“The world has changed,” said Vanessa Lovatt, chief evangelist at Glisser, in her presentation at The MarTech Conference. “Eighty-three percent of employers are saying that the shift to remote working is good, 72% of US execs are investing in tools for virtual collaboration, and 54% of employees want to work remotely three days a week or more.”
She added, “As more and more workers become remote, you need to be able to provide online engagement for those individuals.”
With so many people working remotely or in hybrid positions, event marketers often find themselves competing with other virtual experiences. There are simply too many distractions vying for audiences’ time, whether it be social media, entertainment channels, educational videos or other kinds of content.
Fortunately, the demand for virtual events is high, and marketers have more opportunities to integrate event technology into their campaigns than ever before.
Challenges clients are facing in a virtual world
Incorporating event technology into marketing tech stacks can be much easier said than done, according to Lovatt. Capturing audience attention in an increasingly virtual world might seem like a losing battle.
“This is a reality of what you’re facing when you try to bring event tech event platforms into your marketing tech stack: endless online meetings every day that you’ve got to engage and energize and fight for attention from,” she said.
However, these challenges don’t negate the potential impact event tech can have on demand generation.
“Eighty-six percent of virtual events deliver a positive ROI in [the first] six months,” Lovatt said. “But, how do you prove that? It’s all about bringing it into your marketing tech stack where you can start to quantify and measure the results.”
One way marketers can prove the worth of event tech is by employing A/B testing frameworks. This can help generate actionable data for executives and stakeholders.
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How event marketing technology can help engage audiences
Lovatt says many of her team’s customers often request meeting and event experiences that are completely customized. These can be built on brands’ websites or externally with on-brand elements that energize and activate audiences.
Once these audiences are interested, marketers can then leverage the data and intelligence gleaned from these event experiences.
One of the biggest benefits of virtual event technologies, in Lovatt’s estimation, is their ability to connect marketers with audiences regularly, as opposed to one-off engagements that have become all too typical.
“People no longer come to your event [just] once a year and then forget all about you,” said Lovatt. “You are now able to invite people into your digital event environment every single day of the year if you want to. So, you have an ongoing touchpoint opportunity.”
Event technology can offer marketers many other benefits as well: better integration with other marketing channels, improved lead scoring and conversion tracking, or even online community generation. If marketers use these technologies to connect with audiences in personalized ways, they’ll have a better chance of enjoying a sustainable channel that’s built for a remote-first world.
“Virtual events offer an amazing opportunity to create an evergreen marketing channel that is well-delivered and that can continue to generate leads into the future,” Lovatt said.
About The Author
Corey Patterson is an Editor for MarTech and Search Engine Land. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and journalism, he covers SEO and PPC to help marketers improve their campaigns.
