Why You Should Use Activations at Your Next Virtual Event
According to a recent study by Demand Gen Report, 68% of respondents said that live events are the best source for generating leads at the top of the funnel. Events deliver a face-to-face, experiential marketing impact that no other channel can deliver. With marketers so bullish on events, how can they survive with Covid-19 seemingly crashing the party on live events?
Virtual events have become status quo for event marketers in recent years, and have become a new normal for event success. Virtual activations can infuse an experiential marketing strategy into an otherwise humdrum virtual event. Whether you’re using Bizzabo, Accelevents, or vFairs, to power your online event, it’s time to consider brand activations at your next virtual event.
https://www.marketingcharts.com/customer-centric/lead-generation-and-management-82291
Why?
There are five reasons to consider virtual activations at your next virtual event:
- Provide entertainment. Depending on the software platform, but especially relative to in-person events, online events are not as entertaining as in-person events. Humans need a sense of stimulation. Without being at an event to play games, win prizes, socialize, etc. other strategies for creating excitement are needed. Virtual activations bring the excitement in a digital format. Offer prizes and other giveaways as you run your competition with your virtual activation.
- Collect additional qualifiers. Your virtual event platform might have limited contact data that someone has to fill out before accessing your material or chatting with you at your virtual booth. By hosting virtual brand activations you can use a custom lead capture form that collects key qualifiers important to your business.
- Trigger workflow. Once your lead fills out the key qualifiers, plays the virtual activation, then completes the game, kick off key business processes such as lead qualification, lead distribution, and data integrity. Implement your business rules into software that executes all types of workflow.
- Create revenue streams from sponsors. Since you’re going virtual, you may opt for new opportunities to generate revenue from partners. Virtual brand activations provide sponsorship opportunities to place logos on prize wheels (spin the wheel), under cups (3 cups game), or popping up from a hole (whack a mole), plus many more. Don’t miss this opportunity to use virtual activations as a way to drive revenue from your virtual event.
- Integrated lead capture. Most virtual event platforms don’t have deep integrations with 3rd party systems; however, a fully integrated virtual activation platform does, and can send lead data directly into your CRM (Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.) or marketing automation system (Oracle Eloqua, Marketo, Salesforce.com Pardot, etc.).
How to Use Brand Activations at Your Next Virtual Event
Using a virtual activation at your next virtual event is simple. The virtual activation is built using a user-friendly activation designer. The lead capture screen can be split into a custom lead intake form on one side and digital display on the other, with game play following the submission. All aspects of your virtual activation can be customized, from logos to background colors and prizes. The virtual activation builder is completely user-managed.
To launch your virtual activation within your virtual event platform, simply use the virtual activation launch link and add it to a button or text. You can also iFrame your virtual activation if the virtual event software supports iFrame. Another option is to send the virtual activation link in a follow-up email after you collect the prospect’s information.
We hope this article was helpful! You might not have thought you can use a brand activation in a virtual environment. The goal is to inspire you to use virtual brand activations at your next virtual event.
Reach out to Captello to learn more about adding lead capture integrated activations to your next event.
Captello provides cloud-based marketing and sales automation solutions that help businesses worldwide attract, convert and close leads.
Lead capture enthusiasts, such as trade show coordinators, retail marketers, and event marketers directly benefit from improved lead retrieval workflow, in particular, being able to send marketing qualified leads to an endless array of CRM and marketing automation platforms. The solution empowers enthusiasts to do their job better by effectively measuring results, capturing crucial sales insights, and supercharging their organization with a seamless lead flow process from capture to close.
