Virtual trade shows have been the first choice for enterprises to display their latest products and services. But, when the pandemic broke out, everyone got puzzled regarding the continuity of their business. However, with the help of modern tools and digitalization, we got introduced to a new world of virtual trade shows.
What is a 3D Virtual Trade Show?
A virtual trade show takes place over the Internet where different exhibitors come forward to showcase their products, services, or content. In 2021, 3D virtual trade shows are being conducted in huge numbers. They provide endless benefits of cutting on venue expenses, traveling, food & accommodation arrangements, and more. The good news is, you can obtain more leads and deliver immersive event experiences from the comfort of your desired remote location.
Key Features of a 3D virtual trade show
Remarkable 3D stage
Leaving an impactful impression right at the beginning of the event can take your audiences in awe. A virtual stage is the heart of any online event. The more attractive it is, the better is the attendee experience. Hence, this is why you should always look for a virtual trade show platform that provides a customizable and user-friendly interface. To begin with, you can include 3D teleportation, a virtual lobby, dynamic banners, animated light at the lobby, GIFs, and more. These features are tactics to replicate the experiences of a physical trade show. You can also apply the same concept for hybrid trade shows that includes virtual attendees in a significant ratio.
Customized branding
The motive of exhibitors at any 3D virtual fair show is to obtain more qualified leads and drive sales. For this, they need to lure maximum attendees to their online trade show and virtual booths. With virtual attendees, the attention time is too short. So, exhibitors need to use attractive layouts and templated to stand at any virtual event. They can include impressive imagery, eye-catching graphics, and videos of their company. It will also help create unique brand experiences. Exhibitors can choose to keep brochures and resources downloadable, so the attendees can know more about their brand or organization.
Prepare quality content
Content plays a significant role in raising the engagement level at your online trade show. Hence, try looking for incredible speakers who can elevate the level of your trade shows. If speakers can stimulate a spark of interest among the attendees, it intuitively increases their dwell time on the platform. Make sure to keep the content easily accessible and readable by the attendees. Be it videos, PDFs, documents, files, or presentations, remember to keep all of them in a simple and understandable language.
On-event announcements
Just like a physical event, it is important to keep the participants aware of everything that’s going on at the event. Sending text or video notifications about the ongoing and upcoming sessions can allow you to welcome more participation at the sessions. You can use push notifications or pop-up features to keep your attendees notified at all times. It is an effective method to enhance the platform experience for online visitors.
Live chat, audio, & video features
It is vital to let the attendees connect and interact with each other to make your virtual conference, exhibition, expo, or trade show even more successful. If attendees and exhibitors can chat in real-time, it can fulfill their expectations of attending the event. Best platforms for virtual trade shows offer endless opportunities for attendees, speakers, and exhibitors to connect and interact. It includes business card exchange, B2B meetings scheduler, virtual networking tables, and more.
Customized 3D booth
Virtual booths are an excellent way for exhibitors to get prospect leads. People can choose to customize their booths based on their business needs. With ideal virtual event technologies, exhibitors can choose to enrich booths with their brand logo, color, and content. It is a great way to drive more audiences to your booth and convert them into your potential customers.
E-commerce platform
Integrating an e-commerce platform in your virtual environment can offer on-spot sales opportunities. Exhibitors can choose to keep a 3D view of their products. It will give a better understanding to the audience, and if they prefer, they can make on-spot deals and purchases.
Gamification
Gamifying a virtual fair show is a great way to add a fun element for your attendees. Organizing a scavenger hunt, temple run, spin the wheel, or crosswords can make your online event more realistic.
How to Host a Successful Virtual Trade Show?
Step 1: Be clear with your goals
To take your online trade show in the right direction, you need to know the purpose of hosting this event. It is important to understand the viewpoints of your potential attendees and host an event keeping their expectations as a priority. Before planning the strategies, ask a few questions to yourself, if the event is for boosting the brand value, increasing sales and revenues, or for simply maximizing your global reach.
If you are clear with your intentions, you’ll be more confident aware of the features and tools you want to include at your event.
Step 2: Be careful while selecting your virtual trade show venue
The virtual stage plays a vital role in elevating the level of your virtual and hybrid trade show. So, do your research and make sure to choose a platform that can seamlessly incorporate your event ideas to ensure the success of your trade show. For a better understanding, let us learn about the key features of an ideal virtual platform;
- Easy-to-use interface
- Provides customized features
- 100% secure and trustworthy
- Offers interactive tools like live polls, surveys, Q&As, engagement zone, live chat
- Allows attendees, exhibitors, and speakers to have 2-way communications and make new connections
- Takes a follow-up
- Provides detailed reporting and insights
Step 3: Make your online trade show super engaging
Engagement is one significant aspect that can deliver remarkable and memorable experiences to the attendees. The more attendees can learn, interact, engage, and connect at your event, the better is their event experience. Consider getting noteworthy speakers onboard, keep short sessions, include exciting games, leverage on-event announcements, conduct frequent polls, surveys, and Q&As to recreate the experiences of an in-person event.
While talking about the content, make it short, simple, and to the point. For virtual participants, their attention period is quite less. Hence, to eliminate attendee drop-off, keep your evergreen content accessible through multiple documents, PDFs, presentations, and videos.
Step 4: Create a stunning virtual stage
A virtual stage should be the replica of a physical environment to let people connect and enjoy. Following the latest industry trends, designing a 3D environment with the essential features is currently the unique selling point of many event platforms. Therefore, look for features like a virtual lobby, dynamic banners, GIFs, and animated light at the lobby to add more spark to your virtual tradeshows. Consider adding impressive graphics, images, and videos to make your virtual stage super attractive.
Step 5: Strategize your marketing efforts
Promotion and marketing are the keys to enhance the outreach to a large group of people worldwide. Here, social media channels play a very important role. Create event-specific hashtags and leverage them for the posts, images, and videos you upload on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. It will spontaneously spread awareness about your online trade show and excite more people to register. Practice email marketing, SEO-optimized blogs, and try running ads to let everybody know that the event is happening. Try including striking subject line and call-to-action buttons to avoid missing out on any new joiner.
Step 6: Live-streaming and Social Media Integration
Social media is the heart of the digital world. So, try creating a buzz among the people by posting relevant pictures and videos about your trade show in advance. With some time left for the event to go live, you can reveal the names of speakers and exhibitors to welcome more participation.
Another effective practice to make your virtual fair or show even more exciting is by following multi-channel live-streaming. You can take your event live on different channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube to create hype among your followers and fan base.
Step 7: Meaningful analytics and reporting
Every event has a definite set of KPIs that is tracked to measure the event’s success. The virtual trade show software is liable to help you with attendee footprint data, the count of downloadable content, the hotspots of the event, and more. Through this detailed reporting, you’ll be able to assess if you could meet the event and business objectives.
Virtual Trade Show Ideas
Apart from the traditional virtual and hybrid trade show ideas, let us walk you through some of the latest ideas that are creating a buzz in town;
- Virtual Food Show: Online food shows are a novel way to get global vendors, manufacturers, suppliers together at a time. It is a great opportunity for everyone to enhance their brand value and maximize their global reach.
- Virtual Car Show: An all-in-one virtual platform can seamlessly organize a successful virtual car expo by offering interactive tools or real-time chat features. It becomes easier for exhibitors to get qualified leads and increases the profits or revenues.
- Virtual Technology Show: It is an excellent occasion to reveal the latest developments to a global audience through an online technology show. Getting different industry experts or tech specialists adds more value to your event. You can also consider doing a virtual product launch of your brand to reveal a wide spectrum of an audience about the latest product or model introduced in the market.
- Virtual Property Show: Virtual property shows or virtual property expos are gaining immense popularity in recent times. Everyone’s loving the idea of visiting the property or having a 360-degree tour of the same from their remote locations.
Virtual Trade Show Checklist:
- Identify your event and business goals
- Choose your online trade show platform wisely
- Prepare engaging content for the audience
- Schedule your virtual trade show carefully
- Include excellent engaging and networking opportunities
- Strategize your marketing efforts
- Live-stream your event
- Take a follow-up
- Obtain detailed reporting and analytics
- Keep the virtual show live even after it’s over
Final Word
Today, companies and businesses can host scalable, flexible, and customized trade shows for a large group of people. It is an excellent medium to reach a global audience and showcase your latest products, services, or content. With the opportunity of a virtual stage, event organizers have become super creative and thoughtful in delivering unique and bizarre event experiences.
