Event marketing is an important part of business success. You can achieve a lot by attending or hosting events. If you are an event planner or business, you should learn how to host a virtual exhibition.

Virtual meetings and exhibitions are increasingly become the norm in business world.

You can be able to leverage on exhibitions to promote your products and services. This can be a great platform to generate business leads.

Virtual exhibitions are a great way to create value to your event attendees or delegates.

It is an innovative way for brands or companies to showcase their products and services to event audience.

To be successful, you should understand how to host a virtual exhibition in a cost effective way.

In this article, you will learn the ideas, tips and strategies on how to create a successful virtual exhibition. This works when you have money, and even when you do not have a lot of money.

This is your guide on how to make a virtual exhibition, virtual exhibition platforms to use, and virtual exhibition ideas as well as how you can run an online exhibition event today.

What is a Virtual Exhibition?

To be able to organize or host a virtual exhibition event, you should first understand what it is all about.

A virtual or online exhibition is an event that is hosted on a web-based platform for purposes of showcasing products or services.

Individuals and business leverage the power of internet to demonstrate their products or services to an audience accessing the virtual event.

How to Host a Virtual Exhibition

Now that you understand what a virtual exhibition is, now let me help you organize one.

This is the approach on how you can host a virtual exhibition.  It includes things you should consider;

1. Undertake research
2. Create a plan
3. Set up an event budget
4. Pricing strategy
5. Choose a virtual platform
6. Create marketing collateral
7. Build a team
8. Streamline registration process
9. Promote the event
10. List target exhibitors
11. Design virtual booths
12. Create an experience
13. Leverage technology
14. Look for sponsors or partners
15. Event day preparedness
16. Create networking opportunities
17. Post event activities

Creating or making a virtual exhibition is not easy and takes time to put together a successful event.

This applies to all virtual events you might consider organizing.

17 Tips on How to Host Virtual Exhibition Events

If you are interested in hosting a virtual exhibition event, this is your step-by-step guide to do it well..

These are ideas, tips and strategies you can use when organizing a virtual exhibition events successfully.

1. Undertake research

Research is very important when it comes to hosting virtual exhibition events.

You want to find out if your idea has a market.

It is also critical to establish whether you are going to get exhibitors and partners to your event.

There is also the research about the technology and platforms you are going to use for your virtual exhibition event.

As you can see, research plays a big role in ensuring you create or host a successful virtual exhibition event.

2. Create a plan

In order to organize a great virtual event, you should create a plan of action.

They say failure to plan is planning to fail.

It is true when it comes to virtual exhibition events.

You should create a plan that stipulates the things you should do before, during and after the event.

3. Set up an event budget

Event budgeting is very important in the events industry.

You should create a budget for your virtual exhibition event. It should include your expenses and income.

Expenses should cover all items where you need to spend money.

It could include payment fees for your virtual event platforms, cost of internet, hiring designers and other costs associated with your virtual event.

You should capture your sources of income. How are you going to make money with your virtual exhibition event?

Things to include here are ticket sales, exhibition fees and sponsorship among others.

4. Pricing strategy

When it comes to virtual exhibition events, you should have a clear pricing strategy.

Based on the research you undertook, you already know the kind of customers you are going to invite.

This should guide you on how much you are going to charge them.

You pricing strategy should be optimum, ensuring you do not leave any money on the table.

5. Choose a virtual platform

One of the key decisions when it comes to virtual events is the choice of platform to use.

When it comes to virtual exhibition events, you should pick the right virtual platform.

This should be informed by a number of factors including price, features, number of people it can host and functionality among others.

6. Create marketing collateral

It is important to have the marketing materials for your event. Having such marketing collateral will help you when it comes to promoting your event.

Have a designer create for you a brochure and online banners.

Exhibition events are important to many people. You should create brochures, flyers and land pages to attract more attendees to your event.

7. Build a team

It is almost impossible to host a successful event without a team.

Building a team is an integral part of producing a great virtual exhibition event.

The beauty of this is that the team can be located in different countries across the globe.

8. Streamline registration process

A seamless registration process is critical to the success of an online event.

You should create or provide an easy way for event attendees to register and make payments.

it is important to ensure that potential exhibitors can also register. You should allow exhibitors to also book their virtual exhibition booths when they register

9. Promote the event

Creating an event is one thing, but people knowing about it is quite another.

This is where event promotion comes in.

You should allocate resources to promote your event to your target market.

Promoting the virtual exhibition event allows you to attract event attendees including more exhibitors.

10. List target exhibitors

A virtual exhibition is not complete without exhibitors.

You need brands and business to take up exhibition booths to showcase their products or services.

To succeed in attracting exhibitors to your event, you should create a hit list of target exhibitors.

Have a list of the potential exhibitors you want to invite.

11. Design virtual booths

It is important that you create and design virtual booths.

The idea is to provide an immersive experience to your virtual event attendees.

You can use the designs to attract exhibitors to you event.

12. Create an experience

When creating a virtual event, ability to provide an experience to participants is very important.

You should find ways to ensure delegates, sponsors and exhibitors enjoy the event.

It is your responsibility to make them feel and experience the virtual exhibition event.

You can use modern technology like 3D and virtual reality to bring the exhibition to life.

13. Leverage technology

In today’s world, technology is playing a very big role in business.

As an event planner, you can leverage technology to deliver world-class exhibition events.

Look for virtual platforms, video conferencing tools and even payment processing platforms to have a smooth event.

14. Look for sponsors or partners

As you plan to host a virtual exhibition, you should find ways to get sponsors and partners.

This is one of the ways an exhibition event makes money.

Having sponsors or partners who are willing to pay will held you fundraise for your event.

The money you raise will help to finance any gaps in your events budget.

15. Event day preparedness

On the day of your virtual exhibition event, you should ensure everything is ready.

A key component to this is having back-up power solution or sources.

It is also important to ensure all your gadgets are charged to avoid them going off during the event.

16. Create networking opportunities

A virtual exhibition event does not have face-to-face interaction.

However, you can still provide an opportunity for attendees to network and engage with each other.

You can do this by creating virtual networking opportunities as part of your virtual exhibition event.

This is another way to provide an immersive experience to your event participants.

17. Post event activities

While the event days is critical, what you do after the event can determine whether your attendees will come again.

You should provide any material that you promised to give after the event. this could include notes from speakers and a list of participants.

It is possible that you recorded the event and you can share those video clips after the event.

Reach out to your sponsors and partners to thank them for supporting your event.

Extend your gratitude to all exhibitors and participants to your virtual exhibition events. Let them know you appreciate them.

Also, it is time to do your profit and loss account for find out if your event made a profit.

For event planners, virtual exhibition events is one of the ways to generate an income for their business.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many benefits of hosting a virtual exhibition to a business and to an event planner.

You cannot compare virtual exhibitions to in-person exhibitions.

By hosting a virtual exhibition event, you reach a wider audience, get more participants, generate more leads and revenues.

This is why it is important to learn how to host a virtual exhibition. You can get a very high return on your investment.

Proper planning, right strategy and leveraging technology are some of the things you need to host a virtual exhibition.

For an event planner, being good at organizing or hosting virtual exhibitions can be a big source of revenues for your business.

You can be hired to organize virtual events for small enterprises and also the larger businesses.

It is my hope that this resource has helped you learn and understand how to host a virtual exhibition in a seamless manner.