The need for a strategic approach to online events should underpin your decisions, even if you are rushing to get online.

 

Canceled physical events have always been with us, but at the moment, this rare occurrence, seems ever more likely.

Concerns around gathering big groups of people together have led many organisations to look more closely at online events.

Now is the best time for any organisation to think strategically about their online / digital events.

Develop a strategic approach to online events

The thing about being strategic is that it doesn’t take much time. It is not months of careful consideration. It can be. But it shouldn’t be! Especially when external factors are making significant demands on your current events / business strategy.

So in this post, I want to do two things. I will tell you to slow things down, to make sure you make the right decisions as you consider going on line, and secondly once you have done that, encourage you to speed up!!!!!!

Slow things down

For some organisation developing a new strategy for a large part of the business (or the entire business) may only need a few hours discussion, some flip charts, a few reports………..and lots of coffee.

For other companies, it may only be a few days or a couple of weeks. But really this time, considering the strategy behind your decisions, could not be better spent.

Slow down.

You have to slow down.

Don’t jump straight in to live streaming the event you are considering canceling.

Now, as someone who has run large commercial departments, I of course, understand the demands on you and your events.

But I promise you this tiny bit of time slowing down – to ask some strategic questions – will pay you back 100 x, compared to jumping in now and grabbing the first recommended online platform you come across and broadcasting content that was never designed to be broadcast digitally.

And trust me, there is a very big difference between content at physical events and digital events (or there should be!)

As I follow #eventprofs conversations on social media, engage in threads on groups, specifically set up to help organisers jump to online, I have one major concern, and that is:

Many event companies, and those organisations who currently run physical events like associations, will rush to live stream their events, without thinking about the long term impact of those decisions. Without that consideration, they may have already set themselves up to fail.

There are now many organisations looking to add online events to their overall event offering.

For some, online / digital events, will still be a nice to have.

But for many organisations, as fears over public gatherings grow, they will become a necessity.

So please, please slow down.

Talk to other organisers who have run online events. Or get in touch with me. I am able to offer an hour free consultancy on online events.

Now, speed up!

If you are only NOW considering online / digital events, then you are years behind the curve.

The rest of the world has gone digital, so why haven’t you?

If you are holding on to your physical events ,and avoiding the digital push, then you are facing the old, ‘eggs in one basket’ situation.

And those chickens have no doubt come home to roost in the last few weeks.

There are proven paths to realise a digital life for your events.

But there is seldom, ‘no time like the present’, and considering the last few weeks, this is especially true: if you have any kind of events business you have to go digital. And you have to get going!

So, yes, slow down and consider the strategy behind your shift to digital, then get going with it!

I am here to help you take a strategic approach to online events, and I am of course, able to provide consultancy for your online / digital events no matter where you are based. That’s the beauty of online!

Embrace digital content.

 

Here are some places to start

I have decided to help as many of those event organisers as possible by detailing some of the resources we have on online events:

17 Things I learned when I set up my first pure online event, written back in 2017

The Ultimate Online Speakers Brief (a kind of template that you can cut and paste to help your speakers deliver better digital content)

No one pays for online events right? Wrong.

And you can watch this video of a presentation at Event Tech Live back in 2018 – FIVE reasons why online events rock!