Designing an Effective Communication strategy for an online Event
Name:
Kajal Mishra
Roll No: 32
Course: TYBBA – B
Subject: Event Management
Making an event communication plan allows everyone you work with to have clear
expectations of their tasks, and increases productivity. Productivity is of the
utmost importance when working in event management due to tight time constraints and
deadlines Events rely on effective communication at every stage from initial development,
marketing and promotion through to the event itself. Event planners need to listen to audiences
and plan events that meet their requirements.
SO, knowing that communication strategy’s importance we can summarise this in three
points:
1. It connects all the points and set your event, content, marketing, and sales strategies
2. It provides us with a guide to achieve our virtual event objectives
3. It attracts the right attendees, targets relevant audience and gets registrations along
with sparking engagement
After this points that we’ve got that out of the way, we can take a look at how we can
keep our attendees engaged and informed with this step-by-step guide on how to build
an effective communication strategy for your virtual events.
The three characteristics of a successful communication strategy
Before we move on to the more specific steps of designing a successful communication
strategy, here are three overarching traits that are key to any comms strategy.
Know your attendees:
Effective communication depends on knowing
who you’re speaking to. Every event comes with
its own demographic so whether that’s
executives, students or marketing professionals,
how you communicate will depend entirely on
this. To understand your attendees, spend some
time looking at past attendees, or if you’ve never
run an event before, take a look at your customers, leads, and even your social media
followers. Look at their age, their hobbies, where they’re from, and any other criteria
that will help you get inside the mind of your attendees.
Think outside the box:
The online world is a crowded place and with there being so
many virtual events, standing out from the crowd can be tough.
That’s why it’s important to find your niche and then build a
narrative based on this. Find ways to get creative with your
communications, whether that’s creating a powerful teaser or
sending a goody bag to invitees, there are plenty of options out
there. The point is that when you’re creative with your
communications, you’re going to spark interest and leave a
long-lasting impression on your audience.
Map out the journey: Another important consideration
to make is that an event effective communication
strategy should always fit in with your wider content
plan. That’s why it’s worth spending some time
mapping out the journey from your first point of contact
right through to how you want to engage with your
attendees at the end of the event.
Designing an Efficient Communication Strategy
Efficiency is about making the best possible use of resources, so
now we’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s dive deeper into
what will make a winning
Create a Buzz
Creating mystery around your product on social
media is a great way of creating buzz for your
product launch. It's a guaranteed way
of building excitement and generating enthusiasm
within customers. The first thing to consider is the
announcement, and more specifically, how you’re
going to create some serious excitement around this.
Just think about how marketing masterminds like
Apple and Tesla announce a new product. They
instill FOMO and spark curiosity inside their followings (which is exactly what you
should be doing for your online events).
So before making the announcement (usually 12 weeks
before) offer your followers a few clues and teasers that
will be bound to rouse their interests. Think about some
social media posts or even a save the date email to get
the word out. So long as it’s exciting, you’ll have people
talking about the event well before it’s announced.
Send the Invitations
Now it’s time to make the big
announcement. Send out invitations to
show off to your potential attendees how
great your event is going to be and the
value that it will bring. This is your first
opportunity to communicate directly to
your potential attendees, so use this
opportunity to go the extra mile and leave
a long-lasting impression on them.
Think outside the box and above all make the invitations personal and creative. This
could be in the form of a handwritten letter, a goody bag, or even an email with an
origami design. The idea being that your invitation won’t be thrown in the bin straight
away, whether that’s physically or virtually.
Share promotions and discount coupons
So up until now you’ve created interest in your online event, people
should have a clear understanding of what the event’s about, so
now it’s time to convert that interest into registrations. The best
way of doing this is by offering promotions and discount coupons.
Send out reminders, teasers, and tutorials
No surprise here, but emails play an integral part of every communication strategy.
That’s why it’s always worth spending a lot of time preparing different sequences and
thinking about the different groups of people you’ll be communicating with aka contact
lists, registered attendees, and any speakers, sponsors and partners.
Send out a welcome email with resources for the event
As the day of your event approaches, dedicate some time to creating a
welcome email with relevant resources for your event. This should cover
a couple of different areas. First, you’ll want to explain the virtual stage, networking,
and any other technical details that need to be mentioned. This is important because it
will eliminate any confusion and will allow attendees to go straight into the event and
everything you’re offering.
Thank you email and survey
Now it’s time to talk about what needs to be done after the event, and more specifically,
the very first form of communication, the thank you email. Here, you want to use
highlights from the event and also any content that can help continue the conversation
with your attendees.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there’s a lot to take in
here, and that’s because an effective
strategy should cover every angle and
aspect of your communications. By
following the three principles of
understanding
your
attendees,
thinking outside the box, and mapping
out the journey you can be sure that
your communications will be thorough and engaging