PGi Blog Virtual Event Insights and Industry Trends
As event strategies become increasingly sophisticated, businesses are moving towards a world of holistic “event-led growth,” encompassing a multi-touch, immersive experience with their audiences throughout the entire buyer and customer journey. In 2022 alone, the events market saw 4% growth, bringing it to a $3.1 billion industry. Virtual events are more than lead generation tools, although they are still incredibly impactful in that arena. 71% of marketers believe in investing in virtual events, especially as issues around accessibility and sustainability make in-person events more difficult to host. Events will continue to dominate a large majority of Marketing time and resources, so here are some new trends to watch out for in 2023.
5 Virtual Event Trends in 2023
1. Focus on Revenue-Generating Events
It’s almost impossible to prioritize a strategy without being able to report on the ROI. Historically, events have come with high costs and tough-to-analyze data on the exact return businesses get. With innovative webcast solutions like GlobalMeet Webcast, businesses can get robust analytics and data. They can also directly sync that important data to other platforms like marketing automation tools, sales CRMs, and more. With this company-wide visibility into events data, different teams can utilize it for their own purposes — whether that’s Sales following up on a specific webcast topic with more information or Customer Success reinforcing educational material with clients in a quarterly business review.
2. Create Hyper-Targeted Webcasts for Smaller Audiences
For specific niche audiences on targeted topics, small, more digestible webcasts will be the trend in 2023. Instead of the multi-day, large events, attendees will be drawn to shorter virtual events that leave them with highly actionable information. Brainstorm how you can break down large chunks of presentations into smaller segments, diving deeper instead of wider. Attendees have tons of options when it comes to virtual events, so speaking to their specific pain points and challenges in a very targeted way will help draw registrations.
3. Build More Robust, Multi-Dimensional Experiences
Gone are the days of robotically walking through a slideshow presentation. Attendees want opportunities to interact with the speaker and each other. Create more multi-dimensional webcast experiences with dynamic speaker changes, breakout rooms, and audience engagement tools like polls and surveys.
4. Build on Content with Episodic Events
Over the previous years, many companies have adopted one-off webcasts to launch a product, make an announcement, lead a conversation on a specific topic, or host their annual signature event. Businesses would invest significant time, energy, and money into one or two splashy events with a large budget and hope these events offered a significant ROI.
In 2023, companies should embrace multi-event touchpoints, creating smaller, more targeted episodic-style webcasts that offer a reduced time investment for attendees and presenters. As a result, attendees can experience a more intimate, personalized setting over a huge event that tries to cram every topic into a 2-day experience.
Plus, all of this episodic-style content can be repurposed over YouTube videos or turned into gated lead-generation content. Businesses could also release these shorter, snackable content in true episodic style every week.
5. Experiment with the Style of Virtual Events
From trade shows to webcasts to networking events, not every event needs to be the same. Attendee-first style events like networking sessions allow attendees to do more than just listen. Experiment with different types of events and pepper them throughout the year. Companies might find their audience responds well to one style of event and maybe not so well to another. Utilize a webcasting solution like GlobalMeet Webcast that supports this experimentation.
Use GlobalMeet Webcast for a Robust Virtual Events Strategy in 2023
A robust virtual events strategy in 2023 isn’t difficult when utilizing an equally robust webcasting solution like GlobalMeet Webcast. Each year, event strategies change to meet consumers’ ever-changing demands and how they enjoy and consume content.
By leaning into more impactful data and analytics, breaking down lengthy information into digestible content that can be repurposed, and leaning on multi-dimensional experiences, businesses can stay on the pulse of event trends in 2023. Contact GlobalMeet Webcast today to see if we can help.
