Hybrid Events are the New Normal for Marketing and Sales

With the vaccine in production and ready to release, “Hybrid” has seen an upward trend in the market. An influencer once said, “In-person events will be back soon and they’ll be back with vengeance.” This statement stands true and holds a strong value within the events industry. How?

People have been craving to get back to a normal life. Although after the pandemic really ends, only then the new definition of normal would be more understandable to us. The quick adaptation of virtual events was a smart and bold move in the industry. Much needed also!

But does it cover all the losses which the industry faced?

Virtual definitely has widened the horizons for us but there’s no replacement for an in-person event.

Here the hybrid event platform comes into play. A hybrid event platform is a full suite event technology catering to in-person and virtual attendees both; an event having both venues while broadening its horizon to reach a larger set of audience who essentially are not able to travel to attend a conference.

What will this new normal be like, if it’s a hybrid event?

“70 percent of respondents feel that hybrid meetings will be important to the future of meetings.” – A research by MPI published on Bizbash 

There’s indeed no turning back from this point wherein the digital world has been explored and event organizers have witnessed the power of engagement even online. But in quite a short span attendees had also hit webinar fatigue.

So, to overcome the cons of both a physical event and an immersive virtual event, one needs to find a perfect balance and mix – hybrid event.

Hybrid events would be a bridge back to recovery from the largest to smallest of the events. It’s not just about reaching a wider audience, also providing an abundance of networking opportunities and exploring, even more, when space isn’t confined. The vast explosion of technology seen in the past 6 months is proof the events industry is capable to utilize digital tools plus the old tips and tricks and maximizes the opportunities.

What are some advantages hybrid events hold for us in the coming year 2021?

Reduced Travel Costs

Following the current virtual trend, hybrid events can result in a significant decrease in travel costs. For attendees, it is a huge opportunity as they can attend as many events as it’s

possible for them without travel barriers. Even for the organizing team & sponsors, this is a win-win situation. With WFH in trend, the event crew can work online as well as offline. With wondrous options of a hybrid event platform in place, that won’t be a big dilemma.

With a tight budget for the event, hybrid events are an excellent choice to opt for!

Strong Sponsorship Opportunities

Virtual has for sure opened a lot many doors with opportunities when it comes to sponsors. Sponsors are exploring hybrid events and utilizing it potently for themselves. Not only do they

get a wider reach with both online and offline audiences but also an abundance of sponsorship collateral.

In a live event space, sponsors are restricted, while in a hybrid space these sponsors can have multiple choices like sponsoring a QnA, or a lounge table, or a Livestream or a discussion, and so on.

Increased audience reach with Hybrid Events

With a hybrid event, event organizers have an upper hand on covering the demographics at a wide scale. These demographics include attendees who would love to attend a meeting or a

conference but are unable to because of the travel costs involved & whether the takeaways from the event would be worth it.

Now you can broadcast your entire event without the barrier of time zones, language, and country/continent. This is the best advantage of hosting a hybrid event.

Though the event planning, format, and strategy would need to improvise with time and experience, it’d be worth seeing the audience reach rise. With a wide audience, your networking options will also broaden up, and networking metrics will surely see a spike!

Improved ROI

How can you be so sure the ROI will improve? Of course, the reach of a hybrid event is far better than an in-person or virtual event. Combining them will scale up the event & hence, the higher ROI. With a decent reach, the views will increase, there will be more sign-ups, 1-1 meetings, sponsor and exhibitor meetings, and so on.

Last but not least, an enormous benefit of hybrid events is the data that we gather from the event. At hybrid events, you get the headcounts i.e. the number of attendees, how they engaged, networking numbers, meeting counts, lounge meetings, session attendance, booth traffic, and so on.

Because of the online events, you get a lot of measurable metrics to help you get more insights about attendees and improvise in event planning for the later stage. All these metrics are easily available on the hybrid event platform that you choose.