Do you want to tun your offline event online?

This is possible with some planning and creative thinking.

I’ve been asked by an amazing client Coach if she could deliver her yearly conference and turn it into an online conference. My brain started working overtime as you can imagine. I love being asked this because I thrive on creating innovative ideas and deliver the solution that my clients seek.

In this article, I’m going to show you step by step on how to do this. I am using a client’s case study example. Glory Olamide has an offline yearly event which she wants to turn into an online event due to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation.

Online businesses are booming and those that haven’t caught that “boat”, they are now looking at ways to profit from this new opportunity. However, they are getting overwhelmed with the magnitude of this online monster change.

The first hurdle is to actually visualise what you have and how you can turn it into the online space!

 Let’s look at what you can do to turn your offline events into online events.

1. Look at what you have already in place for your offline event and decide what you are keeping or ditching. Keep the ones that you can easily deliver online and ditch the ones that seem impossible. As an example, if you give your attendees some sort of catering or refreshments, this will be difficult to do virtually as you can imagine.

2. Ditch what is not possible to happen like stallholders during the event. However, stakeholders can still showcase their products through video and have a purchase link handy for others to buy and share on their virtual calls.

3. Speakers, networking sessions and connecting business owners with others can easily be delivered through zoom with breakout rooms depending on the numbers of your attendees. Breakout rooms can also be used for those showcasing their business or products.

   • As for the speaker presentations, this is an easy fix. I know it might not feel the same as watching your speakers on stage and in person but with a bit of imagination, you can definitely make this interesting. Have I told you that I am speaking at the Whole Woman Conference 2020? I was ready to fly to London and give my speaking gig in person at the venue, however, the circumstances changed and we have to adapt creatively to the situation. I am still doing it and I will be joined by other amazing speakers.

4. Finally, ask yourself the following questions:

   • What can I really deliver to my audience so that they will benefit from attending the event? If it’s a paid event, they will want the same sort of treatment as if they were there on the day. Make it so that people remember it and talk about it to others. Word of mouth is powerful!

   • What’s in it for them?

   • What resources do I currently have to make this happen?

   • Will I need to outsource an event planner or virtual assistant to help run things smoothly on the day?

   • What tools do I require to make this happen? Look at paid tools like zoom where you can create breakout rooms to split people into groups. This will be required especially if your events are in the hundreds of people. People go to events to connect and engage with other like-minded business owners so making your virtual event memorable could contribute to its success.

   • Visualise what challenges might occur during the event so that it will help you to put a contingency plan in place. Imagine all possible scenarios even if they seem a bit far fetched.

   • What kind of technology will you require? Technology can be tricky especially if you are delivering an event online. Check that you have a good internet connection for your live sessions and make sure that you are informing your attendees by email of the daily agenda, what times sessions are happening and don’t forget the follow-up emails after the event.

IT’S A WRAP:

My recommendation for this type of virtual event is that you keep things as easy as possible for your attendees to attend all of the sessions. You don’t want them to miss anything! This is where I come in and I can help by structuring your online event in a fun and effective way inside your own membership site. This way all paid attendees can revisit the members’ area and watch all the recorded presentations and networking sessions from the comfort of their home. It is also a place where you can gather all your event attendees names and email addresses and make future communication very simple and fast.

Let me know in the comments if this is something that you’ve been thinking of doing?