How to stay organized for online events: From beginning to end

Your business must have a dynamic digital content strategy to stand out from the crowd and attract customers. The bar for creating memorable and successful virtual events has only increased with the advancements in online marketing and event technology. As the expectations rise, so has the demand for user-friendly technology in event technology.

Online events require technology in order to work. The right software tools will give your guests a better experience and your team a more efficient backend experience. Your event management and registration software is most effective if your business follows best practices.

This article will help you keep your business organized during your event. It covers four key aspects of event management and planning, including how to:

• Establish event metrics.
• Register quickly and easily
• Coordinate your staff.
• Real-time reporting tools are available.

Online events require a significant investment in time and resources. However, the potential benefits they could have for your business's growth and development should be more than worth it. Your planning team will become more efficient with every event hosted and begin to treat these organizational practices like second nature. Let's get started.

Establish event metrics.

At the beginning of event planning, you should establish your event's goals and measure your success in reaching them. This will enable your business to collect data that can be used to plan future events, and help you identify wins as well as areas for improvement.

You should identify metrics that you will monitor in order to improve your event strategy. These key performance indicators (KPIs), can be used to measure everything about your event. They can include your marketing efforts, your guests' experience, and how effective your follow up was. Based on the goals of your event, here are some KPIs that you might consider.

• Guest retention. How many people who attended your last event attended your next one? High guest retention rates can indicate that guests enjoy your events and that your business has begun to build a loyal following.
• Conversion. Conversion. Nearly all events for your business will promote your products and services. Although ticket sales are a great way to promote your products or services, it is important that you consider how your events can help attendees become attendees.
• Marketing engagement. How many people respond to your marketing messages? Other metrics can also be used to determine this, such as open rate and click through rate, comments, shares and likes on social networks. Keep an eye on the engagement rates of different marketing strategies to determine if your audience prefers one over another.

Be sure to pick KPIs that relate to your business goals. Although most of your incoming data is useful for event planning, there will be specific KPIs that you need to focus on based upon past events and data. If you notice that your events are popular but convert few people, it may be worth focusing on your follow-up strategy rather than your event marketing.

Register quickly and easily

Your guests who register for your event are at an important point in their relationship with you. To increase your attendance and possibly earn more sales, make sure that the registration process is as simple as possible.

These are some tips for creating event registration forms

• Keep registration forms brief. Registering for your event takes up time from your guests. Long forms can cause frustration and lead to page abandonment. This could cost your event potential attendees. For longer forms, limit your questions to the essentials and use time-saving techniques such as conditional logic. Conditional logic makes use of your guests' answers in order to determine which questions they should answer. This reduces the length of your forms.
• Multiple payment options are available. Allow guests to choose from multiple payment options. Also, ensure that your payment processor integrates with your registration forms to make it easy for guests to check out. They will feel more secure giving you their financial information as they will know that their payment is going to the correct place.
• Monitor your incoming registration data. Your registration software can be used to create reports about key metrics that are relevant to your event as guests sign up. Your event team will need to be kept informed about how many attendees are expected so that they can plan accordingly.

You can also upsell your guests during the event registration process and make additional sales. Consider showcasing products that guests can add to their carts during the checkout process. This will allow them to make one purchase and not have to re-enter their payment information later.

Coordinate your staff.

Your staff may not be required to set up the venue or check in guests, but they can still make sure that your event is a success. Give your staff the guidance they need to succeed.

• Teach them how to use your event management software. Your staff may be familiar with your business but they might not know all the details of online event software. Walk your staff through the software to ensure there are no surprises.
• You should ensure that they reach their supervisors quickly. Sometimes, staff might find themselves in situations that require the intervention of a senior member of your company. These situations can include problems with guests or technical issues that could cause disruptions.
• They will be assigned to the areas they are most needed. Online events will have different staffing requirements than in-person gatherings. You will still need to decide how many staff members you should have available for your event, especially if the event is being held during normal business hours. To ensure that your event is well attended, you should consider how many people will be watching it.

Your event software should allow multiple users to log in simultaneously so that your entire team has access to all your tools. You should also consider how permissions will be controlled so that everyone has the right access without limiting their role.

Real-time reporting tools are available.

Your event will require your staff to be focused on it. This can lead to data changes being missed. Software that updates you as they occur allows you to react to opportunities and respond to challenges immediately, creating an exciting event experience.

Some metrics cannot be determined until after the event. However, you can respond to important metrics such as increases or decreases in viewership, sales made during the event, and overall engagement. If you observe a decline in guest engagement, staff members might be asked to take part in the chat more to encourage discussion.

Your registration software should provide updates in real time as guests register for your events. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, and provide real-time updates to your planning team that can help them prepare for your guests.

Events are an investment. Make sure you have the right tools to ensure that your guests have a great experience. You can monitor and adjust your event management strategies to ensure that you keep up with the pace of live events. After your event, reflect on what you can do better for the next one.

Asaf darash, the founder and CEO of Regpack has extensive experience both as an investor and as an entrepreneur. Asaf has successfully built three companies with an exit strategy or that are still in profit. Asaf is a specialist in web product development, team building, and in taking a company from concept stage to a profitable unit.