In the best of times, a well-organized customer event or trade show requires robust project management paired with the ability to juggle priorities of various stakeholders. And 2020 wasn't the best of times. The year saw event planners furloughed and then left scrambling to adapt to new events, new sponsorships, and a (seemingly) new digital world. It's probably easier than not to get discouraged during the disruptive days of COVID-19. So one can almost imagine the Dalai Lama talking directly to technology events professionals when he said, "Choose to be optimistic, it feels better." And that was our approach at Flexera Software LLC, an information technology company.

Beyond the usual array of hurdles present for any events team, we had an additional one. Just before the pandemic struck, Flexera had started developing a new business category: Technology Value Optimization (TVO), an emerging category of IT products that gives visibility into a company's entire IT asset estate across on-premises data centers, virtual machines, and physical devices, as well as the cloud environment.

But how, in face of 2020's rapidly shifting demands, were we to produce or participate in events that yielded engagement, leads, and sales? We were confident that we could, but there were still a lot of unknowns. How could we deliver our message? Would our new online events strategy help get the word out as we shifted from in-person to virtual events? Would our optimism pay off? Spoiler alert: Yes.

Flexera's strategy going into virtual events was to guarantee that our goals of lead generation and brand awareness were still met. We knew that the traditional content used during face-to-face events wouldn't all translate well in the virtual world. Our hope was that by creating short, engaging content, our goals would be met through any virtual event in which we participated - whether an industry event or a Flexera-hosted one.

Three Lessons Worth Sharing:

1. Well-structured online events can drive excellent attendance.
The International Data Corp. reported in July 2020 that half of the events moving online had decreased the number of attendees. However, nearly half (46 percent) saw a boost in attendance. That was in part because virtual events remove many of the complications (e.g., travel cost and time commitment) often cited by the would-be participants who aren't able to attend in-person events. Well-structured online events can welcome fresh faces who are motivated to engage - and who don't require large budgets or departmental approval to do so.

By the end of the year, we saw creative adaptations. For example, we participated in Amazon Web Services Inc.'s virtual AWS re:Invent - a free, three-week virtual conference focused on cloud computing. AWS took a new approach to reach more people by "following the sun." They offered repeated broadcasts during multiple time zones over the span of several weeks to make global attendance convenient. And although AWS hasn't released final figures yet, it expected to engage closer to 250,000 people, compared to the 60,000 attendees at the 2019 in-person event. That's a massive audience! This expanded approach meant that Flexera had booth traffic virtually around the clock during the entire event.

2. The new medium offers fresh opportunities.
The new format of virtual events frightened many vendors, causing them to limit their participation or withdraw entirely. That meant some of us had more opportunities to make an outsized impact. For example, we noticed many vendors dropped out of sponsorships because of perceived limitations of the digital medium. Fewer vendors competing for participants' focus, paired with a boom in attendance, helped us gather a bumper crop of leads.

One example that yielded such a payoff came from an annual symposium for CIOs and IT executives. We participated as a vendor, as we had in the past. The 2019 event was a face-to-face conference; in 2020, it was a four-day virtual event where we had an opportunity to maximize our presence, and we reaped the benefits. Compared to 2019, we saw a 217-percent jump in attendance, had more than seven times the number of attendees at Flexera's learning session, and entered more than four and a half times the number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into SalesForce.

3. Hybrid models will be the norm moving forward.
There were so many advantages to online that hybrid models are certain to be the new normal - even once travel and in-person interactions are again normalized. It's long been established that conferences offer a lot of value in face-to-face settings. But 2020 proved that there is significant value for some people in staying home and consuming exactly what they want from a conference.

The key for event marketing departments is to keep the needs and preferences of stakeholders in mind. The experience for a virtual attendee must be different than the in-person attendee. We are now prepping for three different types of audiences: in-person, virtual, and hybrid. The norm has shifted in the minds of all involved - organizers, vendors, attendees, and speakers alike. Anticipating their needs and planning accordingly will not only deliver robust, engaging events. It will feel better.

Last year required adaptability and optimism. The new year is full of promise. With the rollout of a vaccine comes the hope that in-person events will again be possible. But the lessons of 2020 are worth holding onto, no matter what shape future events take.