By Daria Knupp, Content Marketing Manager
One thing that can be said about the Great Covid-19 Lockdown is there has been no shortage of webinars to attend. From how-to’s to top tips, there has been plenty of content to keep us busy as we navigate a chaotic and confusing landscape and adapt to the ever-changing “new normal.”
With so few hours in the day, it’s been impossible to attend all the webinars you may have wanted to, so that’s why we gathered together some of our best free webinars of 2021.
1. Hybrid 2.0 – A New Model Emerges
Rich Vallaster, Director of Client Relations and The Trade Show Wonk at Personify, shared critical considerations when developing plans for a hybrid 2.0 experience in this webinar. Key topics he discussed included:
- Audience Needs – Understanding and satisfying each audience’s unique needs and challenges when participating in your hybrid event.
- Event Technology – The tools and technology for executing a hybrid event for this new approach.
- Pricing – Strategies for pricing a profitable hybrid event.
- Exhibit/Sponsor Management – Developing a profitable model that satisfies both revenue goals and exhibitor/sponsor satisfaction.
- Programming – Developing a program that creates shared experiences and engagement opportunities before, during, and after the event.
- Staffing – Considerations in adequately staffing a hybrid event.
2. Maximizing the New Events Normal with Tech Tools
Organizations big and small continue to work with smaller staff. Unfortunately, this reduced staffing also exists with key constituents such as contacts at exhibitors and sponsors. So that has organizations asking, “How can we do more with less?” In this session, attendees learned:
- How to leverage new and existing solutions to improve efficiency and streamline operations
- Best practices to increase exhibitor and sponsor satisfaction
- Key areas of consideration for building an affordable event tech stack
- Cost-saving and revenue-generating ideas to cover your software costs
- And much, much more
3. Getting Started with an Online Community
In this webinar, Erin Sullivan, Director of Marketing at Personify, and Benjamin Morton, Senior Product Consultant, explored the benefits of communities for associations and nonprofits and revealed strategies to get your community off on the right foot to keep it going strong. They discussed:
- What an online community is and how it plays an important role in your engagement strategy that is unique from your organization’s other digital tools
- A strategy to launch a new community that will make your members and stakeholders feel welcome and understand how to get involved
- The essential best practices in online community management for organizations of all sizes
- A walkthrough of Personify’s community platform and how to bring these best practices to life within the software
4. Supercharge your Hybrid Event with an Event Community
Rich Vallaster, Director of Marketing and the Tradeshow Wonk at Personify, shared how to build event communities to increase satisfaction and retention, create additional revenue opportunities, and drive higher attendance to your hybrid events in this popular webinar. Some of the topics he discussed were:
- The technology and tools needed to build an event community.
- Best practices to engage your attendees, speakers, and sponsors before, during, and after your event.
- Effective sponsorships and revenue-generating ideas.
- How to measure and quantify the ROI of your community.
- And much, much more.
5. Association Event Trends for 2021
In December 2020, Personify commissioned research with nearly 1,000 association members about their preferences for digital engagement along with the challenges and opportunities that have arisen over the past year with virtual events. This webinar explained some of the key findings:
- Virtual engagement is here to stay – As events move forward into 2021, members surveyed want options in choice of attendance as it was nearly split equally between preferences of in-person (33%), virtual (33%), and hybrid with 32%.
- Virtual success – Members ranked virtual events as the number one activity that has “led to meaningful connections with their association.”
- Events on pause? – 27% of organizations replaced their annual conference with a different type of event and 20% said that organization decided to forgo the in-person event altogether in 2020.
- Events as part of member engagement – 91% said that it was valuable in meeting association members’ needs by having events.
- Your digital networks are crucial – More than half of all survey respondents shared how important it is for an association to provide digital networking and community members. This will be a key strategy for hybrid events moving forward.
- And much, much more.