by Earl Murtagh-Naughton – Head of Marketing
What is a hybrid event? It is an event that incorporates in-person plus virtual elements at the same event.
Hybrid events can be hosted on the Zoom Events or Webinar platforms, just like other virtual events, but can also include in-person presenters and sometimes in-person attendees.
If you’re hosting hybrid events for business, it’s important to ensure that all attendees have an equally engaging experience and the same opportunities to offer feedback. Similarly, it’s important to have ways to capture information and data from both in-person and virtual attendees in order to follow up, track your results, and get the best ROI.
Benefits of Hybrid Events
As the world begins to make the transition away from purely virtual events with options to travel and host larger gatherings again, hybrid events bring together the benefits we’ve embraced from virtual events and the energy and excitement of gathering in a live venue again.
Some of the benefits of hybrid events include:
- The ability to offer recordings on-demand after the event
- Ways to track online attendance and capture leads
- Convenience
- Cost and time savings for attendees who don’t have to travel
- Reduced costs for event hosts who may be able to hold events in a smaller space
Reach a Larger Audience with Hybrid Events
Hybrid events allow you to line up presenters, sign sponsors, and reach attendees that a purely in-person event may not. You can reach a wider audience with no geographic boundaries and can even connect with presenters from across the world. Meanwhile, the attraction of in-person attendance at hybrid events makes it more enticing to sponsors than virtual events while offering the added benefits and visibility of on-demand recordings after the event.
Create an Engaging Experience for In-person and Virtual Attendees
To create an engaging hybrid event, you shouldn’t plan to just stream in-person interactions to remote audiences.
Provide virtual gathering spaces for remote attendees to connect. Address their questions online. Use polling features to make remote attendees feel like they are part of the action.
Track Results for Better ROI
One of the great things about virtual events is how the right platform makes it easy to gather data and track analytics. But adding an in-person element can make it harder to track conversions, since attendees may not take action until they return home after the event, and it may not be a linear path to a sale, such as visiting a website while they are watching a presentation at home.
Compare results for life versus virtual components and see if you can make sure you offer both types of attendees the elements that were most effective in driving results.
Want to learn more about hosting a hybrid event? Reach out to the team at IMS.
