Events are always evolving. Whether through the twists and turns of pandemics, or highs and lows of the latest event tech, events are a constant rollercoaster. No surprise that a huge goal of event marketers and planners is to make sure their event rollercoaster has the longest line of people waiting to ride their experience.

For the past two years, the events industry has been in a flux. The pandemic made us rethink our event strategies, and we pivoted to the planning mode that worked best—virtual events. The pivot was hard, but we learned a new way of delivering content and building relationships. 

At Hubilo, we enabled virtual experiences that delivered ROI that set the bar high. The benefits of virtual events seemed to be scalable.

An event is a culmination of months of meticulous planning. Everything—from laying out the plan to conducting dry runs to post-event marketing—falls in the event planner’s arsenal. The result? Stress, stress and more stress. 

Live streaming, in-person watch parties, virtual viewing around the world, and broadcast-quality production — that’s what Mastering Immersive Experiences (MIX) 2022 looked like. A terrific hybrid event indeed. 

So terrific in fact, we thought it would be unfair if we kept the gems of knowledge learned at our first hybrid event away from you. So we sat down with one of Hubilo’s premier event professionals, Jessica Connolly, who spearheaded the planning, management, and execution of MIX, and picked her brain to get the top takeaways from the event. Here’s what she had to say. 

Famed British mathematician and data science entrepreneur Clive Humby said it best: “Data is the new oil. Just as oil has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc., to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity, so data must be broken down and analyzed for it to have value.” 

Every year, members leave your organization – they change jobs or professions, go out of business, retire, or just leave because they found a better alternative. That makes adding and retaining members to your association a top priority and a never-ending project. Let’s look at some reasons why your members might be going out the back door, and how you must keep new ones coming in the front.

According to a Marketing General Incorporated benchmarking report, 50% of associations reported that members do not renew their membership due to a lack of engagement. That’s why membership engagement has always been one of the top priorities for the leadership in associations. It’s important to recognize that different members prefer to engage in different ways, and their pattern of content consumption may vary.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, grabbed everyone’s attention when he said he envisioned Dreamforce being an “always-on” type of event in the future—similar to a news channel like CNN. Asynchronous events "go live" at a specific date and time but offer a much longer event experience. Here are three benefits of delivering asynchronous event experiences:

Hybrid events are relatively new to the industry, and most organizations are still testing its possibilities. Determining what and how to sell sponsorships for hybrid events is also open for discussion. 

Looking to kickstart your sponsorship efforts for hybrid events? Here are some tips on how you can find and secure hybrid event sponsorships like a pro. 

Your sales reps' expectations from sales kick-offs (SKOs) have changed. They no longer want boring business strategy monologues. They want to network, get energized, and figure out how they’re going to be successful that year. There is also the added challenge of meeting these expectations virtually.

Here are 3 mistakes you could be making at your virtual SKOs that are affecting your sales results.