Focusing on a Solid Virtual Event Plan
I’m a firm believer in having a thorough plan before starting something and I know this is critical to business success. Before making any decision that will impact your business, you need to develop a solid project plan. This also holds true when planning to host a virtual event. There are some simple yet key aspects of a good project plan that will ensure you reach your business goals.
First of all, why are you going to host a virtual event? Do you want to communicate a change in procedure or train your employees on a new process? Are you launching a new product, or trying to reduce costs by switching to an online conference this year? Once you have defined your business goal and the expected outcome, you are on your way! You’ll need to clearly identify your target audience ensuring your event is tailored to them. What does success look like? By starting here, you’ll improve your ability to reach the desired business outcome.
Next what’s the best way to communicate your message? Teleseminar or Webinar? What format should you use? The event format should mirror the results you expect to achieve. A good project plan will help you choose the most effective way to get your message across.
Choosing the appropriate platform and software to host your event can easily be determined once you’ve completed the 2 steps above. The project plan you develop will ensure you have chosen the most effective technology that’s within your budget. A bit of advice; you should always include a dry run or rehearsal into your plan, who wants to run into technical issues when you’re delivering an important message live to your employees or clients? Avoid surprises! Also, do you know how to use software and platform that you’ve selected to run your venue? Ensure that someone can provide the required demonstration and teach you to run the software with confidence. Or better yet, get yourself a good VA Moderator that can run the event for you. That way you focus on delivering your message, and the event details can be taken care of by someone else. You always need a contingency plan and point of contact during an event in case something goes wrong and attendees aren’t able to connect to the session.
There are many pre-event details that need to be taken care of long before you get to the live event. Developing a solid project plan will ensure you don’t miss any critical steps. When things are written down and assigned to someone they are going to get done! You’ll need to have a way for attendees to register for your event Invitations have to be sent out, with ongoing reminders to ensure good attendance during the event. These reminders and invitations can be posted on your blog or included in a press release if you’re including this step as you promote your event.
Your project plan should also include designating who will be responsible for recording the event; it’s important to capture the audio/video from the event. This is important to upload to your website afterwards for replay by those that weren’t able to attend the live event. As well, you may not want to field questions or monitor chat during the event and a good moderator can do this for you.
Another key step that is often overlooked is to gather feedback after your event. You want to find ways to continuously improve and it’s easy to do a quick on line survey immediately following the call so participants can give you their relevant feedback.
Virtual events can really be an important component to running your business. Why not take your success to the next level and work with your virtual event specialist and develop a solid project plan.
What kinds of things do you do to put an effective plan in place? I’d love to get your feedback and here on my blog you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plug in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you post a reply. I look forward to hearing from you!
Until next time,
Robin
