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Last week, our director of demand gen, Nina Butler, and director of customer marketing, MK Getler, put on a webinar we called “Let’s Get Phygital”, where they explored how to bring the physical world into the digital world ( physical + digital = phygital ) all while staying personal with your in person events going digital..
Activating your lead generation pre, during, and post-event can create a more personal connection, and will allow you to still get the most out of your new virtual format.
Pre Event
In-Person Meetings
If you had meetings scheduled before the event, keep them! Get a little creative and make the most out of the digital format.
For 1:1 meetings, if it was a meeting over coffee buy them a virtual coffee or maybe even a piece of swag if you’re meeting up with a current customer or fan of your brand. Keep them engaged.
For group meetings, establish a group theme. If everyone is working from home, send your attendees some slippers to wear when they digitally tune in!
Using Alyce’s digital gifting, you can show your prospect what they’ll receive before they actually get it so they can accept, exchange, or donate the dollar amount of the gift but you still get to form that personal connection.
Speaking Engagements
If you were slated to speak at the conference, you still have the opportunity to drive traffic to your virtual session!
Use a theme, hashtag, or send a thematic gift to your registrants before your session to get them activated and excited to join your session!
Having a theme that entices people to join your session can create a sense of community amongst your digital attendees. For instance, maybe you have everyone hold up or introduce their pets before you start.
Organic Networking
Networking can still happen if you are willing to engage and pay attention. Find your tribe and make friends by being helpful; look for moments to collaborate and partner with someone with similar interests.
Monitor hashtags for the event and strike up conversations with people who share your interests! The benefit of being in a digital world is the access to information and communities that you’re interested in!
Booth
Define your virtual value and offer an opportunity to connect.
In a distraction-free environment, your field marketing and sales teams have ample opportunity to connect on a 1:1 and 1: many level. Have an offer that’s compelling and drives people to your virtual booth.
During the Event
In-Person Meetings
Listen and look for moments in your virtual 1:1 to connect with and delight the person you’re meeting. If you notice a cat in the background, strike up a conversation about your mutual affinity for felines.
Optimize your content for group engagement. Make sure audio and visual are delivering an optimal experience, experience makes the digital world feel more like the physical world.
Speaking Engagements
Lean into your hook and drive digital engagement through it.
Your audience is there to learn but make sure you keep your session engaging. Give out prizes to the attendees for your session: Best Zoom background, cutest pet, best costume. Get creative!
Maybe you gift every attendee a cocktail kit and before you start a virtual happy hour, everyone learns how to make a cocktail they can all enjoy during your session!
Take a group selfie with all the attendees to foster a sense of community.
Organic Networking
Look for people commenting nuggets of wisdom on every thread. Start conversations that aren’t just about work and create personal bonds with fellow attendees over common interests!
Booth
Live stream a virtual booth or schedule office hours with your team during the day of the virtual conference. Pull in a subject matter expert to answer questions in between sessions!
Post Event
In-Person Meetings
Keep in mind what you chatted about in your meeting. Reference it in your follow up and send a handwritten note or personal gift to compliment it!
If you had a group meeting, keep the conversation alive and start a Slack community to keep the ideas flowing!
Speaking Engagements
Use that selfie you took from your session in your follow up!
Using Alyce, you can bulk upload a list of emails to reach out to with digital gift invitations to offer personal gifts to each of your session attendees to create raving fans.
Organic Networking
Now that you’ve created a community of like-minded friends, come together with them and create a virtual event of your own!
Booth
Leave anyone who visited your booth with a dazzling impression. In lieu of the swag you’d hand out in person, send a relevant gift digitally.
Selecting a gift should be easy if you created a personal connection. Or if you are utilizing Alyce, you can send swag digitally!
So there you have it; how to leave a virtual conference with the same business momentum you do after an in-person event!
Want more tips like this? Tune into our next Let’s Get Phygital webinar to learn how to avoid a #DirectFail in your direct mail marketing campaigns with a growing remote workforce!
