Frequently Asked Questions

What is a virtual event?

 

A virtual event has many of the benefits of a face-to-face event – it has a full conference program, exhibitors and opportunities to network – from the comfort of your office! Attendees simply register for the event and logon from their computer when the event goes live.

These highly interactive events can support an event at a physical location or be used in place of one. Becoming more and more popular each year, virtual events are an economical and environmentally friendly way to bring like-minded people together into a virtual environment in a variety of formats such as tradeshows, career fairs, seminars or resource centers. They allow companies to deliver live or pre-recorded presentations, educational information, marketing collateral, training materials, and more to interested attendees.

Companies are also able communicate with users through interactive tools such as text or video chat, email, post-presentation Q&A and attendees can network with one another to share their interests. Additionally, virtual events have proven to be extremely valuable to marketers since every activity can be tracked and analyzed.

While virtual events can be limited to one or a few days, an advantage over a physical event is that they can often remain available after the live event is over in order to allow attendees access to the valuable resources available there or to host additional presentations throughout the year.

Why should you host a virtual event?

  • Generate revenue by selling virtual booths to your exhibitors. The Exhibit Hall(s) house exhibitors’ virtual booths and allow attendees to interact with exhibitors and view their valuable resources/educational materials. You can also generate revenue through advertising opportunities which allow your sponsors to purchase banner ads throughout the event. The ads can even be targeted to specific attendees.
  • To measure the ROI of your Virtual Trade Show and provide rich, detailed leads to exhibitors, attendee metrics are provided with reports that include information such as: booth visitors, what content and presentations they viewed, how long they stayed, all chat and e-mail activity and how many times they returned. With the chat, e mail and business-card exchange communications, along with the user-generated content of group chat, blog and message forums, the marketing value of the attendees exponentially increases.
  • Since all participants can attend a Virtual Trade Show from the comfort and convenience of their offices, you can eliminate the time, frustration and cost associated with traveling, while increasing the size of the audience and producing events more frequently.

What types of companies benefit from virtual events?

Those who would like to:

  • Build Brand Awareness: Expand into a new customer segment and showcase new products through interactive demos
  • Strengthen Reputation and Relationships: Promote industry expertise and thought leadership and/or train customers or internal staff
  • Generate and Nurture Qualified Leads: Touch users more often through combining physical and virtual events, develop deeper prospect profiles through activity tracking and personalize content based on interests
  • Retain Customers: Share new product upgrades and best practices, make them better at their jobs through idea exchange and networking and offer rewards for loyalty
  • Gain Insight: Get valuable feedback through interactive focus groups and offer a “first look” of new products or features for power users/buyers

Why should you use UBM Studios?

UBM brings connects the entire virtual events solution by bringing together an engaging user interface and functionality, a powerful platform, hands on production services, the right content, audience recruitment and management, and superior reporting.

For more information, read below.

Platform:

  • UBM Studios Virtual Events utilize one of the industry’s most flexible, robust and secure virtual event platforms to deliver events for our clients.
  • Enterprise-ready platform that can easily plug-and-play with third party technologies
  • Scalable and reliable platform that can support tens of thousands of concurrent streams and users.
  • Comprehensive wizard-based show building and booth building tools which allow quick and easy production of virtual environments.
  • Real-time interaction via Web 2.0 and social technologies, such as: forums, blogs, text and video chat and integration with popular social networking sites.

Experience:

  • Our vast experience delivering engaging virtual events means that we not only deliver on time and with as little impact on your resources as possible.
  • UBM has long been working to connect communities in the technology, financial, medical, shipping, education, building and property industries.
  • We offer the right type of environments to serve our client’s needs, such as: recruiting, lead generation, corporate communication, training, demonstrations and more.
  • Our global coverage has allowed us to deliver successful events in North America, Europe, and Asia and we can also support APAC, EMEA and Latin America.
  • We work closely with our clients to ensure the strategy and execution is on target by understanding and responding to your needs as well as sharing best practices.
  • We will provide guidelines as to which types of content would be most effective for your audience, webcast and presentation lengths, topics and timeframes for your group chats, etc..

Creative:

  • Choose to select from our existing design library or create a unique interface.
  • Custom branding and enhanced features are available.
  • We make sure that your audience is engaged through the use of an intuitive interface, appealing visuals, and reliable communication/presentation mechanisms.

Production and Support Services:

  • UBM Studios’ Production Team takes the lead and works with your team to manage the timeline, setup, and configuration required to deliver your event efficiently.
  • We also handle training and support for you, your exhibitors and attendees prior to, during and after the show.
  • Our team is here to help you monetize your show through defining tiered exhibitor booth packages and in-event advertising packages.
  • We also provide materials to help your exhibitors understand the value of virtual events and the benefits they will receive from participating in your show. These include demonstrations, marketing support materials and live or on-demand training.
  • Live IM, email and telephone support for event attendees
  • “In event” concierges to help initiate conversations and encourage interaction.

Reporting:

  • From login/registration, which can be hooked up to your existing system to the ability to view and/or export reporting data, the platform was developed with ease of use and integration in mind.
  • You will have access to all attendee activity within your show including profile info, communication transcripts, booth visits/downloads, presentations attended and more.
  • You can rank leads and control what information is made available to your exhibitors and attendees.

What should exhibitors know?

In addition to attendees contact information, exhibitors learn what documents they clicked on and downloaded, what they chatted about with their booth staff, how much time they spent in their booth, at the show – and more. Every action at the show can be tracked, reports are transparent and ROI is easily calculated – these are supercharged sales leads. And it doesn’t end there. The show is archived for six months from the date of the live event, which means it will continue to generate leads for you!

Just like exhibiting at a physical event, reserving a virtual booth for this event will give exhibitors valuable exposure to key decision makers. Building a virtual booth is quick, easy, and fun, often taking as little at 60 minutes, start to finish. Pick a booth style, upload your logo, choose colors to match your branding, link to your content and you’re done. Leverage your existing content within your booth including web pages, videos, whitepapers, giveaways, demonstrations, fact sheets and more.

Communicating with your booth staff is done in real time with chat or email, In addition, your booth staff can see attendees as they enter the booth and they can proactively communicate with the booth visitor through chat, email, or virtual business card exchange. At anytime, a booth staffer can search and find other attendees in order to network with them by sending a chat request or email, even if they never enter your booth! Staffing a booth has never been more convenient because you can engage all show prospects from the comfort of your home or office.  You can even do other work while staffing your booth as the event will let you know when an attendee arrives in your booth.

What is the attendee experience like?

After logging in, attendees enter the show lobby where an optional video greeting will welcome them and provide information necessary to enjoy the show. On screen hotspots provide entry to the Exhibit Hall, Auditorium, Resource Center, and Networking Lounge.  Consistent navigation at the top or bottom of the screen provides additional functionality and shortcuts.

The Exhibit Hall gives attendees the ability to browse exhibitor booths, engage in a discussion with a booth representative, and collect information from sponsors.  An exhibitor directory makes it easy to locate specific booths and users just click to enter a booth. Attendees can visit the Auditorium to attend live and on demand webcast presentations and keynotes.  Attendees can conveniently add reminders to their Outlook Calendars, save presentations in their Briefcase, and participate in Live Q&A. The optional Resource Center allows users to access show-wide assets in one convenient location. Exhibitors can choose to display their content in this space. The Networking Lounge offers communication features including scheduled discussions, message boards, chat, and tools to build your profile as well as find others to add to your network.

Since attendees can use the tools in the event to save their favorite content and communications, as well as connect with company representatives and similar users, the ability to come back to the event helps to ensure that attendees get the most out of the event.

 

What type of products do you offer?

UBM Studios offers Virtual Environments which are appropriate solutions for lead generation, corporate communication, training and more. The various applications we offer our customers include environments such as:

For more information, please visit the Virtual Product Suite section of UBMstudios.com

 

How do I get more information or start the process of creating a virtual event?

At any time, please visit UBMStudios.com for more information and to download sell sheets, watch product demos and more. If you’d like to discuss a potential virtual event with us, please contact Michele McPhail at 773-910-9110 or Michele.McPhail@ubm.com.