Speaker 1: I know that if you had a live event planned this year, things got turned upside down and we quickly either had to cancel, reschedule, or shift to a virtual event. But if you plan on doing a virtual event, how are you going to stand apart from all of these people online hosting webinars, telesummits, how are you gonna make people know that your event is totally different, that it is almost as great or maybe even better than the in-person event that you were planning? You hopefully no longer are competing with Facebook or their email or their phone when they're sitting in front of the computer. Because if you guys have done virtual events before, you know that you probably get them to actually show up and pay full attention about 30%, because it's very easy to surf the web, to go on Facebook, Instagram, and get sucked in. So I'm about to share how we're taking some of our live conferences that were scheduled for this year and we're turning them into virtual events, but how we're really keeping those attendees engaged, our sponsors happy, and everybody making money and having amazing experience. ♪ Hey, ♪ I'm April Iannizone with Only Successful Events, and I'm going to show you ways to make your virtual event, which was supposed to be live, really stand out and keep those attendees engaged and focused during the event. So first it starts with the registration experience. So hopefully you are charging for this event. This is not for, again, a free webinar or a tele-summit. This is if you are having a substantial live event and you're turning it into a virtual event. So I'm going to give you the examples that we're using for our 2020 Men's Spa Growth and Profitability Summit. So we have this event every year, and this year, even though it's scheduled for August and things could open back up by then, and I'm sure they will, I still don't want to take the risk of having to reschedule again, and it's just a little too soon for my comfort. So what we're doing is turning it into a full three-day conference online. Now again, for three days, it's really hard to get people to show up. That indoctrination process, if you are selling something from the stage, you understand what indoctrination means. Really getting them involved in the energy flowing and really getting them to enjoy the experience and know that they want to continue to be a part of the community and show up for the next session and the next session, and then purchase what you have to offer. So a few ways that we are doing this for the Men's Spa Growth and Profitability Summit is first, during that registration period. So they're registering for the event. We're charging anywhere from $297 to $997, depending on the ticket that they're purchasing. So it's a $300 ticket, which is pretty substantial. So they are purchasing the ticket. As soon as they purchase that ticket, say within the first 20 minutes, they're getting a video from myself or from one of my team members welcoming them to the event, letting them know what they could expect, but the key here is it's a personalized video. And we use an app called Bonjoro. I'll put the links below so you guys can check that out, but they're actually getting a selfie video from myself or one of my team members that say, Hey, April, welcome to the Men's Spa Growth and Profitability Summit. And we're explaining the changes and we're explaining what to expect and the process. We're keeping them engaged. And we're also giving them some kind of a little bonus on that video. So maybe it's a little tip, maybe it's a gift of some sort, but we are showing them we have So the next thing that we're going to do is we're actually going to send them something in the mail. If you have been following Only Successful Events for a while, I'm sure you've seen the posts on swag bags and why it's so important to include a gift bag and how you can make money off the gift bags. So we are going to actually send them a gift bag as if they are attending the live event. Now I want you to notice a few things about this. One, I didn't cheap out on the bags, right? So this is a really nice canvas bag with zippers inside is a bunch of goodies. We didn't put any kind of coupons or paperwork or anything that is not going to be of value to them. And I know you guys are thinking, Oh, well, $100 coupon is going to be a value to them. It doesn't matter. You know that when people get home from events, they dump out the bag, they take any kind of paper out and they throw it away. We need something like tangible for them. So for the Med Spa, we have a lot of our sponsors that have products. So we're giving sample products away. We have iPad covers. I actually include a coffee mug with the Med Spa growth and profitability logo. There's just a bunch of stuff in there, but it's a huge moneymaker for us because we're also charging the sponsors to put something in the bag and it has to be a gift. So when the attendee receives it at home, they actually are getting this box. It has tissue paper with our branded colors in there. They're opening it. They're going to see the bag inside the bag is some, um, the gifts, but also some more not tissue paper, but like that shredded kind of stuff. Like it's really a cool wrapping and it's fully branded with Med Spa growth and profitability. So they weren't expecting it. They're getting this gift, which they love. And again, we're including a little note card with a handwritten note saying, I'm sorry about the quick change in plans. And we're so excited that you're still going to be joining us virtually. Here's how you can get involved in the meantime. And we invite them into a private Facebook group for the attendees. This is a conference. It's an educational conference where we have a few speakers where we're working them through different sessions on how to grow their Med Spa. So normally when they check in at the live event, we give them a workbook and the workbook has all of the worksheets that we're talking about. It has on the back, like some of the sponsor packages include a full page ad, things like that. But the main thing is it's a workbook. It's a manual for the event. It's one they can use in their business after here's where it comes into play. Now we're, we're mailing them this bag. Yes. It's going to be expensive. You're going to have to pay for shipping, but again, that should all be thought about when you make the ticket prices, we're going to mail out the workbook separately. So we want to time it where they're getting the workbook three days prior to the event. Now I know this is going to be a little tricky and what if they sign up right before the event and so on. If they sign up right before the event, what we want to do is we want to give them a virtual link where they can print the materials, but we still want to also send them the workbook. If it's really close to the event, you can send them the bag and the workbook at the same time. Now for me, the reason why it's so important to send both of those things separately is because again, it's another touch point. It's another, wow, I can't believe they're sending this out type thing for the client. It's keeping them excited again, because if we send everything at once in that very first package, they're going to be excited, but only for the moment. And then they have a few weeks or maybe even a couple months until your event, they're going to lose that excitement and they may show up to one or two sessions, but we want them to show up to every session. So we want to time it where they're getting these workbooks at least, I would say three days before. We don't want to do it too far in advance, but three days before. Okay. So I know that some of you are thinking, well, April, they could just download the worksheet workbook at any time. That's how we normally do it. We have a download link for them to download worksheets. There's nothing more valuable than something they could hold in their hand. So this is so important, depending on what your goals are for this event, whether you're making money off the ticket sales, whether you're making money off the sponsorships or whether you're making money off of selling something like a coaching or a group membership at the end, something like that. This is so very important. You're going to have to pay to have the workbooks printed. You're going to have to pay to have that second shipment, but it is definitely, definitely worth it. So now we have those, those few things. The next thing we're going to do is between, depending on how many attendees you have between two days and the day before, we're actually going to make a phone call. We're going to have somebody on your team, remind them, making sure they know how to log in, making sure they know how to access everything, making sure they've received their workbook, but we want that to be a personalized call. Now I'm all for automation and having that message go out where everybody can get it. But for this, again, we are boosting the attendee experience and the attendee engagement. So I want you or someone from your team, giving them a call. We're so excited. We can't wait to see you online tomorrow. And by the way, here's a few extras that we didn't tell you about yet, but we want you to know about. And what those few extras could be are different contests that you have going on each day. And there's a million different ways that you can play with this. It could be at the end of the day, they take a quiz and if they get so many questions right, they get so many points. Those points could be redeemed for prizes that are donated by your sponsors. Or it could be that you're doing a drawing each day on who's live. There's so many different ways you could do it. But the point is to do something every day and maybe even every session or twice a day to keep them engaged and wanting to come back. Now I like the quiz type thing or questions because we need them to show that they really watched, right? They're not getting value. We're not getting value. If they just log on and keep it in the background while they check Facebook or whatever else. So I like the questions to keep them engaged. Now one thing I want you to really pay close attention here is I've been talking a lot about sponsors. Now these are just a few little ways that you can really leverage these sponsors and get them in front of your ideal client again. So we're going to go into a full training on sponsorship packages for online events and all of that wonderful stuff. But for now I just want you to keep in mind that you want to give the sponsors the best experience and return on their investment. So if you're giving them the opportunity to get something tangible in their ideal prospect's hands twice, so once inside that bag and the second time inside maybe a full sheet or a half sheet sponsorship advertisement in the back of your workbook, then it's worth it. If you're not doing a conference, this could be your program for the event. If you're doing a trade show, things like that. So the next thing is we want to sell some prime time to the sponsors. You could even get really creative if this is a higher end event, have sponsors sponsor a lunch and you could possibly even mail, not mail, but you could use Grubhub or something like that and have a lunch or a coffee delivered to each attendee. Now, if you're having 300 people, you might not want to do that, but if you're having like 50 people, you might want to have one sponsor pay sponsor for $20,000, have everybody sent a lunch and, you know, sit on a zoom session and have lunch with them. So there's a lot of different ways you can get creative. We're going to have a bunch more trainings on this and how actually to have the live virtual event, but hopefully that gets your juices flowing on how you could differentiate yourself and still charge a premium for your live event and give an amazing attendee experience and sponsor experience and make sure everybody profits. If you want more great tips like this, make sure you join us over at the Only Successful Events Facebook group. It's strictly for event producers, event planners, and event professionals. The link is down below. See you guys soon.