In a sense, COVID-19 was the great equalizer for exhibit and event marketers. As entire countries closed up shop and billions of people retreated to their homes, face-to-face marketing morphed into digital marketing almost overnight. By late March 2020, it didn't matter how much you knew about exhibits and events nor how many years you'd been in the business. Almost every marketer on the planet suddenly had to traverse the new digital-marketing landscape without so much as a tattered map. One day you were a battle-tested marketing admiral, commanding and strategizing with authority. The next, you were a newly drafted private deep in the trenches trying to save your company, your program, and your job – all while working from your kitchen table in your jammies.

Now, months into our new normal, many marketers have planned or participated in their first (or almost first) virtual experiences. As one might expect, some floundered a bit, and a few downright bombed. But still others eased into their new roles gracefully and effectively. And no matter how they fared, everyone learned a thing or two about this relatively new and increasingly relevant medium.

So to aid the legions of marketers clawing their way up the learning curve, EXHIBITOR identified six professionals who dove straight into the digital pond and not only lived to tell the tale, but also identified vital lessons they learned along the way. Hopefully, their advice will help make your endeavors a little better and a lot easier so that you too can pay it forward and flatten the learning curve for the troops in the trenches.

Platform Selection
Selecting the right platform is a crucial first step when planning a digital experience. Our sources identified several concepts that are paramount to platform and vendor selection.
1. Bandwidth is everything.
"When COVID hit, neither marketers nor technology providers were ready to ramp up their digital games this fast or this robustly," says Amy Mouradian, manager of client development with Access TCA Inc. "As a result, every platform provider still may not be up to speed with regard to bandwidth requirements. And if your bandwidth is bad, your event is a disaster." While her employer is on the supplier side of the fence, Mouradian gained a great deal of firsthand digital experience as a speaker for the online Bryant University Women's Summit. Here she learned that not only the platform provider but also your off-site speakers must have plenty of bandwidth to push out your content without any blips.

"To ensure the summit didn't have fuzzy video or garbled audio, some speakers had to travel to a location outside of their homes or offices for their live feeds," she says. So verify the bandwidth of everyone involved, and consider the average quality you expect among attendees.

2. Vendor workload influences quality.
Cody York, associate manager of global events strategy at Red Hat Inc., recently helped his company convert its annual user conference, the Red Hat Summit, from an in-person event (with an anticipated attendance of 10,000) into an online encounter, which attracted 56,000 attendees. While the scale of your affair may be considerably smaller than his, the internal bandwidth of your vendor is a multilateral concern. During planning, York's team realized they needed to ask potential vendors exactly how many staffers would be dedicated to their event during its entire run. As you explore vendor capabilities, inquire about staff availability and whether the dates of other clients' projects overlap with yours. Also request some kind of assurance that the agency won't take on other large projects that will be live during your program dates.
3. All digital platforms must speak the same language.
Granted, some digital endeavors are simplistic enough to require only one platform. But if there's any chance you need to integrate systems, they all have to be able to effectively talk to one another from the get-go. York's team had to switch to a full-on virtual conference midway through the planning and attendee-registration phase of their in-person event. So data from the registration vendor had to be fed to the virtual-experience platform and then sent to the data-analytics provider. "It was critical to ensure that integration was a part of the process from end to end so we could collect the right data at the right moment and know how to analyze it," York says. Even if your project is more bare bones, your online-registration data likely will need to integrate with your customer relationship management system and/or lead database.

Target Audience
When you're working at warp speed and traversing unfamiliar terrain, it's easy to focus solely on executing your objectives. But remember, although this isn't face-to-face marketing, the needs of your target attendees must remain top of mind if you want to attract and keep their attention.
4. It's not all about you.
An effective trade show booth doesn't push its messaging down attendees' throats. Rather, effective marketers align their agendas with audience needs and personas. According to Annette McClure, CTSM, CSEP, account manager of trade shows and events at Nationwide Children's Hospital, marketers with their nose to the digital grindstone might often overlook this fact. While her team kept this concept center stage, they knew that they needed to drive it home with presenters and anyone involved in planning content and interactives.
5. Attendees need time to plan.
"We learned that people are creatures of habit and like scheduling their time in advance," York says. Shortly before the Red Hat Summit, the team noticed that the platform's agenda builder was almost more requested for the virtual conference than for the traditional, in-person event. Plus, in order to use it, attendees would need to access the platform to view the agenda. Bottom line: Get your affair's dates out to the public as soon as possible so attendees can get them on their calendars. And if your program has various activities to choose from, launch the platform as quickly as is feasible before the start date so attendees have time to peruse the offerings and determine which elements most interest them prior to the event. Also, if your platform provides a sizeable number of attendee options, consider incorporating a more elaborate agenda builder into your streaming platform.
6. Chunky, concise, on-demand content attracts maximum attention.
Attendees typically have to cram an online experience into an already packed workday. This is a dramatic change from a trade show attendee that has left his or her job and home to devote several days to an in-person exhibition. Therefore, Mouradian asserts that unless your audience is willing to stop everything for your event, you should probably break your offerings into easily digested chunks and distribute them on demand (if not initially, then eventually).

Attendees should be able to ingest your content when their schedules allow, not only when you dictate. Sancie Nakarat, senior director of global marketing communications at Accuray Inc., also notes that 20 minutes was an optimal chunk of viewing time for her audience. Devised to launch a new product, her company's stand-alone virtual experience was slated for a 23-minute runtime, but attendance started dropping off in earnest at around the 20-minute mark.

Pre-Event Planning
There are countless components of an effective digital-event plan. But sources proffered insight into three important factors: attendance projections, staff planning, and the time required for quality assurance.
7. Predicting attendance numbers is a crapshoot at best.
Going into a live trade show or corporate event, planners usually have a good idea of how many people will attend based on previous iterations and current registration figures. With online endeavors, however, attendees sometimes register a mere seconds before they start and join – or drop out of – them at any point along the way. Plus, promoting new online events via mainly digital methods has some inherent variability. If one influencer happens to tweet about your event, promotions could go viral and registration could skyrocket. Similarly, if nobody picks up your press release and key influencers ignore your promos, registration could plummet.

For York, predicting the number of people that would register for and tune in to Red Hat's virtual world was incredibly difficult. "We didn't have anything to benchmark off of because this was brand new territory for both us and potential attendees. During planning, we assumed that the switch from paid to free would drive an increase in interest, but it went beyond our expectations," he says. The key, then, is to incorporate flexibility in your platform, staffing, etc. to allow for far more and far fewer attendees than you might initially anticipate.

8. Overstaff and overtrain.
Along these same lines, Tracy Collins, marketing communication manger with Huber Engineered Woods LLC, found that predicting the number of staffers required during a virtual experience was almost as troublesome as determining the quantity of attendees. "We moved our six-hour, in-person educational series online via a number of Zoom webinars," she says. "Not long into the testing phase we found out that running the technology effectively takes way more staff than you'd think." Tragic technology snafus sometimes require a gaggle of geeks to wrangle, and if the bottom falls out of a live event, you don't have time to locate the nerd herd. Plus, if your encounter has any type of built-in attendee interaction, you need additional staff to handle an onslaught just in case attendance spikes beyond projected figures. The lesson is to overstaff your experience and cut people from the roster as necessary. Nakarat also stresses that staff training for this specific environment is key. "Early in our planning we realized that any customer-facing personnel should be trained well ahead of the launch so they can provide key messaging, answer frequently asked questions, and offer counter arguments or nullifying tactics in case an attendee goes off the rails."
9. Quality assurance requires more time than you think.
"The more complex your event... the more time is needed to verify it was implemented correctly," York says. A typical quality check should involve everything from proofing the promotional materials and social-media campaigns to verifying that speakers' bios and headshots match their session description and that videos are loading at optimal speed. Regardless of which vendor you use, it's your name on the experience. Therefore, it's your responsibility to check and recheck for accuracy. And doing so likely takes more time and manpower than you've allotted.

Measurement and Analytics
Digital events are the bomb when it comes to metrics, as almost every click can be measured and tracked. The trick to the click, though, is that you need to plan and manage your measurement tactics from the start rather than trying to extract some figures after the experience.
10. Try to add analytics even if your platform doesn't support it.
Becky Schneider, senior manager of corporate events at Maxar Technologies Inc., recently turned her exhibit into an interactive online experience. However, when her team purchased the exhibit platform, one important tracking element wasn't automatically included. "The way the platform was set up, we could pull a registration list, but we couldn't track how many people clicked on each interactive, how long they spent, whether they bounced, etc.," she says. "So my internal team worked with the provider to add UTM codes (i.e., identifiers attached to URLs to track sources, mediums, or campaigns) for all interaction points." This allowed her to measure total hits per interactive, time spent at each one, etc. Next time, though, she hopes to track the path of each individual from log in through his or her unique journey.
11. You can't measure after the fact.
Just as with Google Analytics, you can't track virtual encounters in reverse. That is, you can't measure anything until you set up your metric parameters, and once you do, you can't look back in time. Measuring digital engagements can only be accomplished from the initiation point forward. For virtual events and exhibits, then, "opting for metrics after the event is problematic," Mouradian says. "If the analytics aren't set up to capture the data from the onset of the event, the information doesn't exist. We can't dig into the past, and unlike at live events, there is no formal data capture." Therefore, if there is any chance that you will want metrics – ever – put the analysis wheels in motion before you launch the event.
12. Your measurement tactics need testing, too.
While Schneider was able to measure a ton of data via the UTM codes, a nugget or two slipped through her grasp early on. "On the first day of the event, we lost some valuable information because some of the UTMs weren't tracking properly," she says. "Thankfully, we were monitoring the analytics as attendees perused the site, and fairly quickly we noticed that some interactives were getting zero traffic while others were off the charts." After a few quick calls, she and her team solved the glitch, and measurement continued as expected.

Live and Taped Content
When it comes to sharing live and prerecorded content, everyone knows rehearsals and speaker preparation are paramount. Still, our sources learned a thing or two regarding how to best execute both formats.
13. Even seasoned speakers need multiple rehearsals.
As Collins prepped speakers for the webinars, she soon understood that a quick run-through wasn't going to cut it. "Speakers in this environment aren't just relaying information in front of a crowd," she says. "There are so many other considerations that even highly paid public speakers need several rehearsals." For example, to one degree or another many presenters need to utilize totally new technology, interact with the camera and other speakers, manage the Q&A process, wrangle the chat function, and not only talk coherently but also refer to their presentation visuals – all while being uber conscious of their body language and maybe the sleeping dog and two toddlers in the next room. The more presenters rehearse in the desired location and with the required technology, the better the experience will be for attendees.
14. Faking a live presentation takes careful work.
Due to the perils of live presentations, York's team decided to prerecord 90 percent of the summit's content. Still, generating continuity across 140 breakout sessions took a tremendous amount of planning and a ton of time. Through the process, the team learned that they needed to create consistency in filming to carry off the "live" effect. Overall, you'll likely want presentations to have general continuity in terms of everything from backgrounds, music, and text to presenters' attire and the distance they're situated from the camera. While none of these factors are particularly difficult to execute, it takes time to think through each one and enlist the cooperation of your presenters.
15. Rehearsals involve more than just running the lines.
Through her speaking experience, Mouradian learned a better understanding of what an effective rehearsal entails. After she and her co-presenter ran through their content off site, they convened in the same locale from where their live presentation would be broadcast. After familiarizing themselves with the technology, they rehearsed their session a few times. Finally, they taped a presentation and then watched it back. "This gave us the opportunity to understand what parts of the technology were giving us fits and to better monitor our body language," she says. "There are things you can do in an in-person presentation that look silly on camera. For example, fast hand movements can be very distracting on-screen." And as an added bonus, the taped rehearsal gave organizers a Plan B just in case the live feed went down during or prior to the event.

Interaction and Engagement
If you're trying to replicate the results of many face-to-face events, you'll likely need some kind of interface for digitally interacting with attendees. Sources offer three tips for effective online engagements.
16. Interacting with attendees doesn't have to be scary.
Many marketers shy away from interactive options such as polls, live comments, etc. because they're afraid of negative feedback. But Mouradian and others feel interaction is vital if you're trying to maintain relationships, promote a sense of community, or relay the voice of your brand. The key, they've discovered, is to control the incoming content to some degree. McClure, for example, turned on the chat function during a presentation but also had a staff member at the ready to respond to comments and/or shut it down if feedback became inappropriate. Meanwhile, other sources offered live chats but had a bevvy of staff on hand to support and "mute" remarks as necessary.
17. A help desk can be helpful.
If you don't feel comfortable taking incoming comments, at the very least consider adding a help desk. Despite your best instructions and navigational tools, attendees can have questions about everything from platform functions to product upgrades. York offered a "conference concierge" live chat throughout the two-day event, which helped point people in the right direction and added a personal element. By giving attendees some way to contact the host, they'll likely feel as if they're part of an experience as opposed to an observer of it.
18. You could probably use a facilitator or emcee.
If your event includes a speaker, an emcee or facilitator could prove useful. For her speaking session, Mouradian was assigned a facilitator who sat off camera and monitored the chat feed. She then signaled speakers when there was a question or comment from an attendee. "It made for a smoother session and allowed my co-presenter and me to focus on our content," she says. Similarly, other sources discovered the value of emcees, many of whom are trained to pull online audiences into the experience, "throw" the feed from one presenter to the next, and fill awkward gaps in the action. E