Types of Virtual Events in the Life Sciences
As part of the blog series exploring virtual events in the life sciences, we will look at the common types of events.
Depending on the objectives of your virtual event presence, there are a number of event types and formats which could be suitable to promote your organisation, products and services.
This post includes 10 of those common event types widely seen across the B2B pharmaceuticals and life science sectors. Often, large events use a multitude of these sub-events to increase engagement between delegates and exhibitors.
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You will likely be familiar with some of the event types, but only now considering exhibiting within one or running an event yourself. Some may be relevant to your marketing objectives, and some not so. However, it is useful to be aware of each virtual event type to strategically inform your new-look marketing plan. This list can be used to help you and your organisation decide on which type of virtual event to host yourself, or to use to decide on which virtual event within the life science show calendar is best suited for your goals.
1. DIGITAL WORKSHOPS
A digital workshop will consist of a presentation with PPT slides as supporting material for the presenter. The presenter might ask questions to the listeners and answers will be provided either in a chat box or during after the meeting/call. Some workshops will require the delegate to prepare some work before the workshop to give the delegate a foundation that the presenter will build on during the workshop. During this highly engaging and intimate virtual event format, questions can either be saved till the end or asked during the workshop.
Slides will mean that delegates must listen to the presenter to get the value out of the workshop, rather than zone out and open up another browser. Short attention spans of attendees are common during most types of virtual events. Asking questions during the workshop will help delegates stay involved and interested. Having your audience become familiar with certain assets before the workshop means you can go in more depth during the workshop and offer your listeners more substance. Letting the conversation take its own course will make it seem less rigid and rehearsed which will give everyone the opportunity to add content.
2. VIRTUAL MEETUPS
Virtual meetups are becoming popular in the life science industries as COVID-19 has made it increasingly difficult to do things that in the past would have been easy. Meeting up for coffee is not easy at present. Rather than go to a coffee shop or another office, we can use our laptops to virtually meet face-to-face. You can host a virtual meet-up with multiple people, and the set-up is normally quick and easy with the right technology. Granted, this is not the same as meeting in person, but it is still possible to talk and this is something people will make use of when communicating over different regions after we come out of lockdown.
Virtual meetups are particularly important at the moment due to all the restrictions of COVID-19. But go back a few months and virtual meetups had their benefits in the pharmaceutical and life science sectors – COVID-19 is simply adding more features to those meetups.
3. VIRTUAL CAFES
Digital cafes are normally meetings between no more than fifteen people and are informal venues where people can come together, drink coffee and engage in discussions. All that is needed is a laptop, smartphone or tablet and a problem you need help with! These sessions are for delegates to casually grab a drink and engage in discussions. There might be a short presentation or workshop on topical issues also included, which would be recommended if you are looking to run one.
4. FORUMS
A forum is an online message board; discussion sites where people can have conversations in the form of messages. Forums differ to chat rooms because the messages are normally longer than it would be in a chat room - those are normally short and snippy like the length of a text whereas forums include more detailed paragraphs. Life science marketers can use forums to talk about like-minded topics set by admins or delegates. There are many benefits to online forums, and you are almost guaranteed to have read one. These are a great way to get involved with discussions and share experiences, improve communication with your audience and position yourself as a thought leader.
5. LIVE DEMONSTRATIONS/STREAMS
Live streams are a great way to get people together and showcase products and services to large audiences. Conducting live streams can help you grow your audience which will provide access to consumers who would not have thought to get involved previously. Live streaming is cheap, and great for demo/training because it offers the opportunity to do so with a large audience.
6. VIRTUAL REALITY
A nice alternative to a face-to-face meeting. As it’s not possible to meet in person at the moment virtual reality is a good way for people to still attend events and feel like they are there via a headset without actually being there. In the B2B life science/pharma supply chain and manufacturing environments we operate within, what we really want to do is showcase our service offering, machinery and manufacturing capabilities. By using VR - and creating virtual environments like your manufacturing premises and labs - you can take delegates right into the heart of your offering for a few minutes just by putting on a headset and the cost isn’t as great as what it once was.
7. WEBINARS, PODCASTS AND ROUNDTABLES
As content options, webinars and podcasts are possibly amongst the strongest B2B life science marketers have in 2020. The main difference between the two is webinars are multimedia, meaning they contain both audio and video, while podcasts normally include only audio. Webinars and podcasts are usually live virtual events executed online and is an educational or instructive session that includes audio and visual communication between a speaker and attendees.
Demand for such live events can be high, and as the episodes are usually recorded, they can also be released after the event and made available for a specified period of time. These are becoming an increasingly important part of your media plan as at the moment it is hard for life science marketers to rely on print because you do not know if magazines are reaching their intended recipients in the office.
8. SUMMITS, CONGRESSES AND CONFERENCES
A summit is called when there is a problem that needs to be fixed and normally concluded when a solution is found. They are designed as a platform to bring people together and attract stakeholders that can develop future high-level strategies and address crucial problems. A conference is smaller in scale to a congress designed for a discussion, fact-finding, problem-solving and consultation.
Virtual conferences will feature guest speakers and offer the opportunity for one-to-one engagements that can offer new ways of operating and helping life science organisations adopt more productive working procedures. The benefit of these types of virtual events is flexibility, as these will not have been planned originally in such format. They can be set up quickly and hosted online via video conferencing technology, and the main aims of the event can still be fully achieved in a digital-only format.
9. EXHIBITIONS AND TRADE SHOWS
Exhibitions and trade shows used to be a significant part of your marketing plan and budget. Trade shows and events were the “place to be” simply because everyone in the industry would be present. Last year, Vitafoods Europe Expo had around 24,000 delegates in attendance - a staggering amount of people to be in one place and a world away from the distancing measures in place around the world as we look to control the spread of COVID-19.
As you would expect, lots of events had to be cancelled or attendance dramatically reduced or converted into virtual events. So far, the feedback is positive, with the big events utilising many of the formats – such as virtual meetings, VR and live demos – are being combined to replicate the atmosphere of the physical shows.
10. HYBRID EVENTS
A hybrid event is a tradeshow, conference, seminar, workshop or other meeting (many from the list in this post) that combines a virtual based-event with a physical/in-person event. A hybrid event is an event that takes place in a physical venue, while also being attended by a live and interactive audience online. You may have attended a few hybrid events yourself, as these events have become common over the past few years with more digital features being added as we become more familiar with the associated technologies.
With the growing popularity and cost-effectiveness of virtual events, hybrid events have become a popular way of increasing participation in traditional events at a relatively low cost. Hybrid events were growing in popularity until the effects of COVID-19 took hold on the B2B life science sectors. But as things will slowly get back to normal, we can expect hybrid events to become the norm. Executives and professionals throughout the life science and pharma sectors will have already experimented with a range of virtual event types for the majority of 2020. When face-to-face events become an option once again, the combination of the two is likely to feature prominently as those executives will want to get back into physical event environments but will likely want to keep to specific distances when there. Keep hybrid events on your roadmap for 2021…
For more on strategic marketing approaches to shows and events in the pharmaceutical sectors, and how we can help you, visit our section on event support.
