All You Need to Know about Creating a Successful Business Conference

Business conferences have always been a great way for businesses to bring together like-minded people from the industry and share and enhance knowledge. What’s changed today, is that those same business conferences don’t need to be held in person.

The great thing about these virtual conferences is how much more affordable and time-saving they are. And not just that, online conferences are easier to organize and they are also much more eco-friendly than your traditional in-person conferences.

So, without further ado, let’s see all you need to know about creating a successful business conference.

1. Set clear objectives for your conference

The first and foremost thing to do regardless of whether you’re organizing a virtual or in-person business conference is to set clear your objectives. There are many reasons why you’re organizing a conference – maybe you aim to generate leads or to multiply profits – whatever the reason, you should make sure that your whole team knows the objectives.

Having clear and attainable objectives, targets and ROI can also help you make your event even more successful.

2. The topic needs to be clear and the message direct

In addition to having clear objectives, your conference should also have a clear topic. You would want to reach all your target audience so the best way to go about it is by sending a clear and simple message about the context of your event.

Let your audience know what to expect and what kind of knowledge they will acquire with the help of your business conference.

3. Choose the right event manager and provider

One of the most important things about organizing a conference is choosing the right event management and provider. A good event management team will ensure that every little detail of the organization process is completed carefully.

Carefully choosing an event management and provider is crucial because they will be responsible for delivering your message, bringing your idea to life, and creating an unforgettable experience for your audience.

When choosing an even provider make sure you choose a platform that offers audio, text, and video chat tools that encourage collaboration between attendees, speakers, and exhibitors.

4. Find a good moderator

The job of the moderator is to make sure that the audience is engaged and having fun. And while many speakers may have all the knowledge about certain topics, they may lack the enthusiasm or skill to present them appropriately.

You want to find a moderator that can guide the conference and allow polls all the while making sure that the audience is engaged.

5. Spread the word

For a conference to be successful, you need to have enough attendees. And what’s the best way to get people to attend your conference? Well, social media, of course!

Social media platforms are the best places to spread the word about your upcoming conference. Your business website is also a great place to let people know about the event. By spreading the word about your event through social media, you’re making sure that the word reaches all the right people and, in that way, you’re increasing attendance.

Hashtags are a super popular way to inform people about pretty much anything. So, you can dedicate a hashtag to your conference and through them track any posts or activity around your event.

6. Help your stakeholders navigate the virtual conference

While your stakeholders may be well acquainted with in-person business conferences, the virtual ones may still be a novelty to them. To ensure that everything goes smoothly, you should educate your staff, exhibitors, sponsors, and so on about the virtual conferences.

You can easily do this by creating informative content or videos about how to best navigate live events of this kind.

7. Remind your attendees

While spreading the word is a great way to ensure attendance, you should also remind your attendees of the upcoming event. People live busy lives, so it may easily happen that they forget about the conference you’re organizing.

So, to help them remember, you can schedule frequent reminders that will remind your registered attendees of the time and date of your conference.

8. Allow two-way interactions

When you’re attending the conference from the confines of your own home, your attention span is dwindling. To ensure that your attendees don’t lose interest in the event, you should allow two-way interactions.

Instead of long and boring one-way presentations, you should make your conferences entertaining, sessions short and at the end of the conference, you should add Q&A sessions.

9. Record sessions and plan for technical issues

With so much effort and work put into organizing conferences, it would be a shame not to record them. If you decide to record the sessions, once the conference is over, you’ll be able to add these recordings to your library and later use them for future marketing or referencing.

In addition to recording your sessions, you should always plan for technical issues. Conferences are not conducted in controlled environments which means that technical issues can occur.

This is something that organizers of in-person conferences don’t have to worry about, but those who decide to go with virtual conferences need to keep technical issues in mind. To deal with these types of issues, always have a plan B and even a plan C. For example, what will you do if the network connection breaks or the speaker loses connectivity?

Having a contingency plan is always a good idea when it comes to organizing virtual conferences.Before every event do a test run just to make sure everything works fine and there are no glitches.

10. Gather feedback and data

It’s a smart idea to gather feedback and data after every virtual event. Follow-up questions will help you understand whether or not your attendees liked the conference, how they interacted with the event, and what they would change in the future.

The point of feedback and follow-up surveys is to gather data that will help you improve the quality of your future events and also boost event ROI.

Usually, follow-up surveys are sent via e-mail after the event has ended. The survey can be made up of multiple-choice questions, YES/NO questions, a rating scale, or something similar.

Gathering this type of data will be very useful for any future event you decide to organize.

As you can see, online conferences are much easier to organize than in-person ones. You don’t need to look for venues, hire catering services, travel expenses, and so on. To organize a successful online business conference you need to have your goals clear and you need a good event management team in your corner. The rest is easily dealt with!