Virtual Event Platforms and Simple, Custom Solutions
Trust us, we understand how overwhelming it can be to find a virtual event platform that isn’t a strain on your budget, that doesn’t require years of technical expertise to build out. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice a unique, personalized experience for a regular Zoom meeting simply because you don’t have the budget for a full event platform like Bizzabo, On24, or HopIn. That’s where our custom microsites come in. Simple solutions with more bang for your buck! Wondering when a microsite solution is worth exploring? Here’s our advice…
Minimal Budget
Robust platforms can be a big investment. Many platforms start at a minimum $20k base price and quickly go over $100k. You’ll also need to account for the financial and time investment to build it out with your organization’s brand or theme. You may require graphic design resources to achieve an on-brand attendee interface and experience. A two-hour event may not justify the financial and time commitments required.
Tech Expertise is Not a Core Competency
A virtual event is vastly different from an in-person event. It can be fraught with pitfalls for planners who are inexperienced with the format. Many companies are not clear that the platforms do not provide the technical support necessary to build out your virtual event vision. So while you may have the budget for a full event platform, your team members will need training, either from courses or from a professional event agency, to support them.
Tight Deadline
Upon exploring a full event platform, you may be drawn to all of the bells and whistles and the seemingly easy process of a do-it-yourself, flexible, enterprise-grade platform with the promise of delivering an engaging and impactful event experience. Before you shell out your entire hard-won budget, consider the fact that many event platforms don’t actually come complete with all the resources to make them work the way you envision they’ll work. These major platforms have endless potential, but you should consider them a blank canvas.
Don’t expect that any platform will supply the services to help you build out your virtual event experience from the ground up. In our experience, platforms are over-promising and underdelivering on what they can do while all of the tech support, testing, and technical backup plans fall on you. If you’re under a tight deadline to pull off an impressive virtual event that will leave attendees with a positive experience of your brand, the time-consuming and unreliable nature of these types of platforms may not be worth the stress.
Unique, Personalized Experience
Building out a major platform with a customized brand and event feel can take hundreds of hours. You may be wondering what’s involved in building out a microsite experience and what this solution can easily host. We recommend coming up with a fun, lightweight layout for a website that’s easy to spin up. Creating a single event page that serves as registration and the location of your online event provides a single source for all of your event’s content to get your attendees engaged and excited about the upcoming event. One of our favorite aspects? While you can spin up a single page that includes FAQs, an agenda, and all of the content associated with your event, you can also add additional pages. Fonts, colors, and layout are all left to your discretion so you can be assured you are designing a personalized experience that is unique to your brand.
If you’re curious about creating your own microsite, check out these examples of past microsites we’ve built:
Outsourced Help Needed
We understand that while a microsite involves less technical expertise and time commitment, it can still be a cause for stress and overwhelm if you’re lacking the resources and skills needed to reach your end goal or if you’re unsure of where to begin. Our team has created several skimmed looks that are fit for any virtual event format—if you’re uncomfortable starting from scratch; consider them a jumping-off point. From company picnics to holiday parties to corporate meetings or conferences, our formats are not only designed to quickly get attendees oriented and excited but your site can also include as few as one or two activities per session to dozens.
Agenda flip cards are customized to outline your event schedule for the day, each activity an attendee can join, or even provide a detailed speaker bio tailored to the session link. Each card provides attendees with a sense of being drawn into the experience. Your organization’s go-to-meeting or webinar tool can be embedded for attendees to use to “enter” a meeting with Microsoft teams, Zoom, etc., or to create an opportunity for breakout sessions where attendees are invited to “choose their own adventure” and personalize their own event experience to their interests. Footers can be decked out with anchor links that allow attendees to explore off-page resources to learn more while headers can be modified to contain FAQs for the meetings linked in the agenda cards.
With pre-formatted layouts already built out, you won’t be starting your virtual event from scratch. We find that no more than two to three rounds of revisions are necessary; in other words, your time investment is cut to no more than two to three hours. Our internal design resources customize the microsite to your specs, ensuring that your internal brand guidelines are upheld. Kennedy Events ensures the process is streamlined and stress-free.
To get started:
Pick the design you prefer
Supply your logo and brand artwork
Approve the copy for the agenda, speaker bios, or activities…
And BOOM, you’ve got a microsite!
In Need of a Simple Virtual Event Solution?
We understand creating interactive, immersive virtual events is no walk in the park; time and budget are not always plentiful. Our expert planners work with you to build out high-caliber content experiences, personalized landing pages, and engaging agendas to deliver the event your guests want to attend. Schedule some time with us today and let us guide you through tactics to create a cohesive, on-brand experience at every touchpoint.
PAIGE BUCK
Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.
About Kennedy Events
Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.
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