A Guide to Hosting Successful Virtual Events

Organizing and hosting virtual events on Eventgroove is just as simple and straightforward as it is with our in-person event platform. However, regardless of the platform you use, virtual events do bring new challenges to event planning.

Use our Virtual Events Checklist as a planning guide for your next online event. It's designed to walk you through setting up a virtual event from beginning to end. This checklist prompts you to consider key components of your online event and ways to execute them effectively with Eventgroove, or somewhere else. Check your list, check it twice, and drive the results you’re looking for. 

Make sure to print out the checklist for easy use and distribution! 

1. Pre-Event: Planning Phase

Informing Ticket Buyers - Get The Word Out

Make sure to spread the word about your virtual event and keep potential attendees informed through your top traffic channels. Below are the top ways to initiate contact and stay in touch with attendees using Eventgroove. 

▢   Email invitation: It’s important to make an impression on potential attendees. Grab their attention with a well-designed email invitation. Take advantage of one of our easy-to-use design templates to brand for your virtual event, or create your own.

▢   Social media outreach: Reach your audience where they spend the most time. Share event details on your social media pages to reach new potential attendees.

▢   Update event page: Keep attendees up-to-date with the latest info about your virtual event, like times and special guests. Update your event details as often as you need to keep things current!

*Pro-tip: Event pages are especially helpful for multi-day events, like festivals or virtual conferences, because of the ability to share event schedules and updates in real time. 

▢   Direct mail invitation: If you really want to “wow”, send potential attendees a postcard mailer ahead of time to announce your virtual event with an invitation to RSVP or purchase/reserve tickets.

Ticket Fulfillment  

When you publish a virtual event on Eventgroove, make sure to choose the ticket fulfillment that works for your team. What you select here will determine how you'll check in guests at the event.

▢   Mobile tickets: display ticket information and an event link right in the email. Attendees will receive a confirmation email after purchasing or reserving their tickets. Make sure to take advantage of our awesome email template designs to customize to your audience.

▢   Custom ticket email: Tailor attendee’s ticket confirmation emails to provide a branded experience all the way through.

2. Go Time

Before kicking off the virtual event, make sure you have these items covered.

▢   Designate a moderator: designate someone to monitor the live Q&A and polling on whatever streaming platform you use for your virtual event. (check out our suggestions here!)

▢   Battery & bandwidth: especially for longer online events, make sure you'll be able to recharge all your devices when needed, and your WiFi connection is up to snuff. You can test your internet connection speed here! 

▢   Backend access - ensure all team members have the access levels they need to the event page in case team support is needed during the event.

▢   Do a test run: 

Practice the event beginning to end.

Test out the streaming service you're using to make sure you understand key functions.

Check camera angles and equipment to make sure you're delivering high quality segments. Make sure things are set the way you want them.

Ensure all speakers know their cues and have their presentations ready to go.

Customer Support

We're here to answer your questions to help make your virtual event a success - but don't wait until the last minute to call! If you need help, call early and avoid the stress of dealing with problems while your guests are starting to log on.

• Email: support@eventgroove.com
• Phone: 888-509-1060

3. Post-Event: Analyze & Improve

Follow Up with Attendees

▢   Thank You email: be sure to thank your attendees for their time and provide bonus content or some other followup with a personalized email after the virtual event. This can have a larger impact than you may think and should not be a step you skip!

▢   Analyze attendee data: Use Eventgroove's powerful reporting analytics to understand attendee's behavior. Who attended vs who purchased a ticket? Were there barriers for attendees to log on? Collect these key data points to determine what parts of your event could have gone better and what parts were home runs. 

▢   Improve: go ahead and jot down some things you would do differently next time, based on the performance data you analyzed. Do a bit of brainstorming while the event is fresh in your mind. Start a new folder or file to keep these notes in to help kick off planning for your next virtual event.

▢   Grow: Use attendee lists as your seed list for your next event invites.This list will ideally grow with every virtual event you organize! Continue growing your reach with the limitless potential of virtual events.

Haven't tried Eventgroove for virtual events and want to learn more?

Our team is standing by, excited to learn about your organization and ready to discuss how we can help you reach your goals.

Speak with one of our knowledgeable Solutions Specialist about a 30 minute demo today.