The future of events is virtual and hybrid. With reopening under way, 2021 will still be a virtual focused year in the event space. 42% of event organizers plan to conduct hybrid events and another 30% plan to focus on virtual-only events this year. Only 13% of organizers didn’t have  plans for virtual or hybrid events, with the remainder undecided at the time of the survey. 

Virtual and hybrid events will not be fizzling out after 2021 either. 62% of event planners say that the future of events is hybrid. The virtual events industry is also expected to sustain continued growth in valuation and profit over the next several years, with a forecasted revenue of 404.45 billion in 2027.

Before your business goes back to the status quo of in-person event sponsorships, check out these key benefits of sponsoring a virtual or hybrid event:

1. Align Your Brand With Industry Experts

Aligning your brand with well-respected industry experts provides enhanced credibility (and visibility.) Virtual and hybrid events attract a wide array of notable industry thought leaders. Organizers are often able to get higher quality and better known speakers for virtual content due to the limited time commitment and lack of travel needed. Keynote speakers that are generally booked up far in advance are more likely to be able to find an hour or two in their schedule to virtually speak at an event.

Associating your brand with thought leaders expands your brand awareness and helps your company and leadership team position themselves as thought leaders as well. 

2. Expand Your Reach

If you run a nationwide or international business, it can be hectic trying to sponsor great events in all of your target markets to reach the right audiences. Hybrid and sponsored events expand their reach beyond a physical location, making it easier to reach a wide array of industry professionals.

Virtual and hybrid events also often attract more attendees, giving you a larger audience to market your products and services to. Adding a virtual viewing option removes capacity limits as well as financial, geographic, and accessibility barriers for attendees. You can generate a larger volume of leads by sponsoring an event with a virtual component.

3. Fill Up Your In-Person Event Schedule

A unique benefit of sponsoring hybrid events is that you can easily connect with leads and fill up your event schedule before ever setting foot at the venue. Optimize your team member’s time at the event by ensuring that they’re spending it engaging with interested leads and minimizing downtime. 

Often it can be a hassle for booth reps to chase down people to get them to stop and visit the booth. These passerby’s may not even be interested in the type of product or service you offer. With pre-set appointments and warm leads you can spend your time marketing to the right audience.

4. Accelerate Business By Accelerating Customer Relationships

With virtual content you can accelerate your business by moving customers from the awareness stage to the loyal customer stage much more quickly. 

At an in-person only event, you have to utilize your face-to-face time at the booth by introducing your product or service to attendees. Generating awareness and educating potential customers on what your company has to offer is important, but this initial overview can easily be accomplished through pre-event virtual content. 

When attendees have a chance to view a virtual elevator pitch and product overview before visiting your booth, you can spend your time developing the customer relationship more deeply and moving into a more individualized sales discussion. 

They already know what you can do, so now you can discuss how you can tailor the service or product offering to their business needs and start moving towards next steps by the end of the initial meeting.

5. More Ways to Share Content

Virtual content can help you reach prospective clients in new and innovative ways – and it can keep them engaged even after the event ends!

With Social27 Virtual Event Platform, sponsors can host sessions, Roundtables (or breakouts), and can even have their own virtual exhibition booths. Virtual and hybrid events allow sponsors to share content in different formats such as video, audio, graphics, and downloadable content rather than confining them to traditional mediums. Allowing this content to be viewed on-demand allows more people to view your content and come back to it later as needed.

On their Exhibitor Booth Microsite, sponsors can curate an intelligent Playlist to display video, audio, and written content to showcase their brand and get attendees excited about their product or service. Presenting resources and case studies in downloadable formats allows attendees to take the information with them for future reference, share with their team mates, and dive deeper into learning about the solutions offered by sponsoring businesses. Attendees can also see what sessions are being offered by the sponsor and easily add them to their agenda. 

In a recent event held on the Social27 Virtual Event Platform with 47 attendees there were 1,935 Exhibitor Booth Microsite visits at the event’s Expo Hall with 10 sponsors present. These attendees actively engaged with the sponsored content, particularly the Playlists.

6. Easily Generate and Organize Leads

Virtual events provide a multitude of methods for more easily connecting with leads. 

Social27 Virtual Event Platform helps bring attendees to sponsors through the Recommendation and Prediction Engine. When attendees register they are able to select their Areas of Interest (AOIs) from a provided list of options curated specifically to each event. Once an attendee makes their selection, they are presented with recommendations for sessions to attend, other attendees to network with, and of course sponsors that they are likely to be interested in. 

This personalized experience helps quickly and seamlessly qualify and organize leads for sponsors. 

In addition to the recommendation tool, Social27 Virtual Event Platform allows sponsors to create their own Exhibitor Booth Microsite (microsite.) Sponsors have creative control in designing their branded page through Social27 Sponsor Workspace. Video content and other helpful information can be displayed.

Within these microsites, you have multiple options for connecting with leads. 

Visitors can Scan their Badge at the virtual booth, allowing sponsors to see who visited and follow up with these leads. Sponsors can also designate a booth rep to answer questions and engage with visitors in a live booth chat. Lastly, sponsors can offer interested visitors the option to schedule a meeting with a company representative right on the sponsor page.

7. Advanced Data Analytics

One major advantage of virtual event sponsorships over traditional event sponsorships is that they are better optimized for analytics. You can view detailed reporting on attendee data, activity, and engagement after the event to help you assess event ROI and fine tune your strategy for your next digital or hybrid sponsorship.

Social27 Virtual Event Platform can provide data to help you understand how attendees are engaging with your content and where you may be missing opportunities to attract leads. When attendees leave a session early they can be prompted to answer questions to help you solicit even more feedback to help you improve your sponsored session content for future presentations.

Social27 Virtual Event Platform and Virtual Event Sponsorship

Social27 Virtual Event Platform optimizes the virtual and hybrid event experience to increase exposure and provide quality leads for sponsors. With our versatile virtual exhibition booth, sponsors can deliver engaging multimedia content on demand to attendees. They can build deepened multipoint connections with leads to achieve a higher conversion rate. 

Set up a demo today to learn more about what Social27 has to offer event organizers and sponsors!