Posted by MDI on April 30, 2020

The effects of Covid-19 have called for businesses in the events industry to find opportunities to thrive in new ways. Technology plays a significant role here and many companies are now considering the idea of hosting virtual events online as an alternative.
The good news is, virtual events have incredible potential for growth in audience engagement and sales when it is used as a strategic platform for a company’s brand and business. Having been part of the events space in-person and virtually, we want to share five key benefits of hosting a virtual event that you should consider if you need to plan an event soon.
Virtual events give you greater audience reach
Finding a suitable date, venue, and location is crucial in event organising. You may be concerned about whether the location is convenient and accessible for your target audience, whether it is disable-friendly, if it can fit the number of attendees needed, and what the dropout rate might be like due to traffic or unforeseen situations.
Running a virtual event immediately reduces these concerns by more than half. Participants can attend from the comfort of their homes or anywhere in the world on the go, as long as they have a computer or mobile device and Internet connectivity. Because virtual events are so easy to attend, the attendance rate can go up to over ten times higher than a physical event ever could.
If engagement is a concern, there are plenty of fun and effective tools available to keep your audience engaged throughout the event as well. Take Pigeonhole Live’s leaderboard and quiz features or polling features for example. These are great ways to gamify a conference experience and get your audience collectively doing something together even though physically apart.
Virtual events have low marketing and operating cost
When you’re hosting a virtual event, you can focus your marketing efforts and budget online. Even with strategic partnerships, promoting your partners’ brand won’t require printing costs for conference booklets, banners, and buntings. Everything goes digital and you can have greater control over the ROI of your ad spend through SEO, email marketing, and more.
Operating cost is also kept to a minimum as you won’t be spending on venue fee, AV production, service staff, transport, VIP accommodation, F&B, or logistics. Overall a virtual event demands less expenditure compared to a physical event and you get more returns.
To read all top 5 tips, visit Pigeonhole Live's blog here.