For all the bad of 2020, it did teach us one important thing – We can adapt!
As individuals have a knack for thriving—we’ve overcome war, natural disasters, economic calamities, we even defeated the evil that was 1990’s fashion. But as 2020 reminded us, thriving as a business organization is another challenge entirely—particularly in sales.
Virtual meetings and events—once a novelty—have become the norm, losing much of their luster. So, it is through the lens of adaptability that we see 2021 as an opportunity for sales organizations to rethink how virtual meetings and webinars are being used to engage their teams and customers.
Why You Should Focus on the Production Details
One of the most important ways to immediately set your presentations apart is to focus on the elements that make for an engaging virtual event.
Let’s start with the sales story you’re trying to tell. Are your presentation materials telling a compelling narrative with clear, concise text and bold imagery? A hastily created PowerPoint with dense blocks of text or generic images will disengage any audience—or worse—undercut your message. Make sure you’re being thoughtful and strategic about the execution of your materials.
The same goes for the look of your virtual event. Video production matters. Are you spending the necessary pre-production time working with your presenters on their virtual presence? This includes making sure the primary visual elements like the camera framing, the lighting, and the setting are spot on. Moving chairs, desks, and webcams, adjusting curtains or blinds, even moving presenters to a different location must be considered when making your virtual event look its best.
And don’t forget about the structure. Does the format of your virtual meeting or event fit your story? Or does it need to be adjusted? For one of our clients, we tweaked their virtual event’s format to mimic a talk show. Presenters were “guests” and the main presenter acted as host asking questions. It broke up the monotony that can sometimes happen when presenting abstract topics and added a human element. Don’t be afraid to get creative…and allocate the time and resources to ensure it’s polished.
Why You Need Flexibility
Once you’ve got your production details in order, you should still remain open to change. For instance, a pharma client of ours wanted to host a virtual lunch ‘n learn webinar. While they had specific ideas of how they wanted to start, they also understood the value of flexibility and being prepared to make the necessary tweaks to prevent their sales story from going stale.
Sure enough. What started as a one-day event grew into a weekly series. This allowed us to break up the content into easier-to-digest segments while reducing the size of the audience into a more intimate, interactive-friendly size—hooking 20 people for an hour is easier than holding the attention of 2000 people for 6 hours. Additionally, each episode in the series evolved each week based upon audience feedback, presenter feedback, and input from us, the production partner. Content was added/removed and repositioned in the presentation, some live segments were now pre-recorded to save time and help less experienced presenters or those in different time zones. Nothing was sacred. In the end, this approach created a feedback loop allowing change on a weekly basis. By being flexible and open to recommendations, a more productive and engaging virtual meeting experience was able to be created. Viewers that were less interested one week were now more engaged and interested the next week, forming a deeper connection between our presenters and their HCP audience members.
Why You Need to Evaluate and Evolve
Evolve or become irrelevant. We saw firsthand the value of that adage throughout our virtual meeting production experiences last year. For us, it reinforced the essential role of evaluation, feedback, and agility in the process of creating experiences that resonate with audiences.
With virtual meetings and webinars, the ability to interact with your audience and receive real-time feedback has increased dramatically. Attendees can communicate in their own style and are much more willing to do so via chat windows, separate breakout sessions, quizzes, polls, surveys, etc. Take full advantage. Listen to the responses, evaluate, then use your finding to evolve the next iteration of your virtual event or even your presentations and larger sales/marketing strategies.
With new safety measures in place, in-person meetings and face-to-face events are coming back in limited forms. However, we believe that hybrid or fully virtual options will continue to play a prominent role in most business organizations. Investing in improving and polishing your organization’s virtual strategy will not only help in the immediate term but will also support your organization’s long-range sales goals as well.