Between direct mail, golf outings, galas, grants, major gifts, planned gifts, QR codes, and text-to-give, there are so many channels hospitals have access to when it comes to raising money. 

However, healthcare fundraising has always had unique elements that influence development officers’ strategies. Hospitals and healthcare organizations can and should still host events, send fundraising emails, and conduct phone drives, but when it comes to asking for gifts from their primary audience—patients, patient families, and hospitals’ communities—healthcare fundraisers have to take a strategic approach that addresses changing demographics and donor preferences.

With modern advances in fundraising, healthcare organizations are discovering new ways to craft fundraising strategies that are both profitable and empathetic. To help your organization develop its own strategy, this guide will dive into how modern technology and attitudes toward giving can influence your fundraising for the better. 

Rethink Your Donor Engagement Lifecycle

Despite the growth in digital and social media channels for fundraising, a major component of modern fundraising is still personal relationship building. Donors today expect hyper-personalized communication, whether this takes the form of direct social media messaging or content tailored to their interests. 

For healthcare fundraising, strong relationships are already a part of the process. After all, grateful patient programs revolve around clinicians, volunteers, other donors, and your fundraising team building relationships with prospective donors before, during, and after treatment. However, healthcare organizations can still benefit from reassessing their approach to the donor lifecycle to improve these relationships’ longevity. 

Assess your organization’s current approach to the donor lifecycle by paying extra attention to:

• Relationship-building post solicitation. The donor lifecycle is a cycle, and your relationship with supporters should continue long after their first gift. After a donor gives, assess your follow-up procedures to ensure you express proper thanks and continue stewarding the relationship to potentially earn future donations. 
• Touchpoint tracking. Create a map of your touchpoints with various types of donors, starting from their first interactions with your healthcare organization to post-gift follow-up. Knowing how and when donors encounter major turning points in their relationship with your organization can help you maximize these moments’ potential. Also, be aware that your first contact with donors may not involve your fundraising team. For patient donors, their first touchpoint is likely to be their intake process or even browsing your website from home. 
• Automation opportunities. Ultimately, donor relationships require a human touch. Still, software can be essential when it comes to managing relationships at scale. For instance, your analytics software can assess your entire supporter base to find prospective planned donors, or your marketing tools can auto-populate message templates to ensure content is personalized to each supporter. 

The key to a healthy donor lifecycle is that as many supporters as possible restart it after giving. This allows you to build up long-term relationships that can lead to bigger and bigger gifts, such as major donations like capital campaign gifts.

Break up your donor lifecycle into stages to assess how various interactions with your organization move supporters forward or might influence them to drop out. Your lifecycle stages might be something like: initial contact, intake, in-hospital treatment, post-treatment follow-up, and continued stewardship. 

When assessing these stages, for example, you might realize you have a strong patient care program and good stewardship practices for patient donors, but struggle to smoothly transition patients into supporters.  

Create a Structured Solicitation Process

While modern donors want personalized relationships with your nonprofit, a structured solicitation process will help your fundraising team stay organized and operate at scale. 

However, remember that structured does not mean impersonal. In fact, reliable fundraising processes often involve many moments of personalized interaction, as well as branching paths based on donors’ interests. For example, you would take a different approach with a donor who gives immediately than with one who indicates they cannot give now but would like to in the future. 

When it comes to the donation appeal itself, your team should have a structured playbook that fundraisers can use to create individualized pitches. For instance, a grateful patient fundraising program should have solicitation guidelines that advise development officers to consider:

• Timing. Timing is key in grateful patient programs, as many donor prospects have likely undergone major medical procedures, and some may still be in long-term recovery programs. With the right timing, you can ensure that the positive care they received is still in recent memory without appearing pushy or insensitive. 
• Past gifts. New donors and recurring donors require different solicitation processes. New donors need an introduction to your fundraising program, whereas recurring donors need a strong, enduring connection with your organization. 
• Past solicitations. Always consider the donor’s response to previous gift requests when putting together subsequent pitches. If a donor responded enthusiastically last time, you may aim to recreate your previous approach. In contrast, if the last solicitation did not go well, you should direct fundraisers to consider why and how future donation appeals can better meet the supporter’s needs and interests. 

To keep your efforts organized but personal, consider creating different general solicitation plans for different groups of donors. For example, you might have a new donor solicitation strategy that provides information about your program, and one for past donors that focuses on your long-term relationship. 

Leverage Data to Inform Your Fundraising Strategy

Modern fundraisers are data-driven for good reason. With thorough data on your donors and past successful fundraisers, you create informed solicitation strategies that are likely to yield better fundraising results. 

However, healthcare organizations also have to be conscious of patient donors’ confidential information. A few ways your organization can leverage data while respecting supporters’ privacy include:

• Creating comprehensive donor profiles. Each supporter should have a profile in your CRM that you regularly update every time they interact with your organization. This helps maintain a consistent donor experience and make strategic steps in their engagement. Additionally, ensure all of your fundraising-related software is connected so all data flows smoothly into your CRM. For example, you might monitor which donors attended a past fundraising event by connecting your event management software to your CRM. 
• Leveraging predictive analytics. Discover new giving prospects by analyzing the profiles of past major donors. Use this information to create a profile of your typical donor and leverage it to identify new supporters with similar characteristics. 
• Tracking engagement data. When you send an email, host an event, or create a new website landing page, ensure you can track its engagement data. Information like bounce rate, click-through rate, and conversion rates can help you determine what types of content and outreach work for your audience. 

To leverage your data, ensure you also practice proper data hygiene. Routinely assess your database to update outdated information, remove duplicate data, and identify missing information. This will ensure your organization can create more accurate fundraising reports that give you a better understanding of your donors. 

Take a Patient-First Approach to Fundraising

Hospitals and healthcare organizations face a unique hurdle compared to other nonprofits: maintaining high-quality patient care programs. No matter your fundraising strategy, your organization should never compromise on patient care. 

A few ways you can take a patient-first approach include:

• Educating staff about their role in fundraising. In a successful grateful patient program, your care team and fundraising teams will work together. Ensure care professionals understand how they can help fundraisers without imposing fundraising responsibilities on them or jeopardizing their relationships with patients. For instance, in many grateful patient programs, care teams are simply asked to communicate to development officers which patients may be worthwhile prospective donors. Provide your clinical partners with training about how to assess potential grateful patient donors, and provide updates about patients they helped point your fundraising team toward to keep them engaged. 
• Treating all patients equally. Patients who are not strong donor prospects or who decline to give should receive equal treatment to patient donors. Ensure patients understand that the care they receive is not in any way tied to the amount they donate. This is another reason why development officers should be conscious of their timing for donation appeals—an ask at the wrong time may make patients question whether their response will impact their quality of care. 
• Maintaining high ethical standards. Anyone who engages with donors should adhere to the highest ethical standards regarding patient privacy and care. Review relevant laws for collecting and using patient data to ensure your fundraising team maintains patient privacy and protects your organization from liability. 

After patients leave your hospital or healthcare organization, you can keep them engaged in your fundraising efforts by creating donor-focused experiences. For example, you might start a donor membership program that provides participants with exclusive content, such as free merchandise, access to published medical studies, private events, and more. 

Additionally, try new marketing efforts. Hospitals have expanded their marketing efforts to include billboards, TV commercials, and online ads. These ads discuss the role philanthropy can play in making a difference, and when placed strategically, this outreach can be instrumental in spreading the word about your hospital’s fundraisers. For example, some hospitals even have ads for their giving program in their waiting rooms.

A modern healthcare fundraising approach takes many factors into consideration: data, automation, and human relationships. Remember that “modern” doesn’t mean that technology alone runs your program, but rather that software, data analysis, and automation tools can work with your fundraising team to make relationship building simpler. 

To start modernizing your hospital or healthcare organization’s approach to fundraising, map out your donor lifecycle to identify key inflection points. Then, collect data about those moments to create a structured stewardship and solicitation process that guides supporters toward making a gift, all without sacrificing your high-quality patient care. 

The post Healthcare Fundraising: How to Modernize Your Approach appeared first on EventMobi.

This makes it difficult for event organizers and marketers to use a one-size-fits-all approach to engaging diverse audiences. Strategies that work with Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers simply won’t be compelling for Generation Z. Fortunately, there’s an answer to this problem!

Amenah Rizwan is the founder of Picnics Toronto, a company that specializes in micro and experiential events for younger generations. In other words, she’s the perfect person to talk to about engaging Gen Zers at your in-person, virtual, and/or hybrid gatherings.

Some of the strategies Amenah shares in this article include:

• Sending personalized invitations
• Using eye-catching aesthetics
• Meeting attendees where they are
• Daring to have a little fun with your events
• Taking a non-traditional approach from time to time
• Leveraging social media platforms the right way

6 Strategies to Engage Younger Audiences in 2024

How do you appeal to younger generations? Plenty of association and corporate event planners have asked themselves this exact question in recent years. The good news: it’s really not that difficult.

The six tactics below will help you reach Gen Z in productive ways—without forcing you to completely redesign your entire event experience. Even better, they come from an event planner who specializes in helping her clients engage a young demographic at their events.

Let’s take a look!

1. Personalize Your Invitations

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; personalization is essential.

When it comes to live events, personalization can help create buzz around your gatherings and engage attendees even better during keynote speeches and breakout sessions.

“We generally try to really create a lot of buzz and we do it by focusing on personalization.“

-Amenah R.

In fact, personalization is a key component of Amenah’s event strategy—and it all starts with the custom invitations she sends to every person on her guest list.

“We will send [attendees] personal invitations, very aesthetic invitations, so they feel like they’re not just getting invited to just another event. It feels a little bit more tailored and personalized to them, and that’s one of the ways we really strive to create that.”

-Amenah R.

There are many ways to personalize an invitation. Obviously, you can address each attendee by name. But you can also design your invites in a way that connects with your target audience.

Who is your event for? What do these people care about? And how can you incorporate these things into your invitation emails? These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself.

Of course, personalized invites aren’t the only way to appeal to younger generations. You can also make sure your events look good. Let’s talk more about that…

2. Use Eye-Catching Aesthetics

Put yourself in Gen Z’s shoes.

They’ve grown up with the internet. Social media is their preferred form of entertainment. And influencers are more revered by them than most Hollywood celebrities.

Younger generations are also inundated with content. As such, they tend to gravitate towards things that look good. Put another way, they like content that has a pleasing aesthetic.

“I think aesthetics is incredibly important for Gen Z. They’re a very aesthetically-conscious generation because they’ve grown up in a digital age.”

-Amenah R.

When Amenah plans an event, she pays special attention to the imagery her team creates. Her invitations, venues, decorations—even the merchandise—all work together to create a cohesive experience that speaks to Gen Z’s well-cultivated visual tastes.

“Aesthetics is very important to Gen Z… It really makes them feel like it’s more than just another corporate event. It’s something tailored to them.”

-Amenah R.

3. Meet Attendees Where They Are

Contrary to popular belief, Gen Z wants to engage with your events. You just have to plan content and activities that feel relevant to their interests and stage of life.

“We’ll look at what their interests are, what their hobbies are, what type of little engaging activities we can do.”

-Amenah R.

Amenah has found a variety of effective ways to do this. For example, she’s booked specific venues that Gen Zers will deem social media-worthy. Or made sure Daydream and Sapsucker beverages were available. Or planned in-person bingo activations that make it fun for event attendees to network with one another.

According to Amenah, your event merchandise can be used to engage event attendees, too. The key is creating merchandise that Gen Zers actually want to wear—even after the event is over.

“And then for Gen Z, they have no problem wearing [merchandise] they just want it to integrate a little more into what they would regularly wear. So if we have an event… We would have merchandise in neutral colors that go along with the brand that they could wear regularly outside of the event and outside of the workplace as well.“

-Amenah R

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Have Fun

Even the most serious attendees, regardless of their age, see events as a break from their day-to-day work. This is particularly true for Gen Z. 

“It’s essentially just being okay with having a little bit of fun. You can still have a very professional event, but still showcase a little bit of your fun side.”

-Amenah R.

Gen Z wants to learn, network, and have a great time at the events they attend. The question is, how do you host a professional gathering that adequately entertains your younger guests? To achieve this, Amenah encourages her clients to look to pop culture for inspiration.

Speaking of which…

5. Take a Non-Traditional Approach

Older generations often treat Gen Zers like aliens. The truth is, they’re not that different from Millennials and Gen Xers. They simply grew up in a radically different environment.

“I think the gap, it’s not honestly too big to bridge. It’s just essentially creating space for Gen Z as well… So it’s not necessarily very different.”

-Amenah R.

According to Amenah, one of the best ways to connect with younger generations is to step away from traditional venues. Why host your next meeting in a hotel conference center when you could host it at a lakeside retreat center? The second option will be much more appealing to your younger attendees.

“We’ve arranged beach days or outdoor movie nights for even senior and C-suite level staff, and they’ve always had a great time.”

-Amenah R.

Now, you don’t have to abandon everything you’ve ever learned about event management to appease Gen Z. Small gestures go a long way. For example, you can host your event at a traditional venue. But try to set up a unique outdoor space that lends itself to content creation for your younger attendees.

Or, go ahead and work with your favorite caterer for your next event. However, purchase trendy beverages that Gen Zers will want to post about on TikTok.

“You can keep the traditional, but then you can also just add in little pockets being able to step outside of the box.”

-Amenah R.

6. Leverage Social Media Effectively

Finally, to appeal to a younger generation, you have to ace your social media game.

Gen Zers spend a lot of time on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. If you want them to attend your event, you need to create content for these platforms. Just do it the right way.

“Leverage social media and, just like I was saying, leverage it in a fun way.”

-Amenah R.

The content you create for social media should be fun to engage with. That way, when a younger person in your target audience sees a post about your upcoming conference, they think to themselves, “Hey, that seems pretty cool. I’d love to buy a ticket to their next event!“

According to Amenah, Duolingo is one of the best brands on social media right now. Why is that? Because they create awesome social content that elevates their live events.

“Look at Duolingo, look at how insane they’ve blown up over the past couple of years. And they’ve also maintained that growth with how they create for their social media perspective. It’s not so they’re informing their audience of what they’re doing. They’re just resonating with their audience and getting them to want to participate in their events.”

-Amenah R.

Wrapping Up

You can appeal to younger generations with your events. You just have to think outside the box and adopt new strategies. After reading this article, you have a leg up in that regard.

Here’s another idea you can use to connect with Gen Z attendees: use a fully customizable Event App.

The EventMobi Mobile Event App is loaded with features you can use to keep attendees informed and engaged during your next event. It’s also easy to create a totally unique and eye-catching design that will differentiate your events from the competition. Oh, and it’s extremely user-friendly—which means your Millenial, Gen X, and Boomer attendees won’t have any issues using it, either!

To learn more about EventMobi, sign up for a free demo!

Book a Demo

The post Tips from the Trenches: 6 Ideas to Make Your Events Appeal to Gen Z  appeared first on EventMobi.

Many keynote speakers and breakout session facilitators have extensive, active networks both on and offline. 

By enlisting the aid of speakers to reach out to their existing connections, event planners can tap into an unmined pool of potential attendees.

But you can’t expect your event speakers to do all the work themselves. To get the most out of our event speakers, you need an event marketing strategy that equips them with the right information, tools, and resources to draw their network to your event. 

Here are 8 tips to engage event speakers and facilitators in pre-event marketing. 

1. Make it easy to share content

As you release information about the event on social media, through email, and via other channels, make it easy for your event speakers to share it as well. 

Instead of simply sending them a link to your latest promotion, give them assets they can share in one or two clicks. Consider sending them weekly or monthly promo packages, including: 

• Promo graphics sized for social media posts 
• Pre-written Tweets and image captions
• Customized assets featuring their name, topic, and event details 
• Clear instructions for deals and updates you’d like them to share

By giving them all of these important items in a way that’s easy to share and understand, you’ll greatly increase their participation rate.

2. Conduct pre-conference interviews

Creating “sneak peek” content is a great way to grab the attention of your potential audience before the event begins. 

Have someone from your organization interview each event speaker, asking them questions like: 

• What are some topics you’ll touch on at the event? 
• What are you most looking forward to during the event? 
• What questions will you answer for people who attend your event? 
• What’s something attendees can look forward to from your upcoming talk? 

You can record these interviews over Zoom, or host them on a streaming platform like YouTube Live or Streamyard. Your event host will have a chance to promote themselves and your event, and you’ll have heaps of content to use for further promotion prior to the event.

Recommended Resource:  Planning to live stream, record, and share your event content? Download the free Release Form Template for Event Recordings to ensure there are no limitations on your right to publish your event content!

Download Now

3. Host a social media takeover

If you are already using social media to promote your event, consider hosting a social media takeover, where event speakers post on your social media channels. 

Hosting a takeover is quite simple. Ask each event speaker to submit content for a set number of posts: Perhaps three or four tweets, an image or two of their books or day-to-day life, something they want to promote, etc. 

Once you have all of their content, schedule it onto your social media channels, along with a few posts prior to let your audience know when the takeover will be happening. Ask each event speaker to do the same, and you’ll see a lot more activity on your event social feeds. 

4. Collaborate on a guest blog post

If you have a blog for your event or business, then you have an opportunity to feature your event speakers prior to your event to drum up excitement. 

Once again, it’s all about making the process easy for the guest speakers. You can ask if they have a blog they’ve already written that you can repurpose, or you can offer to send them questions via email or conduct a live interview that you can turn into a blog. 

When it’s done, send them a few promotional images and suggested social post text, or ask them to share the blog in their newsletter. Be sure to provide a valuable backlink to your event speaker’s website within the blog, to give them credit for their work and provide them with some enhanced online visibility.

5. Give attendees pre-event Q&A opportunities

Want to get your attendees engaged well before the event starts? Then give them the chance to pose their questions to your event speakers before the launch date. 

You can collect questions by surveying your social media audience or creating a survey with your Event CMS to send out to all registrants before the event begins. You may want to save some of the best questions for the event itself, but select a handful for your event speaker to answer via social media or in a pre-event video interview or live stream.

6. Promotional video clips and pre-roll

With a creative approach, video has the power to go viral. Make it clever and upbeat. Use clips from your speakers. Share the video both on and offline. Vimeo, YouTube, and Instagram are just a few possibilities. YouTube offers targeted pre-roll: short clips that run before viewers access the content they have requested.

Once you have videos, definitely Tweet them. Don’t forget to post them on LinkedIn where videos are underutilized but highly visible.

7. Keep promotion going after the event has ended

When your event is over, your job as an event planner isn’t over. If you use event management software like EventMobi, you now have a library of content to share with your audience or use in future marketing campaigns. 

You can include your event speakers in post-event marketing as well. Share any footage you’ve created with them to pass on to their network, again providing them with the assets, text, and captions you’d like them to include for ease of uploading. 

Give them plenty of warning when you plan to feature them in your post-event marketing campaigns and be sure to keep them informed about future opportunities to speak again.

In Summary

Speakers can be your best event advocates if you let them know what is expected and find effective strategies to manage the relationship. Event speakers can help build excitement for your event and ensure that event marketing efforts go more smoothly.

Recommended Read: Discover 7 Smart Ways to Add Video Into Your Event

Recommended Resource: Watch 8 short videos to learn how to you can easily design and deliver in-person events that engage attendees and offer sponsors more value.

Watch Now

The post 7 Tips for Leveraging Your Speakers as Event Advocates appeared first on EventMobi.

Before jumping on board, it’s important to know how to live stream your event without unintentionally falling victim to privacy or copyright infringement. Just because it is your event doesn’t mean you automatically have the right to use the venue, copyrighted material, or individual’s likenesses in live stream content you may profit from.

In the following article, we provide an overview of the legal risks that come with live streaming video at events, and how to protect yourself.

The Legality of Live Streaming Your Event

Live streaming events is another instance of technology far surpassing legal protocol. Today’s complex network of wirelessly connected cameras, screens, and devices offers endless opportunities to easily create and share live stream content.

The commercial and promotional opportunities for live streaming your event are growing with the popularity of hybrid events. However, the uncertainty surrounding the raw nature of the content threatens event planners’ potential to incorporate and monetize live stream content in post-event media, sponsorship packages, or other video opportunities.

This is why it’s also important to have a strategy when you live stream your event, to ensure you are abiding by the law.

Recommended Resource:  If you’re planning to live stream, record and share your event content, you may need permission from your event stakeholders to release you from liability.

Download the free Release Form Template for Event Recordings now to ensure there are no limitations on your right to publish and share your event content!

Download Now

For events, the legal aspects of streaming you should consider BEFORE you start include:

• public vs. private spaces and whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy,
• every individual’s right to publicity, and
• intellectual property, or copyrighted material that may be captured in the stream.

Intellectual property includes copyrighted or trademarked material, trade secrets, sensitive company material, and any performance of a work of authorship, which includes but is not limited to keynote speeches, live performances, movie/t.v. clips, and background music.

But before we dive into the challenges and solutions of this tech, the ability to broadcast live video from any personal device to whoever is willing to watch raises the question: How do you police thousands of attendees who might be live streaming your event?

The answer is…you don’t.

But with the potential to accidentally commit copyright infringement and no easy way to moderate the experience, how can live streaming platforms be legally used at events?

The DMCA & Legal Onus of Live Streaming Your Event

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) “safe harbor” provision protects services and providers as long as they don’t have prior knowledge of the activity and quickly respond to the rights owners’ takedown requests. However, this poses a timing issue for events or performances that are affected by live streams. After live streaming your event, the takedown request could be applied to archived material, but the damage would have already been done in real-time.

The DMCA has been YouTube’s saving grace, though the platform has systems in place to catch and cut off broadcast copyright violators with regard to background music and embedded videos.

Big live streaming platforms like YouTube are not only protected by DMCA; their own ‘terms of services’ pushes the blame onto the host so policing the thousands of streams isn’t a priority for the providers. Unfortunately, all the legal onus on the host of the stream puts event planners into the line of fire.

Capturing the Venue

A good place to start understanding the legality of live streaming your event is that it’s very similar to the legality of photographing or recording video at events. The location where the live streaming is taking place will play a factor, as well as indicate the reasonable expectation of privacy. If you’re not on company property, you’ll likely need to get a location release from the property owner in order to legally broadcast the venue space. This is probably included in your venue contract but it’s good to double-check.

What is Considered a Public Place?

The reasonable expectation of privacy refers to the illegality of photographing or recording someone on video, without their consent, while on private property and live streaming is no exception. If there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as in a personal office, closed meeting room, or private residence, live streaming your event without permission is a no-go. Whereas if you’re photographing, recording, or streaming in a public place (including conference halls, sports arenas, or concert venues) there is little to no legal action to be taken.

Since most events take place in what would be considered a public place, you’re in the clear, right? Well not so fast…

Recommended Resource: Are you planning to live stream your in-person event to a remote audience?

Learn how the member-based organization Peerscale broadened their reach by broadcasting in-person sessions to a remote audience, and seamlessly delivered virtual speaker presentations to their attendees onsite. And if you’re considering running a hybrid event, EventMobi’s hybrid event platform can help you. 

Right of Publicity Restrictions

The distinction to be made for streaming in public and an important note for live streaming, in general, is the “right of publicity” which dictates that any recorded video that’s used for commercial or promotional purposes, requires the permission of individuals shown in the video. Therefore if you were to live stream your event with the intent to profit or promote, it and don’t obtain consent from those shown during the broadcast, those people could potentially sue you or your event.

There haven’t been any public examples of legal actions being taken with events over the “right of publicity” but the potential is very real. Avoiding legal complications could be as simple as including a release form as part of your registration or posting a crowd release notice outside the event space.

A crowd release isn’t as legally concrete as signed permission but it will notify attendees of what’s happening and allow them to leave if they don’t want to be a part of the broadcast. Ensure you notify attendees before the event that you will be broadcasting as well as periodically throughout the event to avoid any confusion or issues in the future.

Example crowd release:

Plan Ahead to Avoid Problems When Live Streaming Your Event

Once you have the location release and attendee’s consent forms posted or collected, the other red flag you’ll need to be wary of is any and all intellectual property that may be captured in your live stream. To best guard yourself against trademark or copyright infringement, check the area that will be visible in your stream for any screens, posters, logos, or artwork, and schedule your broadcast around performances, loud music, or sessions that may be covering sensitive material.

A best practice is to avoid high-traffic areas where attendees might not realize they’re being streamed because they may say or do something you’d rather not be affiliated with your event. This is where having a contingency plan would come in handy, such as having a secondary location to stream from with safe sight lines that are out of the way of your attendees.

At the end of the day, live streaming your event is generally legal if you’re careful to avoid copyrighted material and collect the appropriate consent and releases. However, in addition to the murky legal waters, the live element of live streaming carries inherent uncertainty.

Not having control over the content that’s being instantly transmitted to your trusting followers and potential leads is definitely something to consider. Despite the risks, ephemeral content and providers are rapidly gaining notoriety and followers. So do your due diligence and add another arm’s length to your social media reach.

When you decide that live streaming your event is the right choice, here is a checklist for what you should do to ensure you’re doing everything legally.

1. Have the appropriate release forms and consent ahead of time eg. Crowd release form, location release, and written permission from featured individuals.
2. Plan ahead and check the area surrounding where your stream will be taking place for posters, logos, artwork, and screens.
3. Schedule the broadcast to avoid music or sensitive material in a session or presentation.
4. Request written permission from speakers and performers before you include them as part of a stream and ensure they have the rights to all of their own material.
5. Have a contingency plan, in case the original streaming area is compromised by copyrighted material or crowded by attendees.

Are you looking for a single vendor who can support you with the right mix of event management software and live stream, video production and support services for your next event ?

Book your personalized demo of EventMobi to discover how you can easily deliver your best event yet!

Book a Demo

The post How to Legally Live Stream Your Event appeared first on EventMobi.

In short, yes. To meet this demand, event organizers need to balance carefully planned in-person meetings with year-round, online engagement. And an event community could be the answer.

The event community model has been touted as the new promised land, but despite all the buzz, there hasn’t been a lot of practical insight into what that really means. In broad strokes, it’s about understanding the difference between an event community and other online communities. When you dig a little deeper, it’s a matter of realizing just how versatile your event platform can be.

Whether you run association events or corporate meetings, creating an event community within the same platform you are using to build and manage your events means less complexity and effort for you (and for your members!). It also means more opportunities for engagement and revenue generation.  Your attendees and sponsors will thank you as they rediscover what it takes to make—and keep—meaningful connections.

Recommended Resource: Looking for detailed strategies for building an event community that keeps attendees coming back time after time? Download the free guide, The Secret to Successful Attendee Retention: Year-Round Engagement.

Download Now

The Best Online Communities for Today’s Professionals

Online communities connect like-minded individuals—people who share similar challenges, concerns, and successes. 

In the professional world, many companies and associations create branded online communities to keep members engaged in their organizations. Ideally, your online community should provide a platform for peer support and knowledge sharing. But what kind of community presents the best solution?

After weighing your options, we’ll explain why an event community is the best solution in most situations.

4 Types of Online Communities

To help provide some clarity, we’ve broken down professional online communities into four main categories:

1. A private employee community
2. An exclusive paid user/customer community
3. A private association or member community
4. A public shared interest community/forum

3 Types of Community Platforms

In turn, there are several different online platforms that can be used for community building:

1. Learning management systems (LMS)
2. Social networking platforms
3. Event platforms

Finding the Right Online Platform for Your Community

The first option, Learning Management Software (LMS), is great for private employee communities and consumer clubs. That’s because these communities are focused on professional development and product training. With that said, these learning platforms generally lack the networking and engagement features of other online options.

The second option, a social networking platform, is one of the most obvious choices for communities based on shared interests. When it comes to professional communities and organizations, however, there are some clear downsides to using public platforms. From the user perspective, public platforms often have the disadvantage of blurring the boundaries between our personal and professional lives, even on LinkedIn.

For that reason, public platforms can create pressure for community members to be ‘always on’. This approach can lead to the erosion of a healthy work-life balance, and the risk of burnout is real.

The third option, an event platform, offers an alternative that strikes a balance between these two competing approaches. By offering year-round access to your event platform, professionals can enjoy a single, digital point of access where they can upgrade their skills through webinars and on-demand training content, and network with other members even after the main event is over. Event organizers or community managers can easily leverage the platform’s content management, communication, and engagement features to streamline how they host content, share important information, foster new connections, and keep their audience engaged in-between events.  

Most importantly, using your event platform to host your event community maintains a healthy separation from public forums while still offering avenues to continue the conversation around shared topics of interest.

For all these reasons,  event platforms are the ideal choice for association event communities. Because of their ability to combine a high-touch experience with exclusive access, they can also work well for private employee communities, paid consumer clubs, and shared interest groups.

8 Practical Benefits of Using an Event Platform

To help inspire your own event community, we’ve put together 8 key benefits of using your event platform for year-round community engagement—complete with practical tips for how you can make it happen.

1. Build Connections with Events & Meetings

Your event platform should make it easy for you to combine engaging in-person experiences with ongoing online connectivity. More than any other marketing channel, face-to-face experiences—whether in-person or via curated virtual meetups—will solidify a sense of community and help sustain them in the long run.

Events are a natural launching pad for communities, and your event platform can help you keep the momentum going.

Your event platform not only allows you to organize gatherings with the help of agenda tools, session pages, and invitations for select member groups—it also means you can host those meetings on the same platform you use to schedule them.

How to Make It Happen

Use your event platform for more than just a one-off event app, and create a single, central hub for regular events and meetings, including:

• Association events and conferences
• Annual general meetings
• Committee, chapter, and board meetings
• 1:1 video meetings
• Interactive virtual meetups for different groups

2. Keep the Lines of Communication Open for Attendees

Think about the word ‘community’—it shares the same root word as ‘communication.’

The best event platforms are designed to make it easy for your community members to connect with each other in a variety of ways, whether it’s liking a comment in a chat thread, booking an appointment to meet in person via booking apps, or joining a 1:1 or group video meeting. In other words, you can think of it as your own private social network where you maintain full control of the branding and community standards.

This offers benefits at every stage of the attendee journey—which now extends all year round. Allowing attendees to connect through their common interests before the event helps to break the ice leading up to the big day. At the event itself, attendees will have even more opportunities to share thoughts, common challenges, and ideas through discussions and interactive breakout sessions on the event platform. And you’ll know that you’ve successfully engaged your audience when your attendees choose to keep in touch and share learnings throughout the rest of the year.

How to Make it Happen

Let your community members connect with each other on an exclusive professional network that includes:

• Virtual social events for remote teams
• Watch parties for on-demand content
• A social media wall that collects posts related to event hashtags
• Gamification that drives community and sponsor goals 
• Member profiles with key professional information

3. Increase Brand Awareness with Platform Customization

For recurring events, it’s crucial to drive up brand awareness wherever possible. TED Talks are a perfect example of an event brand that has built a robust market for on-demand video content, long after the live event is over. A strong brand will keep attendees coming back to a tight-knit community of supporters, who in turn become brand ambassadors.

On an event community platform, members can sign up for events, browse your content, and access your messaging in a centralized online space that fully matches your brand. 

In contrast to social networking platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn, the best event platforms let you customize your entire online space, from the color theme to the background images.  And as more and more media features are added, more and more branding opportunities arise. 

In turn, this helps to build loyalty for your association, corporation, or not-for-profit organization.

How to Make it Happen

Let your community members connect in an event space that drives brand awareness by:

• Adding branded production elements to live streams and pre-recorded videos with tools like EventMobi’s self-service live stream event software
• Working with a professional live stream production team that can create custom branded motion graphics for you
• Leveraging your event platform’s event branding and design tools to create an event space that showcases your organization’s or community’s unique visual identity 

4. Grow Your Sponsorship Revenue with an Event Community Platform

Just as importantly, all of these branding opportunities can easily be redirected toward sponsor goals. 

Instead of offering your sponsors a limited-time period for brand exposure, create a new year-round package. Outside of banner ads, sponsored sessions, and virtual exhibitor booths, the package can include sponsored video libraries, full-page ads, and gamification challenges. Let them browse your customized event platform, and they’ll have firsthand evidence of how effective it can be for driving brand awareness.

How to Make it Happen

Grow sponsor revenue opportunities by:

• Selling year-round access to banner ads and home page real estate
• Allowing sponsors to brand webinars and other live sessions
• Including product demos and sizzle reels in dedicated sponsor video libraries
• Hosting raffles with sponsor giveaways
• Designing monthly game challenges that encourage interaction with sponsor content
• Demonstrating event ROI with clear data on user engagement

5. Track Engagement for Better ROI Reporting and Market Segmentation

It used to be a challenge to measure and prove to senior management that attendees were engaged and making the most of the networking opportunities at your event. But with developments in event technology, it’s become much easier to measure event success and report on ROI.

As you extend access to your event platform, you allow yourself to learn more and more about your attendees. This data is not only valuable for demonstrating your event’s success to both sponsors and your marketing department—it also provides future sponsors with valuable information about attendee preferences. In other words, your event platform will help you segment your audience into target markets.

For example, attendees who watch an entire session on accounting software are likely to be interested in similar products. And this kind of information is highly valuable to prospective sponsors and event partners.

How to Make it Happen

Monitor and quantify attendee engagement by tracking:

• Participation in live chat, Q&A, live polling, discussion groups, event gamification challenges, activity feeds, etc.
• Session attendance and viewing time for live stream sessions and on-demand videos
• Virtual booths visited and appointments booked
• Social media posts (shares, hashtag usage) from the event community before, during, and after the event
• Responses to pre- and post-event polls and surveys

6. Strengthen Your Messaging & Marketing Strategy

Your event community can double as a marketing channel.

Regular updates and reminders will not only build buzz around the event itself but will also strengthen your organization’s overall marketing strategy. Leading up to the event, try producing and promoting content that helps to create excitement and build anticipation for the main attraction. For example, run webinars featuring upcoming speakers, or publish blog interviews with high-profile attendees or speakers.

How to Make it Happen

Make sure that you keep your communication channels open throughout the year with:

• Push notifications for upcoming events and important news
• Email campaigns segmented by attendee groups
• Post-event wrap-ups (roundtables, networking, etc.)
• Inspiration and insights from crowdsourced content and trending chat topics

7. Provide Easy Access to Community Resources & Research

With our increasingly digitized lifestyle, the importance of community is becoming more widespread as individuals see the value of creating, learning, and sharing together — both online and offline.

Event communities connect like-minded people, providing opportunities for moments of inspiration that encourage members to engage and commit. In the process, event community members deliver added value back to fellow attendees, event sponsors and partners, and the event organizers.

Your event platform is easily transformed into an online home for all of your community’s resources, knowledge sharing, and collaboration.

How to Make it Happen

Let your community members benefit from knowledge sharing with:

• An online portal for association resources, with easy mobile access
• A searchable hosting platform for on-demand content
• An online portal for accessing presentations and other meeting files
• An avenue for attendees to share and comment on research
• A channel for ongoing seminar presentations

8. Offer More Opportunities for Professional Development

As we mentioned earlier in this article, your event platform can incorporate many of the benefits that come with Learning Management Software (LMS).

Your event platform can host your community’s webinars, interactive workshops, training modules, and more. With the help of analytics, you can even track how long each attendee watched a given video. This kind of hard data is invaluable when it comes time to award CE credits to your community members.

How to Make it Happen

Give your members added value with opportunities to upgrade their skills with:

• Virtual workshops and online courses
• Educational content, training videos, and webinars
• CE credits for watching webinars

How Do I Manage Membership on An Event Community Platform?

With so many benefits to creating an event community, it’s hard to turn a blind eye. But how exactly do you go from hosting periodic events to building a year-round event community?

The first step is to invest in an event platform that has all of the features needed for ongoing events, meetings, and engagement activities. Then, you have to figure out how to design your membership model. For example, you could:

• Charge a fee for an annual membership (or include event community access in existing membership fees)
• Offer non-members paid tickets to single events, with time-limited access to the community space
• Give members free or discounted access to ticketed events
• Gate access to special resources and content available to members only

For monetization purposes, it’s important to have a platform that allows you to divide attendees into groups with different levels of access to content and other community features. EventMobi’s event management software, for example, makes it easy to set conditional visibility rules for each of your attendee groups.

Why You Should Get Started Today

To say that pivoting to virtual events at the beginning of the pandemic was challenging is an understatement. With that said, the same pressures that challenged event professionals also led to rapid advances in user-friendly event technology. As a result, you now have more opportunities to engage attendees all year round. In short, event technology helps you put the ‘unity’ in ‘community’.

The real power of events comes from their ability to create shared experiences by bringing people together at the same time and in the same place. An online community doesn’t replace those events⁠⁠—it simply allows you to create a line of connection between them, so you can build on that first shared experience to create a true sense of community. That way, you have a loyal base of attendees waiting for you whenever your next in-person event happens.

Interested in learning more about EventMobi can help you create a thriving event community? Book your personalized demo today!

Book a Demo

The post Why Building an Event Community is a Hot Trend for 2023 appeared first on EventMobi.

1. Customize the event app with your own branding 

Your event app is in many ways the face of your event. Attendees will be logging into it before the event starts, every day during the event, and after the event comes to a close. So it’s vital that your event app reflects your brand. 

When shopping for an event app provider, make sure you’ll be able to easily customize the app with your own branding and logos, and that you’ll have control over the wording and tone of voice across the app. Look for event apps that make this process simple—too much custom coding can be a drain on your resources. 

2. Use pre-event marketing to boost attendance

To earn a high ROI on your event, you must effectively spread the word about your event to your target audience. Your event app should make this easy. 

Within the app, you can feature the highlights of your events, from high-profile speakers and sponsors to the various events and networking opportunities attendees will have. 

You can also use the app to send information as the event grows closer, with exciting updates to the schedule or information about the location of your event and what to do in the area. 

Your event app should help sponsors promote themselves as well, with banner ads or widgets on the home screen, so they can have a better return on the investment they made in your event. 

Recommended Read: Looking for detailed advice on designing an event sponsorship package that will be competitive in today’s market? Download the free Sponsorship Strategy Guide to learn how!

Download Now

3. Build clear and accessible agendas and event info 

Attendees will have a more enjoyable experience at your event (and be more likely to come to future events) if it’s easy for them to navigate the physical or virtual space and the different speakers and activities on the schedule. 

The right event app will put all the vital information in one place; you can show users an interactive map of the venue, give instructions on how to get there, and allow them to review the agenda and select the sessions they want to attend, right in the app. 

4. Simplify registration and check-in 

The registration and check-in experience is the first impression attendees will have of your event. Without the right event app, the check-in process may be messy, complicated, and confusing. 

But with the right solution in place, attendees can check themselves in using the app and a tablet computer. They can even receive custom, branded badges once they’ve arrived—and you can use these badges to drive engagement and networking among attendees. 

5. Add value with boosted networking experiences 

As an event planner, one of your most important jobs is to give your audience plenty of ways to make new connections—and the best event apps play a big role here. 

With the EventMobi app, for example, the built-in chat function allows attendees to send private or public messages, meaning they can connect no matter where they are. Attendees, speakers, and sponsors can create a public profile showing their background and contact details. With the tap of a button, users can request an in-person or virtual meeting. It’s truly networking made easy. 

The most powerful event apps also offer gamification to not only make networking easy, but fun. They allow event planners to build challenges and some friendly competition amongst their audience, with the ultimate goal of making new connections. Audience members can also use the app to participate in live polls and surveys or ask questions during sessions. 

6. Extend the lifespan of your event

A strong event app is so valuable because its purpose extends well beyond the end of your event. Once your attendees have gone home or logged off, you can turn your virtual event space into an evergreen content platform. 

Instead of losing all that wonderful content you captured during the event, you can turn it into an ongoing resource. Your attendees can return to watch any sessions they missed, or review those that truly resonated with them. And your marketing team will have a mountain of fresh content to repurpose. 

7. Gather feedback and start planning your next event

For event planners, the most valuable part of any event may come once the curtain has closed. 

This is when you can use your event app to gather valuable feedback from attendees, speakers, and sponsors. With EventMobi, you can customize the questionnaires you send, giving you access to valuable testimonials and constructive criticism to help you build an even more successful event next time. 

Are you looking for event technology tools that make it easy to create on-brand, on-budget events ? Get started by booking your personalized demo of EventMobi today!

Book a Demo

The post 7 Things to Look for in an Event App appeared first on EventMobi.

About the CMEE

For over 25 years, The Canadian Meetings + Events Expo (CMEE) has brought together meeting planners of all kinds – independent, corporate, or government – with event suppliers. As the biggest and longest-running meetings and events show in Canada, the CMEE gives event planners the chance to discover and meet with 200+ companies, gain relevant industry knowledge, and source new event ideas.

Meet the Person Behind the Magic

Melissa Arnott oversees the successful delivery of tradeshows and conferences, including the CMEE, at Newcom Media Inc. As an experienced trade and consumer show executive, Melissa has been the show manager of the CMEE for nearly 6 years.

CMEExpo 2022, Toronto, Canada, August 16-17

Event Goals and Challenges

Event Goal

To connect meeting and event professionals with new suppliers offering a range of event planning products and solutions for venue sourcing, special event and incentive travel planning, and event management-related products and services, including technology.

The Challenge

CMEE 2022 was the second event held in-person after the COVID-19 pandemic. As health and safety restrictions had eased, registrations were back to pre-2020 levels. The organizers wanted to ensure event stakeholders made the most of the show by making it easy to navigate the show floor, find educational sessions, and network with one another.

“We discovered EventMobi a few years ago and immediately found that they were just easy to work with and they also enhanced our user experience, both on the exhibitor side as well as the attendee side.”

– Melissa Arnott

How the CMEE Successfully Connected Event Planners With Suppliers

“When we’re planning the event, we plan with the attendee experience in mind all the time. So what the App does is make us very aware of what the experience is going to be. So EventMobi is really enhancing that experience, again, both on the exhibitor and the attendee side.” – Melissa Arnott

The CMEE used the following unique features offered by EventMobi’s Event App to deliver an amazing and unforgettable event experience:

Event App Highlights

NEED TO AMP UP THE FUN? 

Learn how to make learning and networking
more engaging with gamification.

Get the Ultimate Guide to Gamification

Results

1. Increased Engagement Between Event Planners and Suppliers

With 563 Challenges completed and 59,700 total points collected, the ‘Play to Win’ gamification challenges were a clear favorite among spirited attendees. These statistics, paired with anecdotal feedback collected onsite, demonstrate that this engagement feature created an exciting and memorable attendee experience while driving relevant traffic to exhibitor booths.

2. A Positive User Experience

Reactions from CMEE 2022 attendees were extremely positive.

“People are going towards technology. And as much as we used to love those big, thick show guides that we carried around and, you know, probably injured our shoulders, the Event App is right in their hand and they can use it. They can change their experience as they go.”

– Melissa Arnott

Users noted that the Event App was visually appealing, offered easy access to important information and updates, and simplified navigating the event.

“It was my first time using it actually, but I like the color way of it, and it pops where it should. So it’s been really easy and nice on the eyes.” – Olivia Popofsky

Need to Save & ?
Watch 7 short videos that will change how you plan events FOREVER.
Watch Now

The post Case Study: Canadian Meetings + Events Expo 2022 Uses the Mobile Event App to Drive Engagement With Exhibitors appeared first on EventMobi.

Creating videos has become much easier these days as event planners are experienced with virtual events and again have the ability to record content on-site. However, the challenge remains that multiple tools and platforms are required to create, host, and share video content. We believe that having the ability to manage video content within your event platform will simplify your workflows and create a superior experience for your attendees.

EventMobi’s new Video Library feature means your Event App now does double-duty as an event platform and the online home for all of your video assets — whether you want to engage your in-person or remote audience, create exciting new sponsorship opportunities, or extend your event’s reach year-round.

If you thought going back in person meant the end of video for events, read on to find out why you would be missing out.

Recommended Resource:  Planning to live stream, record and share your event content? Download the free Release Form Template for Event Recordings to ensure there are no limitations on your right to publish and share your event content!

Download Now

1. Increase Registrations and Revenue with Ticketed Access

2. Simplify Video Content Management

4. Offer New Sponsorship Opportunities

6. Offer a Better On-Demand Experience

How Does the New Video Library Feature Work?

• First, add your videos by either:
  • converting your live streams into a video-on-demand recording with a few clicks, or
  • directly uploading external videos into the EventMobi Experience Manager.
• Tag your videos and create a dedicated section with appropriate access control.
• Enable the feature for your event so your attendees can discover and comment on videos directly from your mobile Event App or Virtual Event Space.

By using a tool like EventMobi’s Video Library feature, it couldn’t be easier to simplify your video management system and tap into the power of video to engage your attendees. Not only can videos hosted on your event app excite your attendees before your event begins, it can also reach those that could attend your event in person.

Let’s not forget about exhibitors and sponsors: allowing them to upload video content into their profiles will help them better educate and engage buyers year-round. Integrating videos into your event strategy is an untapped opportunity to help you create a better experience for all of your event stakeholders. 

Interested in learning more? Book your personalized demo of EventMobi’s Event Management Software platform today!

Book a Demo

The post 7 Smart Ways to Add Video Into Your Event Strategy appeared first on EventMobi.

You can host a traditional in-person event, with all of the fun activities, engaging live speakers, and in-person networking your audience could want. 

You can reach an enormous audience (and save on budget) by hosting a virtual-only event. 

Or you could host a hybrid conference that brings together the best components of virtual and in-person events. 

But with so many options at your fingertips, how do you decide which type of event is best? 

To answer that question, we spoke with Lori D’Agostino, President of Momento Events and one of our trusted Event Success Managers here at EventMobi. 

Lori has years of experience managing all sorts of events. She outlined 4 questions you can ask to determine what format will best suit your event and goals.

If you decide to plan a virtual event: Download the free Virtual Show Flow Template so you can build your run of show like a pro!

If you decide to go hybrid: Download The Complete Hybrid Event Checklist so you don’t miss a step.

Question 1: Is it safe and easy to host an in-person event?

Virtual and hybrid events have become popular in recent years largely because of the flexibility they offer. 

With a virtual-only or hybrid event, you don’t have to worry about things like travel restrictions, inclement weather, or other unforeseeable events getting in the way. If such issues do arise, your attendees will easily be able to watch and engage from the comfort of their own home. A good event platform will make it easy to pivot from in-person to virtual events without causing too much disruption. 

Question 2: Are there elements of this event that are better live?

The type of event you’re planning on hosting also plays a big role in deciding between an in-person, virtual, or hybrid event. 

Some events are best in person. For example, live performances of musical bands or theatrical groups are going to be more enjoyable if people can be in the same room, watching the performers live on stage. 

Beyond performances, some events require a greater focus on the in-person elements. If you’re hosting an event to celebrate a great year in your business and hand out awards to employees, attendees will likely want to be there in person to enjoy food and drink, accept their awards in person, and maybe show off their moves on the dancefloor. 

However, bear in mind that even for events like these, a hybrid option can still help you reach people who might not be able to be there in person. After all, the Oscars are technically a hybrid event! You have lots of people attending the red carpet, and even more watching from home. 

In other words, a hybrid event will allow you to offer some attendees all of the perks that come with an in-person event, while still including folks who can’t be there live.

Question 3: What is the budget for this event? 

Last but not least, the budget for your event will also play a role in whether you opt for an in-person, virtual, or hybrid experience. 

In-person events will almost always be more costly, because you must account for things like venue bookings, guest accommodations, catering, and equipment. 

A virtual event will cut back on all of these costs, and allow you to host an engaging event on a much tighter budget. 

A hybrid event can help you save on costs while still offering an in-person experience for some attendees. 
For example, a business could extend in-person invites to all C-level employees, and give others in the company access to the virtual elements through a hybrid event app.

Question 4: How important is evergreen content off the back of this event? 

With a virtual or hybrid event, you’ll be able to capture all of your speakers and presentations on camera, which gives you a wealth of evergreen content to use long after the event has closed. 

In fact, EventMobi’s hybrid event platform makes it easy to create a library of evergreen content, accessible to anyone who wasn’t at the event or wants to revisit certain presentations later. You can also use the footage you capture in your marketing materials, or to promote your next event.

An in-person-only event can be a memorable experience, but once it’s over, you won’t have access to this valuable content. If you plan to record your live event anyway, consider live streaming your content to a virtual audience to expand your reach. 

There’s a lot to consider when planning an event, and one of the first things you’ll need to decide is exactly what type of experience you want to offer. If you go through each of the questions above, you’ll have a much easier time deciding whether you should go with an in-person, virtual, or hybrid event.

To learn more about how EventMobi can help you host a successful in-person, virtual or hybrid event, book your personalized demo with one of our event tech specialists today!

The post In-Person, Virtual, or Hybrid Events? How to Decide appeared first on EventMobi.

In the early days of 2020, many event organizers had to make a quick pivot to offer virtual-only conferences. 

This of course presented some major challenges. Event planners had to learn on the fly how to connect and engage their attendees through virtual conferences—not to mention the enormous technical learning curve that comes with hosting an online-only event. 

But this pivot came with a number of benefits, too. People could reach larger audiences in far-off locations, they could accommodate speakers who couldn’t be there in person, and they could reduce their spend by eliminating costly things like venue bookings. 

Now, we have thankfully found a new normal, where in-person events are no longer impossible. But smart event planners haven’t forgotten about all of those benefits that came with the virtual events they were hosting. 

Enter the rise of the hybrid event (and with it specialized hybrid event platforms) —the perfect combination of in-person and virtual meetings.

Download The Complete Hybrid Event Checklist – a free, end-to-end checklist template that will help you ensure your hybrid event goes off without a hitch!

If you’re planning your first hybrid event, EventMobi is here to help. We’ve tapped insights from our experienced Event Success Managers and live streaming specialists to bring you this step-by-step strategy to planning a hybrid event that goes off without a hitch.

What is a hybrid event?

A hybrid event seamlessly blends online and in-person elements, creating an engaging experience for anyone attending (no matter where they are). The event holder can then offer evergreen virtual content libraries or ongoing virtual networking opportunities for sponsors, speakers and attendees.

Step 1. Scoping the In-Person & Virtual Aspects of your Hybrid Event  

The first step to planning any event is to scope it out. You need to know the size and complexity of your event, so you can map an accurate timeline to prepare. 

To get started, sit down with your planning team and answer these questions: 

1. How many people do we plan to invite to the in-person event? 
2. How many “virtual only” tickets do we want to sell/distribute for this event? 
3. What are the components of the event that must happen in person? 
4. What are the methods we’ll use to engage our virtual participants? 
5. What are the most important hybrid event marketing assets we want to get out of this event? 

Depending on the size and scale of your event, you should start planning anywhere from a year to six weeks in advance. 

Step 2. Preparing your Event Space for your Hybrid Event 

The next step in designing a hybrid event is building the event space where you will manage various elements of your event—before, during, and after it’s gone live. 

The EventMobi Hybrid Event Platform is designed specifically for this purpose. 

You can create a custom branded event space that is accessible on any device and as a dedicated mobile event app. Your audience will use either the mobile event app (in-person attendees) or virtual event space (remote attendees) to navigate the event, interact with event speakers, sponsors and each other, watch session live streams and pre-recorded videos, and participate in polls, quizzes, and gamification challenges. 

The event space is also where you’ll create your library of virtual content, which participants can easily access to catch up on sessions they missed or revisit those they found particularly engaging.

As a result, you’ll have one single place to manage your entire event, and your attendees will have an easy-to-use, immersive and engaging experience that makes for a smooth and memorable hybrid event.

Once you’ve laid the groundwork for your event space, you can move on to the marketing and technical aspects of planning a hybrid event. 

Step 3. Drumming up Excitement for your Hybrid Event

Raising awareness about your event is important, and there are a few extra things you should do when you’re promoting a hybrid event. 

In addition to all of your traditional event marketing tactics, make sure you inform your audience about all of the opportunities you’re providing with a hybrid format. 

In your hybrid event marketing materials, highlight that participants who choose to attend virtually will still get the high-quality, interactive experience that comes with attending a live event. Here is some phrasing you can use in your promotions: 

• Watch live events in real-time
• Engage with speakers and other attendees via live session chat, polls & Q&A 
• Build your network with easy 1:1 virtual meetings 
• Visit virtual sponsor booths
• Ask questions and engage in discussion, no matter where you are
• Access all of our event content at your own pace and on your own schedule 
• View exclusive behind-the-scenes content 
• Access pre- and post-event networking sessions

There are also hybrid-specific benefits you can highlight for your in-person audience as well. Anyone attending in person will have access to live stream content, so they can pop out to take a phone call or head back to their room for a bit of peace and quiet, without having to miss any of the events they’d like to see. 

They’ll also be able to network with people who aren’t at the event—people they might never meet if the event were only in-person. 

Be sure to also let attendees know how flexible this event will be. Unexpected circumstances (like changes in health and safety restrictions or bad weather) makes it easy for your audience to switch from attending in person to attending virtually, or vice versa. 

Step 4. Planning the In-Person Space for your Hybrid Event

While the EventMobi team is helping you set up your event space, you can turn your attention to the physical venue where you’ll host your in-person attendees. 

Of course, you’ll need to take in all of the considerations you would when planning an in-person-only event—how much space you’ll need, the location of the venue, food and beverage costs, accessibility and amenities, etc. 

But there’s a very important consideration that is easy to overlook when planning a hybrid event: 

How fast is the internet at the venue?

To successfully live stream your in-person content, you’ll need high-speed, reliable internet. Often, older buildings don’t have the bandwidth necessary to stream high-quality content, so be sure to factor this into your decision making.

Your EventMobi virtual production specialists will be happy to help you test the internet at your chosen venue, to ensure it’s (literally) up to speed. And in the case of technical difficulties during your event, the virtual AV team will be standing by at a remote location, to make sure virtual attendees aren’t left in the dark. 

Step 5. Aligning your On-Site and Virtual AV Teams

When you work with EventMobi, you’ll have a dedicated AV team on hand to manage all of the live streaming elements of your event. 

In the weeks leading up to the event, they’ll coordinate directly with the on-site AV team. (In most cases, EventMobi clients use an AV crew they’ve hired separately or through the venue.) 

These two teams will take care of the technical aspects of live streaming virtual events for all of your attendees. The professionals at EventMobi have run many successful hybrid events, so they know exactly what questions to ask and measures to take to make sure everything is ready for the launch date. 

“During this phase, we make sure our clients have sufficient internet bandwidth, proper camera and microphone setup, and we’ll help prepare for pre-recorded sessions. We’ll also make sure all of your assets, like slides and video, are professionally done and ready to roll on show day.”

Mitch Gibson, Video Production Manager at EventMobi

Step 6. Prepping your Speakers, Moderators, and Sponsors

The success of your event hinges on having presenters and sponsors who are confident and engaging—which means they need to be well prepared before they take the stage or face the camera. 

For in-person attendees, you’ll want to prepare as you normally would—give speakers a chance to view the venue and practice their talk ahead of time, make sure they know the details of their schedule, and get all of their slides and branding ready in advance. 

You’ll want to brief all your speakers and sponsors about the hybrid aspects of your venue. Remember, some speakers may be unable to attend at the last minute, so it’s good for them to know what to expect if they have to present virtually. 

Once again, our AV team is here to make sure your virtual speakers are well prepared. They’ll make sure their at-home camera and internet are set up to support streaming and take care of integrating the content that corresponds with each speaker. 

When briefing your virtual speakers, there is some advice you should give them ahead of time: 

• Make sure they have a quiet, well-lit space to present from
• Ensure they have a high-quality microphone and webcam for streaming
• Advise them to avoid distracting jewelry or other accessories that may interfere with sound 
• Test their internet speed to make sure it can support streaming 

Step 7. Go live! It’s Time for your Hybrid Event  

If you’ve taken care of all the steps above, then you’ll be well prepared when it’s finally time to go live with your event. 

All of this work should make for a smooth event from start to finish. In the case that something unexpected does arise, you’ll be in good hands with the EventMobi professionals on your team. 

The flexibility you’ve built into your hybrid event during the planning stage will also make it easy for you to pivot and switch things up, in case you need to shift different aspects of your event between virtual and hybrid. 

In other words, you can breathe easy and enjoy the event! 

Step 8. Turn your Hybrid Event into a Content Gold Mine  

One of the biggest benefits of hosting a hybrid event is the amount of content you’ll get after the fact. Every speaker, presenter, panel, or sponsor you featured at your event can be transformed into long-term, evergreen content accessible to attendees and those who couldn’t make it. 

You can integrate these talks into your website content, feature them on social media, and even use them to promote your next event. 

Your EventMobi team can help you transform your event into a virtual library of hybrid event marketing content. We can build this digital space for you, or export the content for you to distribute and use as you wish. 

Step 9. Step Back and Analyze your Results

When you’ve packed up the event, it’s a good idea to take stock of how everything went. There are a few more questions your team can ask to assess the event: 

• What kind of feedback are we getting from virtual and in-person attendees? 
• What unexpected events happened, and how did we handle them? 
• What were the best and most exciting moments of the event? 
• Did we meet the goals we set at the start of the planning process? 
• What were the biggest lessons we learned from hosting a hybrid event? 
• What will we do differently next time? 

Measuring Hybrid Event Marketing ROI

EventMobi users have access to an advanced analytics dashboard that can give you insights into the engagement rate and ROI of your event. You can use all this information to learn what worked (and what didn’t!) so you can deliver even more successful hybrid events in the future. 

Planning a hybrid event may seem intimidating at first, but a solid strategy can take away a lot of the stress. Use this formula to plan your next hybrid event, and you’ll almost certainly hear positive feedback from all of your attendees—no matter whether they joined your event  live on-site or enjoyed the experience from home. 

EventMobi is here to make your next hybrid event a resounding success.
Ready to get started?
Learn more about EventMobi’s event app pricing, or book your personalized demo with one of our event tech specialists today!

The post Planning a Hybrid Event: Steal This 9-Step Strategy appeared first on EventMobi.