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How To Engage Your Audience And Make Them Feel Like They Are In The Room With You? 

Has your event strategy been affected by the recent Coronavirus Hysteria (Pandemic)? Are you questioning how you can still run your events, engage your audience, and connect to convert without putting yourself or your potential clients at risk? 

The world of events is turning to chaos. The government is recommending that large-scale events are cancelled and companies are recommending or enforcing their teams to work from home. There is a great opportunity to run successful, engaging Online Events (AKA webinar, online master class, web event, virtual workshop).

In a recent survey on Event Manager Blog 85% of people said they preferred in-person events and 92% believed they would receive more leads at a physical conference. However, in today’s unsteady event climate, in-person events can be risky business.

 So, how do you engage online as well as you can engage face to face?

 Good question! Thanks for asking.

5 Ways To Increase Online Event Engagement

 Send out a Pre-event workbook

As your event is looming, send out a workbook or an interactive PDF for your audience to work through. These can be filled out pre-event or can be worked on during the event. If you are running a larger scale online event, you could utilise an online interactive platform where your audience can work on this task, ask questions and interact with each other to build rapport with you and with the other people attending the online event.

Getting engagement and build a report prior to the online event will ensure that your audience feels like they are part of a group even before they get online. Thus increasing the “know, like and trust” significantly.

Encourage video sharing

People like to see other people! For anyone who has run an online event where everyone turned off his or her camera, you will know that talking to yourself online feels odd. Not only that, but it is also very hard to gauge how engaged your audience actually is.

Non-verbal communication is more important than the words we use. Non-verbals can be defined as facial expressions, hand gestures eye movements and even how we hold our heads. Having privy to this online for all participants creates a level of communication that goes beyond the content and will encourage greater connection.

Facilitate conversation between participants

Encouraging your audience to speak makes them feel heard and important. You show that what they have to say matters. Just like at an in-person event, it is worthwhile to ask your participants to share. Ask them to introduce themselves, share who they are, what they do and why they chose to attend. This will not only encourage your audience to share but will let everyone know who is in the virtual meeting room. 

Coordinate a workshop environment – get people to do some work

Go through the pre-event workbook and ask people to share their answers or fill out the answers they haven’t yet completed. When using a platform such as Zoom it is possible to ask your participant to enter their answers or questions into the chat section or alternatively write “yes” or “no” to let you know once the task has been completed.

Creating a virtual classroom will give your participant greater value and engage them to work on their tasks rather than simply listen to you talking. This will give them a greater sense of achievement.

Leave time for Networking and Connecting

 Research has shown that people attend events to network, meet like-minded individuals and to learn and it’s in that order. Creating time to empower your audience to network, swap contact details and build relationships with each other will ensure the creation of group mentality.

Building a network of dedicated followers goes beyond our individual connection. Positioning yourself as a co-creator and a community builder allows overall growth and collaboration.

Now that you have some great tools to engage your audience and make them feel like they are in the room with you can rest assured that while you’re entrapped in the safety of your own home, you can still run great events and continue to build your community, grow your business and position yourself as a visionary leader.

If you are looking for an event marketing expert to help make your next event a success then get in touch. And, as always, it is a pleasure to share your Eventologist journey.

Please comment, like, and to share this article with fellow business owners who are looking to market their business by running successful events or come along to our next How To Market Your Business With Events workshop.