Virtual Events for #eventprofs: Q & A with Dennis Shiao
Posted by Jenise Fryatt on Tue, Jul 26, 2011 @ 12:05 PM
As Director of Product Marketing at INXPO, a leading provider of privately-branded virtual events and virtual business environments; and author of “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events,” Dennis Shiao knows a little something about a very hot topic in the event industry.
He was hooked right away. "When I attended my first virtual event, I said to myself, 'this is the next big thing in online lead generation,' he explains.
Dennis became a client of INXPO and liked the company so much that he went to work for them in 2009.
Online, Dennis is now one of a handful of virtual event bloggers writing about a subject that is so new that the rules and definitions are continuing to be created and recreated.
Dennis recently agreed to answer a few questions for Sound n' Sight about this fascinating category of events.
JENISE: Can you define "virtual event"?
DENNIS: I define “virtual event” as “a web and occasion-based gathering that facilitates information sharing, collaboration and interaction.”
JENISE: What do you think is the biggest myth about virtual events?
DENNIS: The biggest myth about virtual events is that they’ll cannibalize physical events. Nothing is further from the truth – in fact, for event and meeting planners who manage a physical event, my firm belief is that a virtual event (aka “digital extension”) serves as an enormous marketing tool for the physical event.
People who would never have attended your physical event can learn and experience your event digitally – and some who attend digitally one year will decide to attend your physical event the following year. Wa-la! You’ve just created a new “customer” that you otherwise would never have had. I like to call it “try before you fly.”
A great example is Cisco Live, the annual customer conference of Cisco Systems. They found that the virtual platform for Cisco Live boosts attendance to their physical conference.
JENISE: What do event professionals need to learn about them?
DENNIS: I find that the first time doing anything is always the most valuable – you never learn more than during your first time (and that includes the first time I tried to ride a bike!). So event professionals ought to go ahead and plan a virtual event, during which they’ll learn a whole lot.
They’ll learn that the same amount of planning needs to go into virtual as it does physical. And hopefully, they’ll learn useful strategies and tactics on how to blend virtual and physical experiences within a hybrid event.
JENISE: Can virtual events help planners to show a measurable return on investment for their clients?
DENNIS: They sure can. ROI often comes in the form of:
- Cost savings
- Expanded audience reach
- Ongoing showcase (the “event” doesn’t have to end)
- Increased productivity
- Enhanced learning effectiveness and retention
JENISE: How do you determine which kind of virtual event will best meet your needs?
DENNIS: It’s critical to first agree on (and document) your business objectives (aka “needs”). That’s the biggest mistake I see being made today. You might hear someone say, “We need to do a virtual product launch this quarter,” whereas they ought to instead say, “We need to generate awareness of our latest product release, with the goal of educating 250 existing clients and generating 150 net new sales leads.”
Once you have a documented set of business objectives, work with your partners, agencies and platform vendor(s) to put together a solution that can best achieve the objectives.
JENISE: What resources would you suggest for event professionals who want to learn more about virtual events?
I often visit Virtual Edge and The Virtual Buzz. In addition, I do a fair amount of blogging on virtual events myself. You can find my stuff at INXPO and at my personal blog, It’s All Virtual .
If you’re on Twitter, monitor the #eventprofs hash tag daily. It’s a phenomenal community and you’ll soon find yourself receiving links to 10+ useful articles a day (if not more). If you’re not on Twitter, that’s OK, just visit Twitter.com and enter #eventprofs in the search box.
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