Online Virtual events – What and Why
Given the COVID-19 situation right now and with all the live events getting cancelled, the next best thing is to host online virtual events.
In short, an online virtual event is where you host an event online right from your home or office, using only a laptop/mobile, an internet connection and of course the right tools. It could be a conference, a product launch or a show that you will be hosting online. It comes with the advantage of being cost-effective and saves all the extra hours of travel to the event location. And now is the right time to embrace virtual events.
8 steps – All that you need
1. Hosting tools
There are tons of things to consider before you get started with a virtual event, but the primary job is to get hold of the right tools. There are lots of tools available on the internet to host the meetings. Tools like Zoom, On24, HeySummit
2. Video marketing platform
After you find the right tool to host your meeting, you need a video marketing platform to host your on-demand sessions, gate it, share and track them.
This is where a tool like Hippo Video, can help you. Hippo Video is an online video personalization tool.
3. Branding
Running a successful virtual session is only half the job done. You have to give your audience a look and feel of your brand to showcase the complete experience of a live event. What is an online virtual event without branding? With Hippo Video, you can give life to your on-demand session recordings. Customize your video player to match your brand. You can also change the logo inside the video player, the colour theme of the player, add GIF thumbnails or customize it to increase CTRs.
4. Lead Generation
A complete customized virtual video session is a great way to generate leads, attract prospects, and drive more traffic to your site. Gate your sessions by adding call to actions, lead generation forms, polls, and playlist to capture your viewer’s emails and phone numbers. By obtaining the lead information, you will be able to analyze your audience, send personalized emails, and close deals quickly.
5. Video Hosting – Host all your videos in one place
Upload all your sessions in Hippo Video and then embed the videos on your website and landing pages. Gate the sessions and offer them on-demand to drive leads from it even after your virtual events are over. Isn’t this better than the live event itself?
Virtual events hosted as on-demand videos maximizes the ROI of all your efforts.
Tools like Hippo Video enables you to track in real-time, collect detailed data on every step, whilst your viewer’s are watching these videos. This data helps you understand your audience behaviour and video performance better.
7. Other tools to make use of for an online meeting
Use a low-cost virtual conference tool like Zoom to run live sessions with a video communication suite like Hippo Video to host your on-demand recordings and see results.
Slack – Collaborate with your team productively.
Collaborate with your team via different channels and give everyone in your team a shared view of progress and purpose.
Facetime, Skype, Hangouts – Free online calls and chats
Chat, talk, connect and collaborate with your coworkers with simple tools like Facetime, Skype and Hangouts.
8. $49 (not kidding!)
This is the best part of it all! You can achieve all of the steps mentioned above for just $49! How exciting is that? Let me tell you how it works, sign up for zoom enterprise which is priced at $19.99 comes along with great features like unlimited cloud storage, 500 participants and a lot more.
This along with all the above-mentioned Hippo Video features priced for $29/month! With a plan like this, you can kick start your online virtual event right away!
Zoom pricing plan
Hippo Video Pricing Plan
There’s absolutely no reason why companies cannot run virtual conferences until the threat passes or is greatly reduced. Who knows this could become the way we run events
But overall, going remote is such an obvious and timely, life- and the work-enhancing way forward for both individuals and broader society. Let’s hope it’s here to stay. Sign up for Hippo Video for free and take a trial run for 14-days.