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Table of Contents

• What is Virtual Event Software?
• The benefits of Virtual Event Software
• Typical features of Virtual Event Software
• The cost of Virtual Event Software
• Considerations when purchasing Virtual Event Software
• Relevant Virtual Event Software trends

What is Virtual Event software?

Virtual Event Software helps businesses conduct online events such as conferences, seminars, product exhibitions, town halls, and trade shows. Businesses can use these tools to interact and collaborate with event attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors using features such as real-time chat and a virtual lobby. Virtual event software lets users sell online event tickets, provides engagement tools (such as Q&A, surveys, and audience polls), and facilitates real-time attendee feedback collection. These systems also track how attendees navigate the event, record contact information, and calculate sales leads.

The benefits of Virtual Event Software

• Build your network: Virtual event software enables businesses to directly interact with attendees using engagement tools such as real-time chat, live polling, and surveys to build or expand their network.
• Extend business reach: Businesses can reach a distributed audience with virtual conferences, webinars, or seminars. Most virtual event tools can record meetings/events so users can share them with paid attendees to reference later or allow others to buy the recording if they didn't attend.
• Customizable branding: Virtual event tools offer flexibility in event design and end-to-end customization of elements such as brand logos, graphics, and colors. 
• Improve lead generation: Virtual event software gives users an opportunity to convert attendees into leads for their sales team and increase their ROI. Elements such as call-to-action buttons can help turn your audience into leads for in-the-moment or future purchases.
• Budget-friendly: Virtual event management software helps businesses avoid costs associated with in-person events such as venue, travel, equipment, and lodging fees.

Typical features of Virtual Event Software

Here are some of the most common features of virtual event software:

• Attendee management: Track the number of registrations and check-ins.  
• Online registration: Facilitate online registration and receive payments using a branded registration form and online point-of-sale (POS). 
• Live streaming: Simultaneously stream your events on multiple devices and platforms (such as YouTube). 
• Customizable branding: Customize elements such as logos, widgets, forms, landing pages, and colors to reflect your branding. 
• Virtual lobby: Create a virtual space where attendees can familiarize themselves with your business branding, view the event agenda, and see any sponsored messages before the event begins. 
• Survey/poll management: Conduct real-time surveys and polls during an event to gather feedback and track attendee engagement. 
• Real-time chat: Chat with guests to address any questions, provide information, or network/collect contact information. 
• Lead generation: Attract and convert attendees into potential leads with fully immersive virtual networking and engagement/interaction tools. Monitor contact sharing and guest interest to capture sales leads.
• Reporting/analytics: Generate reports to calculate return on investment (ROI) using metrics such as audience engagement, revenue per attendee, and sales leads.
• Recording: Automate event recordings to share later as downloadable assets or future social media marketing posts.

The cost of Virtual Event Software

Most products in the market are priced on a per attendee, per month basis and can be divided into three pricing tiers based on their starting price.

Price ranges*:

• $0.15 - $1
• $1 - $2
• $2+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on September 24, 2021. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

The above list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise or premium product that is priced higher may include additional features such as unlimited attendees, third-party integrations, and a dedicated account manager.

Considerations when purchasing vVrtual Event Software

• Integration: Virtual event software should work alongside your existing solutions such as market automation, CRM, and analytics software.
• Features and functionalities: Consider the available features of certain tools against your unique needs. For example, if you want to monetize your event, choose a solution with built-in monetization features. 
• Attendee experience: The event platform you choose should be easy to use and compatible with the common operating systems and browsers attendees are most likely to use.
• Customer support: Whatever software you choose will inevitably require tech support for glitches that may cause event delays. Consider the available customer support channels offered by software providers and ask whether they offer 24/7 or 24/5 customer support.
• Ownership cost: Some virtual event tool features can cost more, and you may need to pay maintenance or employee training fees. Make sure to confirm the total cost of ownership before selecting a system.

Relevant Virtual Event Software trends

• Augmented reality in virtual events: Bringing a virtual aspect to a physical environment is what augmented reality is all about. In the virtual event space, AR can help by offering interactive product demonstrations and creating venue maps. Some businesses are already using augmented reality features in their virtual events, and more software providers are expected to introduce this capability in the near future.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual events: Artificial intelligence (AI) facilitates enhanced personalization opportunities such as individual event attendee schedules, venue maps, and post-event reports. From event planning to execution and post-event analysis, event planners can use AI in a variety of ways. AI-powered chatbots can address common attendee queries, facilitate automatic ticketing, and follow up with leads.