In February 2020, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was canceled, with hundreds of other trade shows following its lead. In response, chief marketing officers slashed their in-person event budgets and many allocated additional funds to digital marketing, virtual events, and webinars. Back then, most marketing teams assumed that in-person events would probably return in the second half of 2020, and indeed many corporations and associations optimistically scheduled dates and venues for major events from August through December.

Now, as we approach the end of 2020, business-to-business marketing leadership and managers of events, demand generation, and field-marketing activities are planning next year's campaigns and customer-engagement activities. The question on their minds: When will events be back to "normal"?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the preeminent voice for public health, recently predicted that a "degree of normality is expected late 2021 for people and business in general." There is some encouraging news about vaccines, but the timeline for inoculating millions of people with a safe and effective vaccine seems unpredictable at best. I think it's safe to say that large gatherings of people involving flights and hotels will not be happening anytime soon. You can see the empty major sports arenas for an indication of the new normal. However, 2021 events and customer meetings, virtual or otherwise, must be planned and budgeted. What should you do?

By October of this year, 95 percent of B2B enterprises have adopted some form of virtual events. Initially, event organizers were pleased to see two to five times the number of attendees compared to in-person user conferences. Brands such as Apple, Cisco, Google, and VMware all staged impressive virtual user conferences and are planning more of the same for next year.

Looking at early 2021, we know that January's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's largest consumer expo, will be all digital, and others such as the National Retail Federation's Big Show have followed. Even smaller regional and field company events have switched to virtual, and, based on increased expected attendance, many marketers are planning more and better virtual events for the next 12 months.

But the switch to virtual has brought new challenges. Attendee engagement is by far the most important key performance indicator for event marketers executing virtual events, yet event marketers agree that this is also one of the most challenging aspects of the medium. Audience fatigue is another known issue. Most event organizers have limited or no experience in managing virtual events – or the technologies needed to them.

If you peel the onion a bit more, we see that skills and tools can be quickly gained, but in many cases there may be a lack of enthusiasm about virtual events. I think many marketing organizations view virtual events as a temporary solution and have low collaboration between the events and digital-marketing teams. This limits the ways in which they can engage more with exhibitors, session speakers, and attendees. To maximize the return on investment from virtual events, marketers must commit to making them work and change how they tackle them.

How to improve your virtual events in 2021
It seems likely that the pandemic will gradually fade in 2021, and therefore we need a graduated response to event planning. The large events the world is used to will forever change to hybrid formats, i.e., a combination of virtual and in-person programming. The good news is hybrid events will reach larger audiences than ever before. Attendees, corporate sponsors, event organizers, and technology companies are beginning to warm up to some of the unexpected benefits of virtual and will integrate it for increased participation.

The old adage "Plan for the worst-case scenario and hope for the best" is the most prudent approach. This means you should plan for virtual and some hybrid events through the end of 2021. What I expect as the new normal is that event-marketing teams will gradually switch from exclusively virtual to hybrid events for the next 12-15 months. In the meantime, marketers need to excel in virtual events. Here's an approach that I'm recommending to B2B marketers:

1. Keep your plans fluid.
In-person events have the specificity of fixed dates, fixed venues, fixed internal and external attendees, fixed sessions, and so on. Virtual events can be live, recorded, and/or a combination of the two; have extended dates for follow-up engagements; feature interactive sessions and customer or partner meetings over weeks or even months; and include attendees and staff in multiple time zones. You'll have far more flexibility with this approach.

2. Think "hub and spoke."
Plan every large virtual conference as a hub for major corporate keynotes and sessions but extend it to multiple smaller events in local regions or by business units. The regional teams can cater to the needs of local audiences and more precisely customize the featured messages, products, and services.

3. Collaborate more.
Let's get our digital-marketing teams, event experts, and field-marketing teams around the virtual table to maximize the value of virtual events. Digital marketers can offer expertise in automation, while events and field marketers know how to deliver a satisfying attendee experience. The combined power of these teams will deliver the best of both worlds. It also drives consistency regarding tools and enterprise-wide messages.

4. Be creative.
To reduce attendee fatigue, mix things up with entertainment and offer more ways for attendees to engage with experts and schedule demos. I recently attended a virtual event that included a 30-minute break with live music and another with a DJ.

5. Focus on generating ROI.
Find ways to leverage technologies that provide an engaging experience and use automation to enable follow-up meetings with qualified prospects. Attendees want more than keynotes and sessions; they need to meet with experts to learn more about what's on offer and make decisions to achieve their objectives.

6. Expand from MQLs to MQMs.
Registering attendees and/or offering content in exchange for providing contact information is a good way to gather marketing-qualified leads (MQLs). But you need to go further and think how you can drive marketing-qualified meetings (MQMs). A meeting-automation platform lets attendees request an array of follow-up meetings with executives or subject-matter experts that can be either automatically scheduled or vetted through an approval process.

Let's face it: While in-person events were awesome, they also had their problems. How many times have you watched session attendees spend more time looking at their mobile devices than paying attention to presenters? How many times did attendees never make it to your booth or meeting due to congestion, delays, missed flights, runaway meetings, distractions, late-night parties, and so on? Some 95 percent of companies are planning virtual events through early next year, so let's embrace the "new event normal" and rethink our processes to maximize engagement and drive value for organizers and attendees alike.