As organisations pivoted away from in-person events, virtual events and conferences have become the norm. More importantly, virtual events have proven to be so successful that it’s difficult to imagine a world where they don’t stick around for good as a part of every organisation’s strategy.

Organisations that stepped up to create unique, engaging virtual attendee experiences employing novel concepts have gone above and beyond for their attendees. But what about Virtual Event sponsorship experiences?

Why do Virtual Event sponsorships matter?

Sponsors have been an excellent source of revenue for in-person events. Most in-person events are lucrative because of sponsorships, and they may make a big difference in the virtual event sector. While virtual events are often less expensive to organise and produce, giving sponsorship opportunities for the virtual event can still be a considerable asset. Virtual Event Sponsors can help boost registrations, increase the community for your event, and provide some unique content and experiences in addition to monetary rewards.

Why do, the majority of virtual event sponsorship concepts fail?

The biggest issue with the existing virtual event sponsor model is that many virtual conferences have simply imported the idea of an in-person booth to the virtual event format. This strategy is ineffective because virtual events are not like physical events.
For virtual events, it’s difficult to control traffic. Virtual events, unlike in-person events, do not have a physical layout designed to guide guests across the exhibition floor. We need to utilise the power of digital, to personalize and diversify offers, develop dynamic content, and design appealing digital places.

How to make virtual event sponsorships more effective?

If the event organisers to have a successful event and virtual sponsor booth, it’s critical that the event’s design maximises the value and experience for both sponsors and attendees. Here are some ideas for this:

Offer engaging and converting virtual booths

Provide natural on-ramps for guests to engage with sponsors. Setting aside allocated time for participants to communicate with sponsors and incentivising attendees to do so are good examples. Although a virtual event cannot provide the same swag as an in-person event, think of a digital-swag provided instead or anything that participants may gain by participating?

Sponsored rich content, demos & sessions

Sponsored content is a great way to get your sponsors involved and in front of attendees. Sponsors can share beneficial information, show off a product demo at their virtual booth, and even sponsor a session on a related topic. Sponsored content raises awareness of sponsors while also offering valuable content to attendees.

Sponsored matchmaking categories

It’s a fact that attendees want to network. Another point is that virtual event guests arrive with various networking goals set. So, how to ensure that the correct people find each other and form meaningful bonds?

The sponsors will be able to connect with the correct people in a couple of seconds with AI driven matchmaking. The procedure is straightforward: attendees sign up through networking tool and choose their networking aims and interests from a comprehensive list of categories. When guests pick these categories, the AI matchmaking connects them to sponsors’ product or solution.

Event data and analytics

Virtual events provide a much richer data collection enabling sponsors prove ROI after the event. If a sponsor keeps track of how many meetings they had during a live event, they may have a reasonable idea of how many meetings they had. They’ll have a mostly accurate list of leads if they remember to check the badges of every booth visitor.

However, with a virtual event platform, sponsors can know how many meetings they had, have a list of leads generated by visits to their booth and audience who indicated interest in their services.

Mercurylivestream can provide all this and much more. You will be delivering exactly what your sponsors are seeking for with qualified leads, brand recognition, and the greatest ways to engage with audience in an effective manner.