by specific attendees.
- As an event planner, we can follow up with attendees to help encourage their attendance and confirm those who are not able to attend for one reason or another.
- We have the resources to record the subject matter experts and repurpose the presentations within our proprietary On-Demand Trainer/Learning Management System so those who weren’t able to attend or who are new can see the information just as though they were present at the time of the event.
By avoiding these ghastly mistakes, we guarantee that your virtual event will be headed in the right direction from beginning to end. If you’d like to learn more about how our Virtual Events Team can save you time and money, please contact us today.
Updated: 9/23/2022
