Organizing an Online Business Breakfast: Process, Errors, and Costs
On July 15, 2021, at 11am GMT+3, the Worldwide Business Alliance of Russian-speaking Women held a discussion over a cup of morning coffee on topical issues of international partnership on the Zoom platform with a live broadcast to the official Facebook page of the Alliance, in which I chaired as a moderator and speaker – Thailand: The he Kingdom of Opportunity.
The announced speakers of the event were:
✧ Evgeny Zhukovets, it's me :), is the founder and CEO at the international technology company Trizeri, as well as the head of foreign economic activity (FEA) in Thailand and business education of the Business Alliance, the head of the IT department of the Union of Russian Compatriots in the Kingdom of Thailand.
✧ Alexandra Agapitova is the Development Director of the InvestEast Group, which provides a full range of legal services in Thailand.
The online marketing company was launched in social networks by publishing invitations on personal pages, business pages, thematic groups, and pages with event marks, locations, key speakers, and pages of the Alliance platform. At least 400 messages in international Russian-speaking groups and on pages..
Growth Hack #1
If the groups are closed and each post is approved by a moderator, then pages up to 1000 followers are usually opened and posts are published without moderation. The closer to the event, the more posts you need to publish. Highly specialized pages and groups are good for this.
In social networks and channels, content and publications are published every second for each user, and it is necessary to break through the entire flow in order to convey information to the end consumer. To do this, we used 3 different graphical concepts of this event in variations:
- 1x1 – for publication in the feed, channels, internal chats
- 16x9 – for publishing event covers, YouTube covers, news
- 9x16 – for publication in stories in all available networks (Facebook Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, Vk, LINE) and profiles
Growth Hack #2
A bright diverse presentation of graphic content reveals interest and emphasizes the status of the event. We take into account the psychological types of people and their associative perception of content. Using the example of this business breakfast: the content of the day city of Bangkok, the night city and the provincial old city – each person has his own idea of Thailand, so we serve the content with different "sauces".
Of course, not all people like text and pictures, announcements in the video format are a necessity, because the graphics do not fully convey the emotion that a video on the subject can offer.
Growth Hack #3
The fewer hours left before the start of the event, the more we publish stories with countdowns. The user puts a reminder in the story to himself and the social network will independently notify him about the beginning.Email marketing, mailing lists start 72-48 hours before the start. The only and main problem of mailing lists is getting into "Spam". Emails sent 1 hour before the start of the event, of course, have the highest percentage of opening and clicks on links.
Growth Hack #4
We must send the last notification to the registered users via email 60 minutes before the start. Emails 1 week or earlier before the event are not effective and makeup ~30% of the opening and ~0 (zero)% of clicks on the link.
The maximum conversion to business breakfast events is provided by personal invitations in personal messages in messengers and social networks, since each invitee "guarantees" and is responsible for the time spent and the usefulness of the event for the invitee.
Growth Hack #5
To increase the significance and exclusivity of a personal invitation, you can use a separate graphic element, for example, a VIP invitation that has not been published anywhere before and will not be published. This is required without registration and SMS, immediately with a link to the connection. The guest must get to the event with one click.
The holding of the event itself in an online format also does not happen spontaneously. This is a clear plan by seconds, a technical team, a rehearsal of the event, coordination, thinking through force majeure, interactive, audience retention skills, speech skills, and presentation of content.
A good marketing bonus is an unexpected surprise or a special guest, a media representative. Nikolay Shiryaev is a special guest and representative of the Trade Mission of the Russian Federation in the Kingdom of Thailand, was invited as a special guest, who presented his experience.
Not all users and guests can connect at a certain time, for this, it is necessary to record the broadcast and after its completion send it to all registered participants and speakers within 24 hours + publish them on all news and information resources of the platform and speakers. We do this for 24 hours until the information becomes outdated.
Growth Hack #6
LIVE streaming on Facebook or YouTube gives you super strength for the site and the brand. Users and subscribers will view the recordings at a convenient time and in a convenient social network for them. The social network also notifies all subscribers about the beginning of the broadcast.
After the event itself, we quickly edit the video and publish it on the official channel of the site and start delivering content through a post-release, publications in closed chats where ads were previously published, personal mailing lists for previously requested users and subscribers, e-mail distribution to each registered person, publication in personal and business profiles in social networks.
Growth Hack #7
There is no need to postpone the publication of post-releases and the release of videos. The preparation of texts, emails, and design templates should be ready even before the event starts. The user and the subscriber are convinced of the professionalism and competence of the organizer's team when they immediately receive the content they are interested in and the promises are fulfilled. It is advisable to publish publications and newsletters on the same day since the invited media publish articles on the day of the event, and they need to provide the content to which they will link. After 24 hours, the information will lose its relevance.
The organizer must necessarily thank each participant involved in the organization, conduct, and analysis of the event. It is not necessary to refer to personalities or personas it is enough to show ethics and diplomacy and indicate that everyone was important. Even if a person only attended or liked the record, this is a sign of attention and he invested his time in the platform and the organizer.
Growth Hack #8
The event itself gives an understanding of 80%. I recommend setting aside 1 month after the event to make final conclusions based on the channels of attracting guests, content distribution channels, hosts, and interest. The opposite may happen, that 100 people attended the event itself, and there will be 15,000 total views on YouTube and recordings from LIVE and comments.Everyone is important, even if they have read the ad only 1 time - this is the beginning of trust formation. Over and over again. We say thank you to everyone on the official pages, we say thank you in internal chats, we thank VIP guests.
Reflexion. After the event, you need to collect quick feedback from the participants and organizers and describe the points for improving the next event.
Growth Hack #9
We export all the contacts of the guests from Zoom and save them to the database. Often in the Zoom chat, media representatives write emails and phone numbers to receive announcements about the following events. This must be said during the broadcast.
And finally, "people go to people". In the same way, we build online events and marketing on personalities, not on facts. The user and the guest are ready to spend their time only on studying the experience, they will be able to find information on the network in any case. We turn on the investor's thinking and think, what should the client invest his time in to make a profit? Should he spend 60 minutes of his life on a planned event? How much information can the listener save from the event?
The total cost of this event for 18 days of continuous preparation, holding, reflection, and post-releases (content, negotiations, calls, conferences, letters, contracts, design, copywriting, video production, publications, 400+ posts, online marketing, personal contacts, likes, shares, stories, friends, colleagues, guests, media) is estimated at 6000 euros.
The total cost of this event for 18 days of continuous preparation, holding, reflection, and post-releases (content, negotiations, calls, conferences, letters, contracts, design, copywriting, video production, publications, 400+ posts, online marketing, personal contacts, likes, shares, stories, friends, colleagues, guests, media) is estimated at 6000 euros.
Good luck, my dear friend! Write to me on the messengers if you need help with such events.
